# Why is interlocking used on the strings when you do divisi ?



## SimonSings (Aug 22, 2022)

Why is interlocking used on the strings when you do divisi ?
A question I got asked from someone I admire, not so long ago .More of a task then a question .
Any thoughts ?


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## R.G. (Aug 24, 2022)

Your question is a bit vague, so clarification or a notated music example would make it clearer.

Generally speaking, there's no set pattern to anything regarding divisi. There are many ways to allot sub-tutti portions in the string groups. The composer will notate his divisi preferences (if he has any), and those are usually based on how he wants the divisi to come across musically, whether his determination of how best to achieve that sound is correct or not.

But the conductor, the concertmaster, and the section leaders have their concerns, too—practical ones many composers don't know about or consider—so the divisi plan might be altered from the score notation as needs be for a better performance.

The first task usually is to check the parts against the score, since system breaks are different between the score and parts, which has sometimes lead to incorrectly engraved parts. Once that's sorted out, the composer's decisions in discerned intent are weighed against any alternate allotments that would provide better performance solutions. Other variables are the fact that very often the number of players per section are not exactly what the composer was assuming or hoping for, and the acoustics and/or orchestral layout of the particular venue can even play a part.


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## bryla (Aug 24, 2022)

First thought without knowing the situation you describe: I would do it to help intonation. If it's better for top VL1 to have a more consonant interval with bottom VL1.

But as R.G. says - many things can play into this.


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## SimonSings (Aug 25, 2022)

Thnx a lot for your answers ! I agree with y’all ! 
Intonation and balance are the keywords to me , here . 
I would use interlocking to avoid string players playing to minor or major seconds intervals when sitting next to each other on the same stand.


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## youngpokie (Aug 25, 2022)

In one traditional approach, simple distribution of 4-part chord between 5 instruments sometimes leads to large and thin sounding gaps and empty parts.

To solve that issue, strings are used divisi and each of the 4 chord notes is doubled in octave; the result of this is that now the parts can be in the best part of the instrument register _and_ fill out gaps at the same time. Then this distribution is further refined to get to smaller gaps at the top and especially in the middle, and to maintain larger ones at the bottom. 

Additional chord tones can be used more than once - also doubled, if needed; and voices can be doubled in more than one octave. When approached this way, the original chord is preserved but now there are many more voices (9 is not uncommon) available to make that chord sound as full, wide and resonant as the context calls for.

This will result in interlocking, even though it's not a goal but a consequence.


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## MusicPad (Aug 25, 2022)

I understand your question, if you have a 4-part chord of Cmaj7 from top to bottom C- B - G - E if you do divisi in the violins you would have a minor second interval left in the first violins C - B, this is fixed by interlacing the first violin voices C- G and second violins B - E,

this type of orchestration is used a lot by claus ogerman, nelson riddle, robert farnon it seems to be an old practice

there are people who prefer to assign the voices from top to bottom regardless of minor second intervals being generated

this question is very perceptive and has many answers, a violinist would have to be asked if it affects the fact that the player next to him plays dissonant intervals.


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## MusicPad (Aug 25, 2022)

R.G. said:


> Your question is a bit vague, so clarification or a notated music example would make it clearer.
> 
> Generally speaking, there's no set pattern to anything regarding divisi. There are many ways to allot sub-tutti portions in the string groups. The composer will notate his divisi preferences (if he has any), and those are usually based on how he wants the divisi to come across musically, whether his determination of how best to achieve that sound is correct or not.
> 
> ...


in some claus ogerman scores i have seen this, if you have a Cmaj7 chord orchestrated on the violins, use divisi, 4 parts, first violins play E -B and second violins play C - G, there are many views on this , is a type of interlock.


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## R.G. (Aug 26, 2022)

MusicPad said:


> in some claus ogerman scores i have seen this, if you have a Cmaj7 chord orchestrated on the violins, use divisi, 4 parts, first violins play E -B and second violins play C - G, there are many views on this , is a type of interlock.


Yes. This puts a little air in close position voicings, and in drop voicings too, in essence turning V1 and V2 into one whole section of violins divided into 4 staggered voices. The violins are scored like this for the vast majority of Ogerman's _In the Presence and Absence of Each Other, Part 3_, in fact.

