Device Lexicon: Part 3 - Sweeping String Octaves (feat. E.T.)

One thing that I found quite surprising when I studied my first few film scores was the approach to orchestration when it comes to sweeping string themes. From what I had learned this far, it was supposed to be best to have all large sections of the orchestra (Woodwinds, Brass, Strings) being musically plausible on their own, meaning that each of them would contain enough musical information to be perceived as "complete".

Yet, looking through the film score cues in front of me, particulalrly with focus on the strings, I didn't see that. What I saw was something like that:

This is the main theme of E.T. as it is played in the climax of the track Adventures on Earth (as heard here at 8:03). What we basically see here is that all strings are coupled in octaves except for the basses that play the bass note. So effectively, the strings are not transporting any harmonic information.

The harmonic information in such cases is moved to the brass (mostly Trombones+Tuba/Horns) and Woodwinds:

We see some doubling of the melody on Flutes, Clarinets and Bassoon (for substance). Horns and Oboes provide harmony in pulsating 8th notes while low brass and two bassoons provide sustaining harmony.

So regarding the roles, we have strings and a few woodwinds covering melody, and brass exclusively covering the harmonic backdrop.

Besides the obvious distribution of roles over the entire orchestra (as opposed to only distributing them inside the same section) one thing that stands out as a film music standard is the string octaves.

This is a common device that we see in a lot of string themes, especially the very expressive and sweeping ones. This coupling in octaves down to the celli creates a lot of reinforcing octave harmonics that create that string sound that is so well known from a lot of film scores.

There are a few interesting observations to be made here. Depending on the range and register of the theme, it might not be possible to couple all sections exactly in octaves. Sometimes, in order to not get too low or too high with them, a "seemless" octave shift is needed. We see this in the example above in the Violas from the first to the second note which moves downwards instead of upwards as the violins to reach the octave that is around middle c (and an octave below 2nd violins). In this case this leap is more motivated from what happens before there where the violas are lead up to that c an octave above middle c and a smooth way to get them into the right octave is just to do that downwards movement there.

Another thing worth discussing are the Celli here. I have heard orchestration teachers critizising this particular use here and while I'm not particularly irritated by them, I tend to agree that this might not be completely ideal. The issue here is that the Celli dive quite low. In fact they come down to the g an octave and a fourth below middle C. And this decision creates two problems:

1. Moving out of the really expressive register of the Cello which would be higher. The register it is in is more of the nondescript middle register and the expressive sweeping register is almost untouched even though it would make a lot of sense to use it here.

2. Low interval issues. Even though they are not as relevant in orchestral writing and are a bit reduced thorugh the octave coupling, when listening to that passage and hearing the Celli moving down to that register, I feel that it creates some disturbance down there that wouldn't have been necessary.

So it might be possible that the decision here was to stay strictly in these octaves between the sections, effectively placing 1st Violins and Celli 3 octaves apart, but it might indeed be debatable whether placing the Celli an octave higher and distributing the other instruments in a way that they cover only two octaves between the outermost lines would have been more benefitial. In other compareable instances, Williams keeps the Celli in a higher register:

This is the finale from HOME ALONE and you can see that the Celli are coupled an octave below the 2nd Violins while the Violas play some side line.

In fact, E.T. is a quite specific case where Williams went "all in" with the strings on octaves. More commonly we see things like the one above from Home Alone or a configuration where Vln1, Vln2 and Violas play in Octaves while Celli play a counter line.

The takeaway from this should be that it hardly ever is enough to just have first violins on the theme if you want it to be sweeping and "filmic" but reinforce with other sections from the octaves below. Depending on the register and range of the theme either a spread over two or three octaves is possible. Not always is it necessary to amass that many forces on the theme and especially in more delicate lines it might be enough to have two or even just one sections on the theme but if you want full force expressive string themes, definitely go for strategic octave couplings.