How do you pick your instrumentation?

So I was just thinking about how important it is to me to explore new and unique instrumental combinations in my music and I thought to ask the forum at large about this.  How do you pick the instruments that will play your musical material?  Are you less concerned with that than you are with the musical material itself or are unique instrumental combinations really important to you?  Are you satisfied with writing for the 'standard' groups?  Also, do you sometimes feel like a piece you composed would have been better suited for a different ensemble?  And would you then arrange said piece for that ensemble?  Do you find writing for new and infrequently used instruments challenging and have you been satisfied or dissatisfied with such attempts?  Do you find it difficult to write idiomatically for an instrument without having had the opportunity to play it yourself?

Do you think that certain ensembles are overrated (the orchestra) or underrated?  Which ensembles do you find most or least challenging to work with?  Also, do you tend to default to a certain ensemble or instrument as your go-to?

My current challenge is learning to write well for the guitar.  I want to be able to write pieces for a solo instrument and acoustic guitar accompaniment as fluently and idiomatically as for a soloist with piano.  I've been getting accustomed to what the guitar can and can't do by learning to play it myself a bit but then there's always virtuoso techniques such as finger style that I haven't even started to conceptualize. 

I typically have all the instruments, or at least the main ones, decided before I ever start "writing".

My main setup these days is my own custom "keyboard" patches, bass, various ethnic drums to create a "kit" and on top of that, you can find basically anything. How I choose the sounds is dependent on what the piece is meant to represent.

I always see something in my mind. A picture, story, person or place that the tune is supposed to fit with, and that's how I choose what instruments to use. It's summer and I was thinking of Romantic beaches, and so that's why I'm using classical guitar and violin on this tune I'm currently working on.

4 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Do you think that certain ensembles are overrated (the orchestra) or underrated?

This is a fantastic question and I was actually considering making a thread about it, but you've asked here.

The orchestra is easily the most-overrated ensemble there is. It is essentially born of this infantile obsession with making everything bigger and "more", but music written for it can effectively be realized with much smaller ensembles. There is also the issue that you lose so much soloist detail in such a large ensemble. Most of the time, I'd rather hear a nice, expressive solo violin than 18 violins playing.

The other issue with the orchestra is the time investment and effectively utilizing all of the players. I think this is why the orchestra has fallen out of favor even though everyone can write for it today.

I was having this discussion on VI-C last week with someone who was feeling burnt out with composing with orchestral samples. I really encourage people to write for smaller ensembles and bands more often. It frees up a lot of time — no need to record tons of different lines playing the same thing or whatever — it's more affordable, and having fewer instruments to work with will also help breed creativity, as limitations are known to do.

An interesting subject and I doubt I'm atypical. Guidelines exist for bog-standard orchestration particularly when faced with a full orchestral tutti - what to double with what and whether at unison or one or two octaves which of course differs according to the dynamics of the tutti. Anyone seriously composing will almost certainly face that sooner of later. However, on other occasions: 

10 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

How do you pick the instruments that will play your musical material?  Are you less concerned with that than you are with the musical material itself or are unique instrumental combinations really important to you?

To me, timbre is part of the musical material. From quite some practice I usually conceive the effect I hope for during the initial sketching. Perhaps that's why some of my work seems disjointed. Perhaps it is disjointed. It's also why I think "arranging" is part of composing.

10 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Are you satisfied with writing for the 'standard' groups?  Also, do you sometimes feel like a piece you composed would have been better suited for a different ensemble?

i) Sometimes it's necessary if it's hoped to be played by one or at least sound like one. (My light music is like this.)

b) Not often but I've rearranged things for practical reasons If it doesn't subtract too much from the original idea. This started at secondary school when, from the school orchestra a small group of superb players could be distilled. 

10 hours ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Do you find writing for new and infrequently used instruments challenging and have you been satisfied or dissatisfied with such attempts?  Do you find it difficult to write idiomatically for an instrument without having had the opportunity to play it yourself?

Unusual instruments have idiom as well as technique. It has been challenging but careful listening can reduce a challenge (like with winds, how much breathing space to allow; how articulate is the instrument itself) before getting to samples and the daw: 'how authentic does one want it to sound' (as it would in an orchestra - or inauthentic because the composer has found it can yield some super sound)? Most new acoustic instruments are derived from earlier or standard ones and I've found that talking to players of the standard ones can be helpful.  Once more, score study comes to the rescue if you can access any that use the instrument in question.

Electronic ones? Again it's idiom and scope. Since these can be more predictably manipulated they can be understood more easily. The earlier analogue synthesisers came with problems (they're still about by the way. I constructed one myself from the Project 80 circuits with CEM chips) but modern 'digital' ones seem about predictably adjustable presets).