Below, in the first bar of _Iberia_ (45+3), Debussy interlocks V1 a4 with 3 consecutive players per voice (blocked), but inverts the order of the two inner voices, changing blocked to staggered, which emphasizes the openness of the 5th and the 4th within the voicing as well as the separation of the chord tones and consolidating them into lines. (BTW, the numbers in this excerpt indicate players, not stands.)

Of course there is no guarantee it will be executed _exactly_ like this. The complicated divisi writers such as Debussy, Ravel, Strauss, Stravinsky and Bartok, _et al_, are very often altered for good reasons, and with good results.

*N.B., Modern composers should orchestrate so as to prevent such alterations from being necessary, to the extent possible, whether it's a score for a concert piece or a one-off for a recording. It's easier for the studio than for concert works since the number of players per part is set, there's plenty of acoustic control (usually), and all the mics.*

Some conductors—with 16 firsts and the somewhat standard seating plan—are bothered by player 10's physical distance from players 11 and 12, so they choose to leave player 10 out and assign the bottom line to players 11–13. Others choose 1–3, 11–13, 4–6, 14–16 for the top-down voicing, while some use the whole section, with a top-down voicing of stands 1.2., 4.7., 3.6., 5.8.

In the bar after that, Debussy switches to a 3-part stacked voicing and shifts the weighting from the top voice to the lowest, then a2 on the last 8th. The full score shows the context for why.






Still, it has to be said that the default distribution—_overall_—is to divide by player, whether a2, a3, or a4, keeping the chords together for a blended harmonic emphasis, that is, when the texture is chordal and concerted, belonging to the same element. But to emphasize the linear rather than the harmonic, even if the rhythms are concerted, you'd use a blocked or staggered divisi allotment like above.

And when the divisi parts are different in nature, belonging to separate elements of the texture, (e.g., a sustained trill plus a rhythmic figure), then it's usually better to have one element allotted to the front half stands, and the other to the back half, keeping each distinct element in its own neighborhood.


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## MusicPad (Aug 26, 2022)

tim davies mentions in his orchestration blog that he finds it ridiculous to do this, he says that they are old practices without meaning,

would it really affect the homogeneous sound of the strings interlacing the voices to get a combined chord?

Is it really serious to write minor seconds in divisi?


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## MusicPad (Aug 26, 2022)

R.G. said:


> Yes. This puts a little air in close position voicings, and in drop voicings too, in essence turning V1 and V2 into one whole section of violins divided into 4 staggered voices. The violins are scored like this for the vast majority of Ogerman's _In the Presence and Absence of Each Other, Part 3_, in fact.
> 
> Below, in the first bar of _Iberia_ (45+3), Debussy interlocks V1 a4 with 3 consecutive players per voice (blocked), but inverts the order of the two inner voices, changing blocked to staggered, which emphasizes the openness of the 5th and the 4th within the voicing as well as the separation of the chord tones and consolidating them into lines. (BTW, the numbers in this excerpt indicate players, not stands.)
> 
> ...


tim davies mentions in his orchestration blog that he finds it ridiculous to do this, he says that they are old practices without meaning,

would it really affect the homogeneous sound of the strings interlacing the voices to get a combined chord?

Is it really serious to write minor seconds in divisi?


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## MusicPad (Aug 26, 2022)

here two examples claus ogerman & debussy, the strange thing is that ogerman prefers intervals of fourths in divisi violins, wouldn't it be easier to tune thirds?


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## NoamL (Aug 26, 2022)

*Don't worry* too much about blending the strings. They are the easiest group to blend in the orchestra, and if they can rehearse the piece once or twice so each section understands their place in the texture, they can make almost anything "work okay."

I agree with Tim Davies that in a 6-10 voice orchestration for the strings, interlocking the divisi parts "so they'll blend better" just doesn't do much.

There are two instances where I'd worry about interlocking the strings.

The first is any* non-divisi double stop. *The players find it easiest to tune 6ths and 3rds. 5ths are okay too in the context of a short triple or quadruple stop. Any other interval is asking for trouble. This is about *stops* only, not divisi parts - the challenge is tuning two notes at the same time with two fingers.

