# Help me orchestrate this piano sketch



## TintoL (Nov 23, 2017)

I am working on a storyboard for a story that my kids and I have been creating together.

It tells the story of a sister and a brother who are awaken by a floating chest. Using the floating chest as an airplane the fly to a magical world through the closet. They fly above that unknown world until they start falling asleep again. That's when the chest starts coming back to reality, leaving the kids sleeping in their bed.

I tried to express these ideas in the piano piece.

It is the first long piece I ever do and the first one intended for the mockup of a full orchestra.

But, I find that it can be overwhelming the share amount of colors on an orchestra.

The only thing I know for sure is that the piece will have a cimbalom. For which I am planing to get the spitfire cimbalom.

I would appreciate if some experienced musicians can guide me on the orchestration and tell me how I can get the piece better.

Thanks in advance to all.


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## Lassi Tani (Nov 23, 2017)

Lovely piece! When starting to orchestrate, separate the piece to melody, middle and background. E.g. I usually start with the theme, which instruments would play in which part of the piece. Then I go to middle, where instruments support the theme, and give space to it. Lastly I orchestrate the background, which consist of textures, atmosphere.

To orchestrate you have to have some sort of idea of how the piece should sound. This kind of piece just calls for woodwinds and strings with colorful textures, runs, etc. But it's all up to you to decide.

Also register is something to consider. Some instruments don't sound strong in low registers and some don't sound strong in high registers. If you'd want your theme to be heard, usually you give the theme to instruments, which can play it comfortably and the theme should be in their "good" register. Instruments that don't need to be heard that well and are in the background, don't need to be in their best register.

Also plan ahead, write down ideas that you have for each part of song. Think of orchestration for the whole piece not just separately for the different sections of the piece.

I hope this gives you some ideas to start orchestrating. Good luck!


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## TintoL (Nov 24, 2017)

Thanks so much for your comments sekkosiki... It's really helpful.

I think I never thought about dividing a piece into middle and background. I am sure this will help me concentrating in one part at a time and not feeling overwhelmed by the complexity. 

So, you would say that rather than start testing the melody with different instruments it would be better to hear other pieces and have a more clearer idea of which instruments you are using?

Also, I know that in my piece the melody at the beginning repeats about 2 to 3 times with some variation. I was thinking about switching the instrument playing the melody on teach repetition, but, I am not sure if this makes sense or if is something out of the ordinary in composition. It comes to my mind Ravel's Bolero, where the melody keeps repeating with different instruments. 

I think the best advice is to plan ahead. I don't know how other composers compose "a la prima" directly on the keyboard without any sketch structure. To me, I've found that having the whole piece layed out in the piano first is a must to have a sense of order and cohesion in a composition.

Thanks again for all you guide, I appreciate it. 

I don't have much time to work because this is like my serious hobby, but, I will try to post a process of the piece as I go to see if I can get more feedback.


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## pbattersby (Nov 24, 2017)

I can suggest a few things. Not sure what you are planning but you could keep the piano exactly as is and accompany the piano with an orchestra rather than trying to replace the piano with an orchestra. That's the sort of thing I typically do.

Then, you could simply go through the song and every time you have an idea to add some accompaniment, do that. You don't have to go through the song in order. You could start by adding a single sustained violin note somewhere in the middle and then see if you can add some music leading up to that note.

Do that throughout the song. Add a small amount of music and then expand it. Keep repeating that process until you feel there is nothing missing anymore.

You could also decide that rather than using a full orchestra, you could restrict yourself to just using a strings section. Sometimes too many options inhibits creativity. By adding a restriction, you might find it easier.


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## TintoL (Nov 24, 2017)

pbattersby said:


> I can suggest a few things. Not sure what you are planning but you could keep the piano exactly as is and accompany the piano with an orchestra rather than trying to replace the piano with an orchestra.


Thanks for your feedback. I actually was thinking of replacing the whole thing with orchestra leaving some piano at the beginning and ending. But, When I was trying and experimenting with instruments I actually ended up doing what you are saying: adding parts on top of the piano. But, that's the thing, I was just not sure if that is the sort of thing you can do or if that path will end up making the piece muddy. I guess it all depends on your capacity to hear that muddiness and step back.

Thanks a lot.


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## Will Blackburn (Nov 26, 2017)

I like it. Did you record that in as Midi? If so we could all have a go  Im thinkging along the lines of The Snowman and Spirited Away.