= = =

I look on all instruments as equal, all having their time and place in context. I can't agree with AngelCityOutlaw about the orchestra/concert band being overrated as it was and is there for a purpose. I think of it as a machine rather than an ensemble usually comprising one instrument per staff, where individual expression counts - and in concert, performance gestures are important. Personal view is that ensembles can be difficult and may need conducting. Professional ones probably don't. As with orchestras dynamics below forte rarely incur balance issues but at the loudest levels might just. 

I've found a wind ensemble the most difficult to write for. 

As for guitar writing I can't play the thing! But I'll test out combinations of notes and if they involve big stretches, check to see what the next combination demands. I've the sheet music for work by Manuel Ponce, Freddy Moreno-Torroba and listened to accomplished performers doing them so I get an idea of what's possible. Morreno Torroba must have huge hands!

So....some thoughts, anyway.

On 7/4/2022 at 6:15 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Which ensembles do you find most or least challenging to work with?

Also, another reason I am more prone to avoiding the full orchestra these days is because there are not many good sample library options available for writing orchestral music despite market saturation. It's sad, really.

I have a whole bunch of pieces, dating back years, that were meant for orchestra, but I don't know they'll ever see the light of day because I can't afford that many live musicians and the samples struggle too much to play them convincingly. 

So I would say that virtual orchestra is most challenging. More challenging than a real one. 

Have to agree 100% about sample libraries. All inadequate but I suppose there are technical limits like memory capacity and how much time the sample house is prepared to expend. Even the best sample libraries lack. No harmonics on muted strings let alone on the bridge? No muted glissandi? Sometimes things can be faked depending on your player. So we end up with samples for run of the mill 'standard' orchestration.

I still write for the orchestra occasionally in the hope that the county orchestra or even the BBC might play something (a remote hope with the BBC but still...) or that local appreciation groups will give my "virtual performances" a listen.

Another problem with samples and daws is people can create "idealised" performances. I have a couple of recordings of my works performed live and they're acutely inferior, recorded on my little Tascam and some on cassette. I can't afford a Decca recording team, nor would the directors allow it without going into a lot of legal/copyright ramifications. So what I hear is poorly balanced error-prone performance. They were still a bit less than my ideal when performed but a little better than the recording.

And so, yes, I'm happier to write for small mixed ensembles although my "technique" is different.

On 7/7/2022 at 8:37 AM, AngelCityOutlaw said:

So I would say that virtual orchestra is most challenging. More challenging than a real one. 

I think it comes down to understanding the applicability of your samples and the player. With limited experience in real life, when I start moving music into the daw I pretend I'm on the rostrum having to prepare the orchestra. What would I expect from the players? Like you, I click the grid up to 1/64 or 1/128 to draw in the velocities so I can make fine adjustments over the duration of a note....etc. Well, you know what I mean about that. But it's important not to cheat. If yer flute playing its bottom note is too quiet against a barrage of horns, you don't push up the flute's volume fader you rethink your orchestration. etc. 

I've found a wind ensemble the most difficult to write for. 

Why do you find it difficult?  Are you a woodwind player?

Mark

9 hours ago, Quinn said:

Have to agree 100% about sample libraries. All inadequate but I suppose there are technical limits like memory capacity and how much time the sample house is prepared to expend. Even the best sample libraries lack. No harmonics on muted strings let alone on the bridge? No muted glissandi? Sometimes things can be faked depending on your player. So we end up with samples for run of the mill 'standard' orchestration.

The biggest problem that specifically afflicts orchestral samples is that they have extremely-poor playability and lack of context between articulations.

The first orchestral sample libraries were like this: simply broken up between staccato of an undefined length, pizzicato, and sustains with a very slow, non-adjustable attack.

Two generations now of composers, specifically for film, have grown up only knowing these types of libraries and now they are the ones who also make them, and they make them to this same low standard that they are familiar with. There are basically no classically-oriented libraries as most composers who still write that sort of music do so with notation and for live instruments. 

The company "Musical Sampling" takes a step in the right direction by making sure they sample the short notes in performance context to the longs, but this is still the wrong approach. They need to take the same basic approach as sampling of other solo instruments. Which means that at a bare minimum, they need to sample the sustains with a fast and adjustable attack, with round robins on the sustains (nearly no sample libraries for orchestra do this) but it would make a huge amount of lines playable and cohesive in a single patch.

The result of most current sample libraries is that the various articulations sound like entirely different instruments and layering arts is your only option to play actually musical lines. Most people just avoid this because it's a headache and this is how we got the "staccatos for ostinato, string pads for chords and the 'melody' is exclusively legato" style of writing — because it's what these poorly-sampled and scripted libraries can play easily.

