Favorite Orchestrational Ideas/Tricks

Here in this thread we discuss out favorite orchestrational ideas and tricks, either that we've discovered on our own or that we've seen in the lit somewhere. Example and first contribution:

In the third movement of Hindemith's symphonic metamorphosis, he combines low clarinet with high cello to play the melody, while contrabasses (I think) sustain a pedal tonic. This creates an eerie but delicately beautiful effect.

So share your own! Cite pieces if you can, and describe what "effect" your contribution produces.

Oh my alskjdflakdjgddglkgjagklagjalkj I've performed the metamorphoses and that's such a wonderful moment in that piece. I particularly like Ligeti's trick with wind instruments, blaring octaves across a wide range that split into strident minor seconds. It occurs relatively often in his later music, the the wind quintet music is an example.

Ravel simulating organ stops.

I really like fast horn lines that are staccato. I think they kinda sound mellow but still a bit edge-y at the same time. It's a common thing, but I just particularly like that one.

Another one is having choral lines sustaining just a few notes while the orchestra quietly plays a few things, kinda like Holst's the planets Neptune.

Also I like having a melody that would usually be arco in the strings to be pizz. I think you listen and go "Why is that pizz? It could just as easily be arco and maybe sound better", but it ends up being a catchy thing. I don't know why but taking a very melodic flowing line and throwing it in pizz is kinda like playing a trick, and I like it :)

Nice thread!

I like a melody for 2 clarinets, 2 octaves appart

at the movement I am in love with the sound of Bartoks "music for strings perc & celesta". The opening is great, fugue exposition with only the lush string orchestra. The celesta only plays in the end, a sort of halo of sounds. And the eerie sound of the 3rd movement. piano chords, string glissandi, and a melody celesta+violins, spooky :D

Basically all of Stravinsky's Firebird is a display of a mastery of orchestration, but beginning the "final hymn" with mid-high range french horn over pianississimo tremolo strings was perfect.

Nice thread!

I like a melody for 2 clarinets, 2 octaves appart

at the movement I am in love with the sound of Bartoks "music for strings perc & celesta". The opening is great, fugue exposition with only the lush string orchestra. The celesta only plays in the end, a sort of halo of sounds. And the eerie sound of the 3rd movement. piano chords, string glissandi, and a melody celesta+violins, spooky :D

Those are both really great tricks. I should use more clarinets. haha :D I also like English horn/flute/viola doubling. I think it sounds really cool.

I could go on all day in reply to this, so just a few:

- Debussy, La Mer, last movement. The sustained melody in the first flute and oboe has each pitch repeated in triplets by the seconds, creating a subtle 'pulsing' effect.

- I love the sound of very low piccolo combined with other instruments, particularly if it is doubling something like bass clarinet or cello so the piccolo is still 'high'

- String sections used in the 'wrong' order - so the violas might be playing a melody higher than the accompanying violins. Also reduced string sections (Faure Requiem/Brahms German Requiem/Mahler 3, 5th mvt) which enable rich divisi within one or two sections.

- Use of the harp(s) beyond predictable glissandi/arpeggios. Low harp is a very sonorous, unsettling sound. High harp chords a unique alternative to string pizzicato. Debussy and Ravel are the masters at writing orchestrally for this instrument.

- Melody doubled across the entire range of the orchestra, a very difficult thing to do without it sounding muddy. Respighi achieves a perfect organ-like sound in his La Nasciata de Venus.

- Stravinsky's use of the oboes and clarinets to give a biting, clean sound in wind chords. I have never been able to emulate it without copying his voicings.

- The wonderfully sonorous but still clear brass-and-lower-wind chords found in Wagner, Strauss and similar late-romantic composers. I've worked out how this is done - all the chord tones are at the top of the chord, with the bass below doubled over three octaves in tubas and bassoons, creating the unique 'alpine' sound of this music. Remarkably, the bigger the orchestra the more clarity these composers seem to achieve in the orchestration.

I'm writing a piece currently and experimenting with a few things... a flute and a french horn at the minor 3rd... with the flute on top.

I'm writing a piece currently and experimenting with a few things... a flute and a french horn at the minor 3rd... with the flute on top.

Also, it has to be played by real players, you won't get the harmonics on MIDI :toothygrin:

I'm writing a piece currently and experimenting with a few things... a flute and a french horn at the minor 3rd... with the FH on top.

Also, it has to be played by real players, you won't get the harmonics on MIDI :toothygrin:

EDIT: French Horn on top... else it's kind of pointless.