Whatever interlocking needs to happen, is less important than to create good intervals for the players. Classic example here. Lots of interlocking but it doesn't matter because each quadruple stop is easy for that section to play:







The other time I would interlock the parts is when you *DO NOT* want the parts to blend. If you want a part to *stand out*, it can be given to a _lower_ instrument - which will force them to play in a _higher register_ than everyone around them.

This example from Elgar illustrates it well:






the 2nd and 3rd lines from the bottom, grouped with a bracket, are the cellos playing divisi. The top part is playing an octave below the 1st violins divisi part. So, they are playing above the violas most of the time.

If Elgar had switched the violas and the cello top part, then the noodling triplet accompaniment (now played by the cellos mostly on their top string) would have become louder, and the octave doubling of the violins (now played by the violas) would be less soaring and bright.

That high C for the cellos in the 4th bar is much more soaring played on the cello's top string than the viola's top string, because for the violas it would have been a 3rd above the pitch of their top string, while for the cellos it's a 3rd _plus an octave_ above the pitch of their top string.


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## NoamL (Aug 26, 2022)

As for writing lots of 2nds in divisi the only issue I can think of is that it's harder to sight read when you have clusters of notes. The Ogerman example in the previous example is easier to read the way the composer chose and that may be justification enough.


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## Arbee (Aug 26, 2022)

My assumption is that a 2nd divisi interval in an otherwise relatively open voicing would be ok, but back in the day of dense jazz chord clusters, spreading the divisi intervals might have helped visually and with section pitching. Some experience singing in jazz choirs also supports that assumption to some extent.


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## MusicPad (Aug 26, 2022)

coming to the conclusion of this topic, then interlocking is used to facilitate the
1-read
2-tuning
3-voice conduction
4- is it simply an absurd practice?

because ogerman prefers intervals of fourth or fifth instead of intervals of third


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## MusicPad (Aug 27, 2022)

why did nelson riddle use viokin 1, violin2 and violin 3?


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## MusicPad (Aug 27, 2022)

nelson riddle uses interlocking and double


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## MusicPad (Aug 27, 2022)

I have not seen any book that tells you how to orchestrate a jazz voicing and what voices to add to each section, there are no rules I think everything sounds, any chord sounds good on the strings respecting the tessituras.



of the violins.


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## R.G. (Aug 27, 2022)

MusicPad said:


> tim davies mentions in his orchestration blog that he finds it ridiculous to do this, he says that they are old practices without meaning...


Ridiculous to do what, specifically?

Stacked, interlocked, enclosed, they're all legitimate and have their musical and practical functions. But voicing type is not the only factor. There is also the divisi allotment you apply to any given voicing type. Check my summaries of the main divisi techniques in post no. 8.

You can have a stacked a4 chord, but dividing by the player will give you a different effect than dividing by the stand, and different still when dividing by two-stand blocks, even though they'll all be stacked voicings. When ensemble issues come into play is more in the polyphonic textures, or other independent, differentiated divisi textures. They should be blocked by default.



MusicPad said:


> would it really affect the homogeneous sound of the strings interlacing the voices to get a combined chord?


The most blended chord sound, when you want to emphasize the harmonic aspect, and the easiest for the players to hear the total voicing of the section for intonation adjustment, is _divisi by player_. In a two-part divisi, this is called _divisi at the stand_ when no other indication is given, and the default when both parts are largely concerted and simply two harmonic constituents of the same element.

In a3, player 1 takes the top note, player 2, the middle note, and player 3, the bottom, after which the series repeats. And in a4, every two stands complete the 4-part voicing (or whatever it is). But in situations where the divisi is ongoing to the point where there comes a page turn, this is a problem because you'll have unacceptable dropouts, in which case another allotment becomes necessary.



MusicPad said:


> Is it really serious to write minor seconds in divisi?


For commercial or jazz arranging, I try to avoid 2nds above the staff, especially the minor kind, on account of their stridency, particularly with small sections. But on the staff they're fine, and Ogerman does not always avoid them. But to soften them up, you can allot so as to place physical distance between the players involved in the dissonance, adding a little air and transparency, the same as how big bands order the players in the horn sections to spread out adjacent dissonances in the voicing.