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## TintoL (Nov 26, 2017)

YEAHHHHH, I WAS TOTALLY GOING FOR A JOE HISAISHI STILE, but also some williams. I am using the same open 7th arpegios in some parts because I love them. I have been listening to all of what these two dudes have done with pieces similar to what I want to show.

I played the piano parts and recorded them as midi. It would be awesome to use the piece as an orchestration clinic , specially for me.

Here is the file, I hope is OK, it's the first time I export a midi file.... I had to compress it because of the extension type. VI-control wouldn't let me.


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## Janos McKennitt (Nov 27, 2017)

Very nice tune. Without going too much into "how I would orchestrate it" I just wanna give you a small hint, what you can study for this purpose:

Listen to Modest Mussorgski's "Pictures at an exhibition". It is a series of piano pieces he wrote. Later, Maurice Ravel orchestrated them. Listen to these orchestrations, too. It is an other style of music, but maybe it helps to get a sense of how to use different colors for different piano regions and moods.


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## TintoL (Nov 27, 2017)

Janos McKennitt said:


> Very nice tune. Without going too much into "how I would orchestrate it" I just wanna give you a small hint, what you can study for this purpose:
> 
> Listen to Modest Mussorgski's "Pictures at an exhibition". It is a series of piano pieces he wrote. Later, Maurice Ravel orchestrated them. Listen to these orchestrations, too. It is an other style of music, but maybe it helps to get a sense of how to use different colors for different piano regions and moods.



I Knew about this, but I can't believe it didn't pass through my mind to use this as the perfect orchestration and transcription study. Thanks for that hint. Such a good idea. I am going to try to study it for a bit before attempting to orchestrate the piece.

Thanks again.


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## JimmyPoppa (Nov 27, 2017)

Tintol,

Another option is to look at how great orchestrators have worked on pieces that were originally written for piano. There are many examples and sometimes you can find a score that has the original piano part at the bottom and the full orchestration on top.

You can listen to recordings of small sections of the piano and then the orchestration. Then study the score to see how the effects were achieved. You don't have to go in order. Just study whatever strikes you as interesting. Try to keep a set of notes on the different techniques you learn so you can use variations of them again if needed.

The next step would be to try to imitate what you heard in short segments of your piece. Try several different versions until you get close to something you like.

Work through you whole piece bit by bit. After you're done, there may be segments you don't like or that don't seem to fit. Go back and work on those again.

Since this is your first full-length piano composition, and you don't have a lot of experience with orchestration, it's a great opportunity for you to learn using your own work. It may take quite a while before you are happy. Stick with it and don't just accept your first effort. Keep studying and working (as well as writing new pieces) and, in time, you'll develop the skills you need.

Here are a couple of scores just off the top of my head, that have lots of orchestration ideas and can easily be found with the piano part in the score:





Interestingly, there are also recordings of several other orchestrations of Pictures At An Exhibition. If you can find them, they could also be interesting.

Anyway, best of luck to you.

Be Well,

Jimmy


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## TintoL (Nov 27, 2017)

JimmyPoppa said:


> You can listen to recordings of small sections of the piano and then the orchestration. Then study the score to see how the effects were achieved. You don't have to go in order. Just study whatever strikes you as interesting. Try to keep a set of notes on the different techniques you learn so you can use variations of them again if needed.
> 
> The next step would be to try to imitate what you heard in short segments of your piece. Try several different versions until you get close to something you like.
> 
> ...




WOW..... Jimmy, thank you soo much for taking the time to write this. It has been such an opening view of what is the best path to take. I know Ravel's mother goose suite. It will be a lot of fun just to look at these examples from a different perspective. I've listened to it a lot of times, but, this time it's going to be different. I think the greatest help would be what you said here: "Try to keep a set of notes on the different techniques you learn so you can use variations of them again if needed"

It will be a lot of fun to dive into this project.

Thanks again for all your help.

Tinto


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## JimmyPoppa (Nov 27, 2017)

TintoL said:


> WOW..... Jimmy, thank you soo much for taking the time to write this. It has been such an opening view of what is the best path to take. I know Ravel's mother goose suite. It will be a lot of fun just to look at these examples from a different perspective. I've listened to it a lot of times, but, this time it's going to be different. I think the greatest help would be what you said here: "Try to keep a set of notes on the different techniques you learn so you can use variations of them again if needed"
> 
> It will be a lot of fun to dive into this project.
> 
> ...