Cinebrass is especially a good example. The freakin' short notes' lowest velocity sampled is quite a bit louder than the lowest sustains, so the timbre is entirely inconsistent and layering them sounds very obvious. Makes the whole thing sound like two totally separate performances stitched together.

If I ever get the money and the right Kontakt scripters together, I will take it upon myself to record a library that could actually do a decent job of playing real orchestral music without being unwieldy to use.

3 hours ago, MJFOBOE said:

I've found a wind ensemble the most difficult to write for. 

Why do you find it difficult?  Are you a woodwind player?

Mark

 

On the one hand it's because I find string writing easier - partly this is about the homogeneity of "normal" string sound throughout the entire instrumental range so unless I'm looking for a less usual effect I can just write without regard for register. However, there's a huge variety of timbres and articulations that can be had from strings and they can deliver from a super pianissimo to a super fortissimo, good players able to switch almost instantly. 

The same isn't the case for a wind ensemble particularly if mixed woodwind and brass. Each instrument has it own list of timbres; the double reeds have strengths and weaknesses over their compasses. Most double reeds and flute need an 'attack' to speak - ok, the very best players can fade in from zero but they're rare. Only the clarinet has a full range of dynamic from zero to fff up to about a high (notated) G. Clarinets also have a more complex timbral range. 

So when composing one has to consider the dynamic of a passage, the timbre across a phrase; breathing; how easy/difficult are the "special effects" (flutter, harmonics, etc), and is balance possible (given said strengths and weaknesses - like in the opening bar of Villa-Lobos' Quinteto em forma do choros, the bassoon is expected to play pp on its lowest note. Even the New York Wind Quintet couldn't do it!

All of which means if I'm after a particular mood or atmosphere, I have more to consider than if writing for strings or an ensemble of just brass. 

I have played oboe (to about ABRSM grade 3) but concentrated on viola some years ago. I wasn't clever enough to cut reeds but I found a pet reed-maker who could make a fairly soft grade for me! 

I do agree that one needs an "intimate" knowledge of each instrument to write effectively.  In my last concert and my present one ... I am often amazed in a very bad way - at the composers/orchestrators obvious lack of knowledge.  Just befcause it states an Oboe can play a double octave high G - doesn't mean in a run of sixtuplets it's a good thing to do.  Presently, I am playing Florence Price Symphony No. 1 and let me say - there are few sections which are really a no-no for oboists and yet, she was an experienced recognized composer.  As per the blending of sounds,timbres etc ... I fall back on my orchestra and listening library for ideas.  One thing I did learn is how the initial attacks of various wind instruments differ (brass and woodwinds).  As per the beginning or ending of a pharse ppp ... that really depends upon the skill of the musician.  It's not easy but if you are sufficiently trained - it should not pose a great threat at all ... just a bit of tension. 😇

1 hour ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

The biggest problem that specifically afflicts orchestral samples is that they have extremely-poor playability and lack of context between articulations.................

I use VSL VI series and as I said, sometimes things need to be faked - which doesn't make up for the many articulations and timbres missing. There does seem to be a connect between the articulation provided and the player allows for quite a few adjustments (if necessary). The patches can be edited in limited ways; the dynamic range of the midi velocities can be adjusted, the attack end of a patch can be stretched or compressed, a small delay added; he envelope can be changed; release samples can be switched off if necessary; and there's the slot rack giving a crossfade between articulations using a CC. 

Agreed. not every patch and sometimes sample is at the same volume for a given velocity but most are. The player has a mixer to get a uniform volume across the instrument. The nuisance is when a sample is at odds with a patch I have to control the velocity. It's more likely that different instruments are recorded at different volumes so I have to set an mf across the composition with the volume faders.

The dimension series lets for more "humanisation" but frankly, it's all fake anyway so I see little point in humanising it. I can do much in the piano roll for mock-ups if there may be a chance of sending it round with a score.

But as you say, things aren't perfect. Some instruments from VSL I don't like. 

I get by. But there's nothing better than a live performance.

5 hours ago, Quinn said:

I use VSL VI series and as I said

Dang, deep pockets on Quinn

5 hours ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

Dang, deep pockets on Quinn

 

Hah! Not really. I got a starter set at promotion price - but supplemented it each month as they'd have sales on VI series, sometimes as much as 50% off. They'd also do single instruments so I accumulated a few over the three years since that starter set. Now, the VI series prices are all cut back as they're pushing their (predictably expensive) Synchron series.

Synchron doesn't interest me: I can't place instruments where I want on the stage and the recordings aren't entirely dry. But the system offers a collection of different mics. Makes huge memory demands.

Things like pianos, I went with Pianoteq "stage", miles cheaper and...50MB rather than about 200GB for one piano? You'd soon looking for a warehouse to house the darned things! 

The VI-pro sample player is pretty powerful though. Not much you can't adjust (and control via the CC channels). I still have much to learn about what it can do.

