Orchestral Voicings Part 11: The Orchestral Context

The last ten parts of this series we spent discussing voicings from a purely theoretical standpoint that excluded writing these voicings for actual (combinations of) instruments in an orchestral context. However, this of course is an extremely important part of whether a voicing will sound good or not.

I tried to build this series by sequentially adding parameters that have an influence on the quality of a voicing. With taking orchestration into consideration the amount of new parameters almost explodes. It can seem overwhelming at first to think about all of these things simultaneously when writing orchestral voicings and it is a constant weighing of parameters against each other. You will very often run into problems where you think "Voicing it like this would be awesome considering parameter A but considering parameter B this will be a total disaster". I already mentioned context as a huge deciding factor before and this gets eve more important when orchestrating voicings.

It is essential for an orchestrator to gather enough experience in this field to be able to qualitatively weigh these parameters against each other looking at the context.

And while this all seems extremely scientific and a bit like a puzzle game, of course taste and style have an enormous influence as well.

This part will not have any score sheet examples as I will first try to create an overview over things that need to be considered before we dive into these one by one in the following parts.

So here are the factors that play a role when orchestrating a voicing for orchestra or rather for any combination of instruments:

Line-Up:

Of course, an essential part of how you can voice things is depending on what instruments you have available. Regarding unmixed textures (e.g. "I want to have a trombone voicing for this") in general three or more of the same instruments are required in order to create the feeling of a chord. Of course, two note voicings exist as well but usually more embedded in a heterogenous voicings of more colours. Isolating a voicing of two identical instruments usually sounds empty (but of course can be a conscious choice).

With a full orchestral line-up you generally don't have the problem of "running out of suitable instruments" for a more complex voicing but with smaller line-ups it is not uncommon to "borrow" instruments from another section to fill up essential notes.

To explain a bit clearer what I mean let's imagine the following example: You have a 6 Part voicing that you want to distribute in the brass section. With a symphony line-up of let's say 4 Horns, 3 Trumpets, 3 Trombones, 1 Tuba you would not have any problems doing so. In fact, you even have some liberty in colour variants (e.g. more Horn dominanted or more Trumpet dominated) If however you have a line-up that only has a brass section of five players (e.g. 1 Horn, 2 Trumpets, 2 Trombones - common musical pit orchestra size), things become more challenging. Considering the playing ranges of the musicians you will be more limited in possible colour options but even more important will be to bring in an "alien" instrument to your voicing to have all six voices present but not "heterogenize" the sound too much to water down the brassy sound that was your original intent. So in these cases, you need to decide whether you bring in a Saxophone (if it actually was a pit band), or a Bass Clarinet or maybe even one or more Celli to fill up that required one voice rather somewhere in the lower part where this alien colour doesn't drag too much attention on itself. Obviously deciding to have 2 Clarinets on the highest voice in such an instance will change the texture of the "brass chord" tremendously.

This gets even more extreme the purer your want the sound and can indeed in such cases also become relevant in larger line-ups. (For instance where you need to find a fifth instrument to join a horn quartet where you want an as pure as possible horn sound)

Balance:

Often, successful orchestral voicings are being reduced to just this factor alone which of course is only part of the considerations that you should make when writing voicings. It is of course essential to balance out all parts of the voicing against each other as some instruments are of course louder than others. There are a few rules of thumb (e.g. 1 Trumpet is as loud as 2 Horns is as loud as 4 Woodwinds) that can help to set a rough balance but those are limited. For instance no 4 woodwinds (except maybe high flutes and/or piccolos) would have a chance balancing out one high trumpet playing ff in the high register. 

Tutti Size:

Another deciding factor about voicing approaches is of course how big you want the voicing to be. Obviously, you would approach voicing a fragile chord that is being distributed within just a few solo players differently than the last final fortissimo chord of your epic film score.

Dynamics:

There are striking differences in the way you would orchestrate a loud voicing and a soft voicing. Just changing the dynamic markings won't cut it. In general the louder instruments play the more higher harmonics they create having as a consequence that the thicker the upper frequency spectrum will become and the less tolerant the voicing will be violating Low Interval Limits.

Also, as a rule of thumb the louder you get the fewer thirds in the chord you need in order to maintain the same sonority.

Register:

This has been covered in parts before (for instance the above mentioned Low Interval Limits) but of course deciding whether you want a "bright high voicing" or a "dark and ominous low voicing" has an influence where just transposing entire voicings up or down will not be enough.

Registral homogenity:

This is one of the most often seen problems in pieces by learning composers and orchestrators and requires the most actual knowledge about the instruments. In general, it is desirable to have all instruments in their respective similar registers. Accidentally placing an instrument of a voicing in an extreme register while all the others are in a relaxed mid register will cause weird balances of the voicing. A classic example would be the often seen underestimation of high register trumpets. It is very tricky to play notes in the highest register particularly softly so in a voicing that is supposed to be soft that trumpet will stick out. However it is not only just the dynamic imbalances that you create by disregarding registral homogenity but also a sound quality issue. Instruments that are near the edge of their range will always sound more "forced" and "struggling" compared to instruments that play in their comfortable middle register. Writing a voicing that for instance has the flute in their comfortable mid-high register but pushes the oboes to their highest register will not necessarily create an imbalance on the volume side but the forced sound of the high oboe will texturally imbalance the voicing.

Individual registral considerations:

Not all instruments have the same dynamic shape of their registers. While for instance brass instruments generally become louder and more brilliant the higher you go, reed instruments will have their peak of volume in their respective mid-high register and then become thinner again. Some instruments are capable of creating certain notes but usually at a more compromised tone or only at very limited dynamics. For instance, the lowest few notes of the Oboe sound rather thick and unattractive unless played by an excellent player, there are a few notes around middle Bb on Clarinets that are rather weak and hollow, the lowest notes of flutes sound great but are only possible in super soft dynamics etc. These individual properties of instruments need to be taken into consideration when orchestrating a voicing as this of course has influence on the balance and general sound quality.

Attack:

You would voice a chord differently if it was sustaining for a longer time versus if you need it to be punchy and stabby. Things that would feel rather unbalanced on a longer held voicing might provide just the right bite for a chord stab.

Arrangement:

Of course, the arrangement also has an influence on how you would voice a chord. In a case where the voicing is supposed to be the harmonic backdrop of a theme that is played on top of it you of course wouldn't voice it in a way that it interferes either with the playing range or the prominence of the melody.

Colour:

The most obvious consideration when orchestrating a voicing is of course what colour you want it to have. Should it be a clear and unmixed instrumental colour, the colour of a specific section, a very specific mixture of just a few colours or a heterogenous mixture are things to consider. Particularly influential on the colour perception of the entire voicing is what colour your put at the top of the voicing as the harmonics of this colour will be most prominent . There is of course also a considerable colour difference about how you distribute the voicing over the same combination of instruments (e.g. a voicing of horns and bassons will sound very different if the horns are above the bassoons and vice versa). Also, strategies like interlocking, stacking, enclosing etc. between instrumental colours come into play (e.g. a voicing from top to bottom Fl1-Fl2-Ob1-Ob2 (Stacking), Fl1-Ob1-Fl2-Ob2 (Interlocking), Fl1-Ob1-Ob2-Fl2 (Enclosing)

You see that there are a lot of parameters just on the orchestraton side to take into consideration when writing a voicing. Depending on case some do overlap into each other while in some other cases there might be reasons to ignore some considerations all together.

In the next part we will have a closer look at the individual points mentioned here.