Jan 11, 2019 | Daily Film Scoring Bits, Orchestration
Circular Breathing Circular breathing is a technique used by woodwind and brass players to create a theoretically endless stream of air being able to play theoretically forever. The technique works in the way that you fill your cheeks with air before your lungs are...
Jan 4, 2019 | Daily Film Scoring Bits, Orchestration
Notes Near the Range Limits of Instruments For practically every woodwind and brass instrument, there is the general rule that the closer to the limits of the range you get, the less controlled the sound will be. This means that either the intonation gets problematic...
Nov 22, 2018 | Daily Film Scoring Bits, Technical
First Chair Simulation in Mock-Ups A good way to make loud brass chords in the same family (e.g. a triad in the trumpets) sound more realistic in mockups, is to have the top note playing with a slightly stronger dynamic than the other notes. In real orchestras, this...
Nov 15, 2018 | Daily Film Scoring Bits, Orchestration
Dynamic Shaping of Sustained Brass Brass instruments have the greatest timbral change over their dynamic spectrum. Therefore swells, crescendos, sffz, fp are highly dramatic and very effective on them. If you use long sustained brass chords or tones on key parts of...
Aug 17, 2018 | Daily Film Scoring Bits, Orchestration
Orchestration Strategy When orchestrating music, one of my favorite strategies is to orchestrate from most important to least important which means that you start off with the element that you need to be perceived as the main idea and work your way down to the...