You're very welcome.

J


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## jhughes (Nov 30, 2017)

I would start by naming the instruments you hear playing the melodies...and be specific rather than just say woodwinds. I do understand the question but I've never written anything without hearing what instrument I had in mind in my head already. Once you decide that then get a score where one of great composers used that instrument in similar mood and you study it. I'm not an orchestrator but I think it's easy to get caught up in some big sound without knowing smaller details first. Arrange and organize it on much smaller scale before worrying about orchestra.


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## TimCox (Nov 30, 2017)

For orchestrating from a piano "rough" (very nicely played in this, so not so rough!). One thing I do, personally, is strip out all the reverb/delays/other post-processing and let my ears hear it without those added elements. Small suggestion I know but for me I find that a "wet" piano can influence my decision making when it shouldn't.

One of my favorite examples of an orchestration from a piano piece is Revel's 'Une Barque Sur l'Ocean'

Original Piano:


With Orchestra:


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## TintoL (Dec 1, 2017)

c said:


> I would start by naming the instruments you hear playing the melodies...and be specific rather than just say woodwinds. I do understand the question but I've never written anything without hearing what instrument I had in mind in my head already. Once you decide that then get a score where one of great composers used that instrument in similar mood and you study it. I'm not an orchestrator but I think it's easy to get caught up in some big sound without knowing smaller details first. Arrange and organize it on much smaller scale before worrying about orchestra.




Thank you soo much for your feedback and explanations. I think that I can understand what you mean when you said; "Arrange and organize it on much smaller scale before worrying about orchestra". I think I am starting to understand that you have to have the basic sound or overall sound in your head already to jump into putting notes to instruments. 

To be honest, one thing I felt is that it seams to be very easy to fall into adding too much instruments into a part or too much doubling of notes with different instruments on a specific piece and immediately that part looses it's power or it simply sound muddy. After all the words I have been receiving in this thread, I can see now that not knowing what the main melody sounds with instrumentation can lead to a bad piece by bad orchestration. And this is only a lack of decision taking and clarity from the composer/orchestrator. Which, I am sure right now I am in that bad world of lack of decision. And perhaps is because I haven't heard my whole piece sounding on an orchestra in my head yet.

I think I have a lot to think in my head....


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## TintoL (Dec 1, 2017)

TimCox said:


> For orchestrating from a piano "rough" (very nicely played in this, so not so rough!). One thing I do, personally, is strip out all the reverb/delays/other post-processing and let my ears hear it without those added elements. Small suggestion I know but for me I find that a "wet" piano can influence my decision making when it shouldn't.
> 
> One of my favorite examples of an orchestration from a piano piece is Revel's 'Une Barque Sur l'Ocean'



wow.... I feel like an ignorant. I have to accept I've never heard or knew existed this Ravel's piece. It's mind blowing good. I've heard it a thousand times since I received your reply. I can't believe he was able to put such a fast and intricate piece into an orchestra. And the images it shows are awesome. You can see that boat moving up and down in a calm ocean and then into a storm.

I think studying this piece from piano to orchestra will be an exponential work for me, but I know it will give me such understanding. It is a very complex piece. And the piano,..... that piano is almost unplayable, it's supper hard to play. 

I will try what you are saying about stripping the reverb and fxs from the piace and listening to it raw.

Thanks again, much appreciated.


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## TimCox (Dec 1, 2017)

TintoL said:


> wow.... I feel like an ignorant. I have to accept I've never heard or knew existed this Ravel's piece. It's mind blowing good. I've heard it a thousand times since I received your reply. I can't believe he was able to put such a fast and intricate piece into an orchestra. And the images it shows are awesome. You can see that boat moving up and down in a calm ocean and then into a storm.



I'll admit that I'd never heard this piece either until fairly recently from an orchestration video so don't worry. If I can find it I'll send it your way, great details on color and using the orchestra as an ensemble rather than it's individual parts all the time.



TintoL said:


> And the piano,..... that piano is almost unplayable, it's supper hard to play.



I'm a guitarist so it's unobtainable for me 

EDIT:

I can't believe I misspelled 'Ravel' forgive me VI-C


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## jules (Dec 2, 2017)

I'm sure this very interesting article could be useful. The guy starts with a piano sketch and finish with a full orchestration...
http://www.evenant.com/music/a-practical-approach-to-orchestration/


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