A Chart/Concept to Keep Your Listeners Interested

Michael BarryClassical Music, Composition Leave a Comment

When a viewer observes a painting there is a “oh, well there it is” moment when the frame is first presented – it is first taken in as a whole and then the details are discovered upon closer examination. 

Music is also largely in the moment – details first – and then the whole comes second if it comes at all.  The conclusion of Tosca is powerful in the moment (due to it’s orchestration and setting) but even more powerful after sitting through a two hour love story. 

Keep in mind that only the best listeners (maybe 10%) have access to musical recall upon a first hearing.  During a first listening the average listener is  sort of engulfed in a vague musical energy rather than any concrete quasi-analytical musical experience (where they recognize form for example).  It takes many listens to achieve that sort of familiarity with the piece. Regardless of the language you use they will like or dislike the piece based upon how convincingly you executed your plan.

All of my personal favorite composers not only engage on the whole but also “live” or in the instant.  Mozart does this over-the-whole by developing and bringing back old material, and live by using beautiful suspensions, tasty melodies and  clever counterpoint. You are satisfied twice. I currently dislike Mahler ( I hope to learn to like him) because it is all too much in the moment, there is a lack of arrival and departure points (sensical musical architecture). PS. I know Mahler did this on purpose, and he is a wonderful composer of course – just not my favorite. 

I think clever is the key word here.  It takes cleverness to impress.  Just the way a clever author leaves a climax at the end of a chapter, and you turn the page with all possible speed. 

Here is a chart I made – its a “to scale”  Venn-Diagram for what I consider “modern classical music”.  

vague and unexpected seem to be the two key parts to post-modernism

Inside this chart you really want to stick to the middle – occasionally venturing in a direction  that departs from the center point, but always back to the middle then out again.   Back and forth, give and take.

Consider if you go too far in any one direction, you risk disappointing: 

too “expected” becomes overly-simple and boring 

too “vague” leads to scratched heads (and not in that  “good way”)

too “direct” becomes overly-cinematic and not-classical

too “unexpected” starts to sound like multiple pieces, instead of one 

This chart is usable in any type of music, with any type of harmonic langue and parameters. 

I find a lot of modern classical music overuses a Moderato tempo – and one becomes sick of it’s overly-expected energy level (whereas a fast or slow energy might break the monotony.) 

Overly eclectic music often takes  the unexpected too far – if we are in a Baroque-ish vibe and suddenly a steel drum solo breaks out it doesn’t often convince the listener that it’s one entity. 

I find a lot of modern film music too direct – I’ve heard it all a million times before – start to zone out. 

I find Enimem gives me a nice balance of all in terms of lyricism and music, the beat drops for a few beats, a clever lyric follows, a half-a-chorus follows that (instead of a full one) etc.. 

John Williams’ Prisoner of Azkaban score is very much in the middle of this graph, it has tons of unexpected energy but sounds like its all from one score. 

And of course the Rite Of Spring is just about a perfect example of chart-management.

But mostly when composers are hitting in the middle of that chart they are at the ultimate top of their game for that particular piece.  It is very, very hard to do. 

Contrabasses – do right by them

Michael BarryComposition, Orchestration Leave a Comment

The basses are one of the most ill-understood instruments of the orchestra; pigeonholed to pages of footballs and rests.  Yet, their orchestral origin was nearly identical in intent to the cellos – as for most of the baroque and classical era they were doubling each others parts at the octave.

Now consider that modern bassists have all played and studied the continuo parts of the Bach Cantatas and the Mozart Symphonies.

fast Mozart and Bach lines can really move! (and they play surprisingly few whole notes)

They are more nimble than given credit for and can usually handle much more than what is commonly put on the page for them.

Cello + Bass at the Octave is a thing

This doubling always works – high in the range, low in the range, soft, loud, pizz- it just sounds good 100% of the time.  Keep them exactly tutti, don’t break the octave to get a low b for example. The lower tones of the piano can confuse the composer (as all of a sudden they get boomy), but remember when the basses play it sounds low.   When they play very low it sounds super low. 