MusicPad said:


> coming to the conclusion of this topic, then interlocking is used to facilitate the
> 1-read
> 2-tuning
> 3-voice conduction
> 4- is it simply an absurd practice?


1: Not for reading purposes. Copying standards for parts are such that, in a4 for example, where the composer is using stacked voicing, voices A and C are written on the upper stave, while voices B and D are written on the lower one.

2: Interlocking doesn't facilitate tuning as a rule anymore than any other allotment. It's a case-by-case consideration.

3: ?

4: No.

The subject of divisi in its totality is more complex than you can address in quick comments on a blog or forum, and the subject is not even treated with anything more than thin, superficial coverage in any of the thick orchestration books you'll ever find.

The primary concerns that go into making divisi decisions in all but the simplest applications are a combination of creative goals and practical concerns. Compromise between the two is often necessary, and the direction of the compromise is influenced by whether the scoring is for a concert work or a studio one-off. The former allows for much more creativity, complexity, refinement, nuance, and archival-level attention to detail, while the goal of the latter is getting the thing done, acceptably and efficiently, with little-to-no raised hands on the scoring stage, using a proven, straightforward and pragmatic scoring approach.

Factors that influence the final, _performed_ divisi of a more complex nature include (1) the composer's musical intent, obviously, what he wants to emphasize or deemphasize, both audibly and to the musicians, (2) playability regarding ensemble, intonation, and balance, etc., and avoiding awkward voice-leading and intervals for subsets of players when the divisi status changes and the elements are reallotted, (3) the orchestral seating plan, the adjacency of certain players, and the spread between other, more distant ones, (4) the acoustics of the hall and how that affects what the players can hear, (5) the clarity and specificity, and relative compactness of the divisi notation in the score, as contrasted with its expansion in the part, which is often by necessity much different from the score, and (5) page turns, even.

Composers can account for most of this, but not all of it, which is why in the end it's a collaboration between the composer, a _competent_ parts editor or copyist, the conductor, and the musicians. The composer mainly needs to make his musical intentions and divisi allotments clear and practical, and the performers can take it from there. It's easy to write something on paper, but another thing to pull it off in real time.

The best thing to do, as always, is to examine the best examples you can find. Vaughan-Williams did a masterful job of complex divisi throughout the Tallis fantasia, and it's well worth studying for that alone. But Wagner's prelude to _Lohengrin_, while musically stunning, is organizationally unclear throughout and could use a good notation revision, especially the disastrous parts. Debussy and Ravel seem to spend more of their time in divisi than in unison, but Ravel was more fastidious and exacting. And Strauss may be the all-time divisi king. Study them all, and the great commercial/jazz arrangers.

(I once made a condensed score of the divisi section that comes in right after the fanfare in Zarathustra solely to analyze the polyphonic divisi techniques he used, and it required the longest process for that amount of music I've ever had to do. I had to invent a solution for each bar, but I got a tangled web of constant reallotments, function changes, and balances all boiled down to a relatively simple analytic. I wish I could ask him what his approach was during the scoring process.)


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## R.G. (Aug 27, 2022)

NoamL said:


> As for writing lots of 2nds in divisi the only issue I can think of is that it's harder to sight read when you have clusters of notes. The Ogerman example in the previous example is easier to read the way the composer chose and that may be justification enough.


Seconds are not written in the parts, regardless of how they are written in the score. They're placed on separate staves for sure. And even if Ogerman had used stacked voicings, on one stave no less, they would be written in the part on at least two staves, with parts A and C on the upper stave, and parts B and D on the lower. But in the score, especially when writing by hand, spacier voicings are definitely easier to draw for legibility.


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## bryla (Aug 27, 2022)

When you take alternate seating plans into question the distribution can have a bigger impact as well


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## MusicPad (Aug 27, 2022)

I share something from Tim Davies blog:

We often have six or eight horns on a score and a lot of the writing is in unison. Using three or four staves is a waste, so I use one or two and leave the copyist to split out the parts according to how many notes there are, with the assumption that the section will divide evenly (three players each for two notes, two each for three notes, etc.). This now needs no labeling from me. If I want something different, I will mark it as such. The second staff will automatically hide when not in use. Also note that in the scoring world we do not interlock the horns in the traditional way (1/3, 2/4, etc). We just go in pitch order like every other section of the orchestra. It makes life a lot easier when it comes to making changes. I have found that when you record in places that do not record scores all the time, you need to communicate this to the contractor or they will book a traditional section of high and low specialists. In the scoring world I generally need all to be able to play high.

