# Orchestrating Howard Shore Style Tone Clusters



## Dan Stearn (Dec 20, 2012)

Just been revisiting a lot of the old Howard Shore scores, and have always admired his use of tone clusters, he seems to do them so well and musically compared to a lot of other folks. Anyone have any advice on how best to orchestrate and mock-up these for best effect (two completely different topics, I know!)?


----------



## David Story (Dec 20, 2012)

Give the clusters to mid and upper strings. You can change the effect intensity by how tight the intervals are. That should be done with both notation and a written instruction. The timbre changes a lot with the balance of vl, va, vc and cb. You can get scores by Ligiti or Adams that will give you good staring points. Also some Williams and Corigliano scores available.

For mock-ups, use a library with pre-recored ensemble clusters, like symphobia. You can get very cool sounds by layering 2 live players 6 times, and have them move the pitch, either with regular or wide vibrato and slides.

Shore does a lot of pandiatonic clusters to beef up the brass triads.
Much easier to do live.

That's a quick overview


----------



## Dan Stearn (Dec 20, 2012)

Great post, David, thanks a lot for that. Any particular Ligeti/ Adams scores you'd recommend taking a look at?


----------



## Dan Stearn (Dec 20, 2012)

Great post, David, thanks a lot for that. Any particular Ligeti/ Adams scores you'd recommend taking a look at?


----------



## antoniopandrade (Dec 20, 2012)

This kind of stuffy is a doozy to mock-up. If you want to create your clusters at will I would say try to stay away from pre-recorded ones... although if they have the sound you are looking for, then do it, you won't get closer than the actual recorded sound.

For creating your own, my recommendations would be to get a library that has divisi capabilities, or to layer the tone clusters with a library that has a thinner sound than your main library. For example, I use CS2 as my main string library, but when I'm doing tone clusters, I'll use them senza vibrato, and notch down the volume/expression about 20% per note added. You want a richer sound, but not that much denser/louder. Give room for your orchestra to breathe, even when doing 5+ note clusters in say, violins alone, for example. I also use HS' divisi mics (which aren't really divisi strings, granted) to create that effect, since they have separate panning positions for A/B sections. Another library that is useful is the Loegria, with their half sustains (the library itself also uses a smaller string section). Just be wary when selecting multiple mic positions, as the sound can get very rich and dense really fast (you only want this when layering many notes together).

Hope this helps somewhat!


----------



## bryla (Dec 21, 2012)

I don't know what HS cluster you're talking about in particular, but to complement on David's suggestions I would also find some of the 20th century Polish composers. Górecki's 'Old Polish Music' shows how to write diatonic clusters and also how to notate them and Penderecki's 'Threnody' takes them out to the extreme. 

Górecki is published by Boosey&Hawkes and Penderecki by Schott.


----------



## Dan Stearn (Dec 21, 2012)

Thanks again for the continued suggestions, exactly the kind of thing I was looking for- will be checking out these recommendations in detail over xmas!


----------



## Per Lichtman (Dec 29, 2012)

@Dan Stearn Not sure if it can give you what you want in terms of clusters, but in terms of Adams you should definitely take a look at Harmonielehre for getting interesting brass timbres.

Back when I was lucky enough to briefly study Adams, that was one of my three favorite pieces he'd written - and it remains one of my favorites today.

Here's a link to generic YouTube video, but do yourself a favor and buy a decent recording of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUiv0jJl9zU


----------



## Per Lichtman (Dec 29, 2012)

Also for examples of John Corigliano's great cluster writing, look no further than his Pied Piper Fantasy - the intro is great.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAhsmfTkrx4

You can hear the influence of that sort of writing on Corigliano's Juilliard students like Elliot Goldenthal (who I've yet to be lucky enough to meet) and a handful of moments in Eric Whitacre (who is a lot of fun in person).

Goldenthal's Batman Forever and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within scores feature some great rips and clusters. But FF:TSW is especially noticeable because he recorded a live acoustic brass section of massive size, giving him some very interesting possibilities.

Some of my favorite clusters in FF:TSW are in the cues "Code Red"; "Entrada"; and most especially "Tocatta and Dreamscapes" which sounds almost like a cluster master-class. 

Here's an Amazon link for the album...
http://www.amazon.com/Final-Fantasy-Original-Picture-Soundtrack/dp/B0013AUXLW/ref=tmm_other_meta_binding_title_0 (http://www.amazon.com/Final-Fantasy-Ori ... ng_title_0)

... but if Spotify is available in your country, just search for the album Final Fantasy - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack and you can listen in its entirety with royalties paid appropriately.


----------



## Guy Rowland (Dec 29, 2012)

One thing I noticed in the Hobbit score (it was mixed good and loud and I was frequently bored enough to pay far more attention than usual to it) is Shore's frequent use of rising semitone clusters to build tension. Several here have suggested using the pre-baked ones in sample libraries, but of course you can't in these cases.


----------



## Per Lichtman (Dec 29, 2012)

Guy's right, you really are missing out if you don't experiment with doing some yourself.

An important part of working with clusters in MIDI mock-ups that aren't pre-baked is using a lot of automation/controller data to try and keep it feeling organic in the way live players naturally would.

If you have a library with particularly well-recorded solo instruments, try EQing them to be a little less edgy, narrowing their stereo-field and then panning them with a dense spread. You may have to approach reverb/delay settings differently than you would for other applications.

If you are relying primarily on distant mic libraries, try EQing/filtering/shelving the lowest frequencies to reduce the weight of the samples a bit to avoid too much crowding if you are going to use a lot of notes at once.


----------



## Per Lichtman (Dec 29, 2012)

Oh, and keep in mind that the "sweetness" of your orchestral clusters is in large part a related to high frequency content, so try raising and lowering that to get a good starting point for your blends.


----------



## Dan Stearn (Dec 30, 2012)

Great advice, thanks Per & Guy


----------