On 7/4/2022 at 9:15 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

How do you pick the instruments that will play your musical material?

It really depends. Sometimes I start with one instrumentation and then change to another. Like my Weather Music Suite for instance, it started as a piano solo, then got up to a chamber ensemble of Piano + String Quartet + Flute, and then finally full orchestra. Or my Symphony no. 1, which was first conceived at the piano and became a full orchestra piece. I even have a PDF and MP3 I made of my second theme ideas for that symphony(which is mostly piano with commentary), eventually settled on the first one. However, often, I think of the instrumentation first, like I'll want to write say a woodwind quartet piece and then I'll write the musical material for said instrumentation.

On 7/4/2022 at 9:15 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Are you less concerned with that than you are with the musical material itself or are unique instrumental combinations really important to you?

Kind of both? I'm obviously concerned with the musical material. But I also like experimenting with different instrument combinations, like I did for Flute and Cello or am doing for Flute Trio(as in a trio of flutes, not a trio with a single flute).

On 7/4/2022 at 9:15 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Are you satisfied with writing for the 'standard' groups?

Yes and no. Yes in that I'm satisfied with writing some or even a lot of repertoire for standard groups, but no in the sense that I wouldn't be satisfied if that's all I wrote.

On 7/4/2022 at 9:15 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Also, do you sometimes feel like a piece you composed would have been better suited for a different ensemble?

Yes, I've felt this several times, like with the Weather Music Suite I already mentioned.

On 7/4/2022 at 9:15 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

And would you then arrange said piece for that ensemble?

Yes.

On 7/4/2022 at 9:15 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Do you find writing for new and infrequently used instruments challenging and have you been satisfied or dissatisfied with such attempts?

I don't know, I've never really done such a thing.

On 7/4/2022 at 9:15 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Do you find it difficult to write idiomatically for an instrument without having had the opportunity to play it yourself?

Sometimes, especially if I'm trying to write a solo piece. Like Cello for instance. I have no problems really writing idiomatically for Cello as part of an ensemble, but solo Cello, I do have difficulties with.

On 7/4/2022 at 9:15 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Do you think that certain ensembles are overrated (the orchestra) or underrated?

Underrated, I think the Woodwind Quartet is an underrated ensemble. Overrated, eh, I can't think of any. I don't think the orchestra and string quartet are overrated personally.

On 7/4/2022 at 9:15 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Which ensembles do you find most or least challenging to work with?

Most challenging, definitely quartets, especially string quartet. Piano Trio also as that's essentially a quartet at minimum in terms of compositional density. Also any non-keyboard Solo, as with that, I have to think about how to get melody, bass, and figuration into a single line or maybe at most 2 lines outside of chords for strings. Least challenging, trios(those without piano anyway) and orchestra. Trio because I feel it's perfectly balanced in terms of instrumental roles, I never have to double roles with a trio. And orchestra because of all the instrumental colors. Just a couple years ago, I probably would have said Trio and Solo Piano, but ever since I've become comfortable writing for orchestra, it's become just as easy, maybe even easier than Solo Piano for me to compose for.

On 7/4/2022 at 9:15 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Also, do you tend to default to a certain ensemble or instrument as your go-to?

Piano for solo, otherwise, not really, I compose about as much for orchestra as I do for chamber ensembles.

How do I decide?

I first think of a sonic colour, then I pick the instruments and harmonies that will express it best. For example: if I want a magical winter feel I'll go for clarinets, flutes, horns and strings and then harmonies derived from Dorian and Lydian. 

Which ensembles I find more challenging?

Homogeneous ensembles like String Orchestra because timbre variety drives my creativity to a great extent.

Haha I don't pick the instruments; the instruments pick me to write for them. When they appear in my inspiration and muse I will write for them in that particular sound they are presented. That's the case for my Clarinet Quintets and String Sextet. I will try to analyze my inspirations and fearure their features, both motivically and harmonically but it's not me who compose them. I am just the mother or a peasant when the child comes from the Heaven.

I am quite old fashioned as I still find music materials much more important than the timbre. Timbre is crucial but it's only in the sonic level.

Having colours and timbre will be much easier to compose. I spend 9 days on my wind quintet but several months to my unfinished String Sextet movement. You can spend much less time on music materials when colours can compensate for that. So I will say the String Sextet a quite difficult combination for me.

Henry

1 hour ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

Haha I don't pick the instruments; the instruments pick me to write for them.

I agree. If I have an ensemble in mind, I write specifically for that. Sometimes, there's an idea in my head, and I utilize an instrument I know. I guess it just depends.

Sometimes it matters what the idea is, and I craft an ensemble around it. Other times, I'm playing guitar or piano and start to discover something. Interesting discussion.