The Low C string isn’t the sweet spot (imo)

I’m calling it the low C string because 99% of professional basses have the C extension, or if you are in central Europe they may have the 5 string instrument with the low B – and feel free to write for it if they do have it! 

This is opinion only, but I feel many composers write bass parts too low.  To my ears the low C string blends the least out of all the 16 strings in the section.  To my ears it can often sound more like a brassy, synthy patch than a blendy, warm string patch.  At forte or above it is very sticky-outy -timbre wise.

Therefore I suggest to focus your efforts in this range:

the range on the left is generally better to stay in

Even on this written Bb the basses will “anchor” the string section.   They are huge instruments, and the math and physics of the instrument make all their notes “sound” low – regardless of what the piano shows you.

sounds 8vb


As a composer leave yourself space to go into the low- low range to follow a line – or to use a new color –  don’t just use it for no reason. 

The low C string just becomes so tiresome when one always hears it.  To my ears it just makes the string section sound smaller.

Note: Below the low E – be careful writing stuff too fast or busy here.  There is a lot of “fret” real estate to cover.

The strongest transient in the entire string section is the bass snap pizz.   I was recently at a scoring session at Warner Brothers and the conductor was very effectively adding snap pizz. contrabasses to beef up huge stabs and it worked very well.  It almost drowns out the entire ensemble – they can really blast it. 

Announce your preference: Balance The Basses

There are some wonderful and confident bassists in Los Angeles – and when situated in certain rooms they can overwhelm the sections near them (especially if the writing is too low).

To fix this you can have the string section hit and hold a chord and balance it on the spot and then ask them to “preserve that balance”.  I do this sometimes with the first violins also, I prefer a democratic relationship between the string sections ( I don’t want any of them to have more power than the others – sounds more tutti to my ears that way – aka I don’t want anyone sticking out.) 

In general I find the orchestral forte convincingly loud – I like to save the heavy stuff for special moments or hold it in reserve.

Orchestration Oracle: Dynamics Part One

Michael BarryOrchestration Leave a Comment

In this series I’m going to start talking about orchestration – specifically for film-style recording sessions at a large scoring stage.  Additionally, let’s consider that your are orchestrating someone else’s music and that they composed that music with samples in a sequencer. 

Dynamics and Balances 

A crucial part of your task as an orchestrator is to set dynamic levels.  This has to be done by ear.   You can use the CC information as a reference but you must listen carefully to ultimately make the decision.  Listen in context, not just via soloing tracks.

Keep in mind these concepts when you are listening to mockup playback:

  1. Composers tend to overuse CC1
  2. You may be listening to extra, artificial gain via plugins (more than you can see via their delivery)
  3. Samples may use larger sections and therefore have artificially louder apparent volumes than what you will have at your session
  4. You have a fixed orchestra size and limited bandwith

Listening Between the Lines

Imagine you had a four horn unison swell, you’ve written down the proper pitch and length and are deciding upon volume choices. 

The four horn swell in question

You’ve established that the ending volume is FF but now you need to decide what the starting volume is.  (As an aside I very, very rarely use over-FF or under-PP dynamics – there are finer ways to manage these situations). 

Well in this example the composer made the swell with only a CC7 gesture – so it ultimately sounds Loud to LOOOOUUUDDDD.  CC1 stayed at 127 (max volume) the whole time.  

in real life french horns have finite swelling capability

So the question is what should the starting dynamic be? Well if you wrote down exactly what the composer gave you there would be very little crescendo. 

So this might be a point where you listen and decide that the swell itself is more important than the starting volume and you change the composers starting to dynamic to P instead of F. 

This type of decision making is very common.

Impossible Dynamics 

Its pretty common to see things in mockups that aren’t possible in real life.  It is common to hear the “barking” sound bass trombones make presented artificially at a PP layer – well to get that barking sound they are going to command the room – you need to decide how to handle that.

You might see the start of swells in the midi that don’t sound in the audio till much later.  

Where do you place the start of the swell ?

Via the miracle of gain staging you might hear eight french horns playing forte being overpowered by a low range flute solo.

Well its your job to solve all of these. 

Bonus/Pet Peeve:

99% of the time this is bad orchestration – either make that hairpin smaller or adjust the dynamics to be further apart.