You’re going to find over the course of your career, should you decide to get into the business of creating royalty free music for videos, that you’re going to be doing a lot of orchestral scores. In fact, this will probably be your most common piece of work. The reasons aren’t important for the purpose of this article. What is important is knowing how to orchestrate for a full orchestra.
Now you might be thinking, “But I don’t have a full orchestra. All I have are these VSTs.” Well, believe it or not, they serve the same purpose and function. That one note you hold down on your violins VST, if it’s from one of the East West Quantum Leap libraries, could be as many as 19 violins playing at once. And while they may not exactly sound like the real thing, they’ll be close enough. So knowing how to orchestrate for them is going to be just as important as if you were writing for the real thing. Trust me, very few people will be able to hear the difference unless you have a really bad orchestra VST package.
So what do we need to know about orchestration in order to get all these VSTs to sound good, especially given the fact that they’re not real live instruments? In fact, orchestration is more important now than ever because of this fact. A poorly orchestrated real orchestra will at least still sound like a real orchestra. A bunch of VSTs will simply sound like garbage. So it is more critical than ever to know your craft.
In general, knowing how to orchestrate comes down to these few basic things. In future articles we’re going to cover this subject in a lot more detail. For now, I’m just going to cover the main points.
For starters, you need to know what each instrument is and what it sounds like. There is no way you’re going to know that you want 6 French horns in your score if you don’t know what 6 French horns sounds like. So you’re going to have to go through your VSTs and play each one. Get a feel for how each instrument sounds.
After you’ve done that, you’re going to need to dig deeper into each individual instrument as each one will have limitations. The most important of these is the range of each instrument. Some instruments have very large ranges while others are very limited. Fortunately, the best VSTs have these limits put in place so that you can’t play a note that is out of the instrument’s range. But if you’re using a cheap VST, this may not be the case. So you will need to know what a realistic note is and what an impossible note is for each instrument.
But range is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what an instrument is capable of producing sonically. You’re going to have to study the limitations of each instrument as far as technique. What kind of sound is the instrument physically capable of producing? This can be something very subtle or extremely obvious. Some instruments are limited by note duration. Others by how fast you can play them or by pitch bend, vibrato and so on. The question is, how do you familiarize yourself with each instrument and its limitations?
Unfortunately, the only way to do this is by listening to each instrument in as many different performances as possible. This means listening to a wide range of music. Now, if this isn’t possible or your time is limited, a shortcut is to listen to a piece of music that is going to be similar to the piece you’re thinking of creating. Listen to how the instrument sounds and behaves in that particular piece. If it doesn’t do anything too fancy, it’s best to play it safe and do the same if you’re not sure. The last thing you want to do is create a piece of music where the instruments do not sound realistic, not so much because of the sounds themselves but because of the impossible tasks you have those instruments perform.
We now go a little deeper. The next thing you’re going to need to know how to do when orchestration is how to combine instruments together. Each instrument is not played in a vacuum. Listen to a lot of orchestral music. You will notice that certain instruments play with other instruments more often than not and other combinations are almost completely avoided.
Why is this?
It’s because some instruments simply don’t sound that good when combined with other instruments while other combinations are almost made in heaven. This is because of many reasons. One is the volume of each instrument itself. Some instruments can only play so loud while others take a lot of effort to play quietly or are almost impossible to do so. Harshness of tone is another one. How often do you hear a light flute and a blaring trombone playing together? I’d have to really hunt through the orchestral collection to find such examples.
Finally, you’re going to need to learn the various “schools” of scoring. Yes, there is more than one school of thought and depending on the project that you’re taking on, you might prefer one school of thought over another. There is no right or wrong here, but some schools might actually make your project sound better than others. The only way you’re going to figure out which one is best for you is if you actually know each school. Otherwise, you’re just going to be groping around in the dark playing hit or miss. And believe me, that is no way to orchestrate any piece of music.
Essentially, this all comes down to having a solid foundation of your craft. It will not happen overnight. Learning to orchestrate, even fairly well, can take years. This is why the best orchestrators are in such demand. That’s why if you really learn your craft, you, as a royalty free music creator, can be in great demand as well.
Trust me. The time spent learning all this “stuff” will be well worth it.
For The Love Of Music,
Steven “Wags” Wagenheim