While on the topic of interlocking, there was a period when orchestrators interlocked the Violin 1 and 2 when they had four parts. I have heard several reasons for this, from it being easier to write and read to ‘the better players sit at the front’ (still unpacking that one, and it was twenty years ago I heard it!). I do not believe in our current scoring world there is any advantage to this practice and just like with the horns, it makes life harder when you make changes.

I like to use multi-part staves to maintain visual balance in the score. For double woods they can have a staff each. This also makes sense as the second player will be doubling. For triple woods, I still like to keep it to two staves per instrument. Player one and two on the top and the third on the bottom, as they will be the double or different instrument. Note that in all of my experience the piccolo still goes in the third (or second if only double woods) part.
As mentioned I use one or two staves for the horns and it is not labeled per part. For trumpets I like to use two staves. If there are three trumpets, Trumpet 1 gets the top one all on its own. Strangely I have noticed many people would have Trumpet 1 and 2 together on the top and Trumpet 3 on its own. This does not make any practical sense to me as it is Trumpet 1 that will be playing on their own if anyone, not 3, so this approach creates more work to clarify. The trombones, however, I have first and second on the top then third and fourth on the bottom. Tuba is always on its own. This layout allows my eye to see and analyze the whole section easily.


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## R.G. (Aug 27, 2022)

MusicPad said:


> nelson riddle uses interlocking and double





MusicPad said:


> why did nelson riddle use viokin 1, violin2 and violin 3?


That's an ejazzlines formatting. Riddle's own score would have been a lot more condensed. You can write 12 violins, concerted chordal, up to a4, on one stave. Without any indications the copyist assumes 3 per voice. If there is voice crossing and more independence, then two staves can be used. The player allotment is given wherever need be with parenthesized numbers. The copyist sorts out the part formatting from there.


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## R.G. (Aug 27, 2022)

MusicPad said:


> nelson riddle uses interlocking and double


1: On the downbeat of bar 7, the violins (secondary foreground element) seamlessly handoff to the violas—matched tone violins G#/E to matched tone violas G#/E—who sustain the mi6th (now a background element).

2: The a2 cellos meanwhile play a double-stop F/B, with the B being above violas G#, hence the interlock.

But the interlocking is a consequence, not a goal. To un-interlock it, you wouldn't have the matched tone couplings on the G#/E, and the cellos can't play the double-stop F3/G#3 anyway.


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## R.G. (Aug 27, 2022)

MusicPad said:


> I share something from Tim Davies blog:
> 
> While on the topic of interlocking, there was a period when orchestrators interlocked the Violin 1 and 2 when they had four parts.


Interlocking a4 was never the default approach.



MusicPad said:


> I share something from Tim Davies blog:
> 
> I do not believe in our current scoring world there is any advantage to this practice...


No advantage as a default, correct.

I made some quick examples showing one of several divisi options for close and drop voicings. Firsts are red; Seconds are blue. Everything is divisi at the stand unless otherwise noted. Take everything in isolation as if staged voicings, no surrounding context unless otherwise noted.






Examples 1–7: If this were a context of lines rather than padding, you could assign the top note of each section to the front half and the bottom note to the back half.

1 & 2: Interlocked emphasizes the 5ths, and lessens the, uh, "harmonic-ness" relative to the default of having each section divide a4 by player. If this were a context of lines rather than padding, you could the top note of each section to the front half, and the bottom note to the back half.

3: Stacked, like normal.

4: Interlocked to put a little air between the mi2nd. But in actual music contexts, 2nds arise naturally in the course of voice-leading, so if the overall voicing is stacked, switching to interlocked just for the mi2nd would be fussy, and might make for some poor line-writing. More likely is that this allotment would be a consequence of emphasizing the 6ths, and if sustained or tremolo, the couplings would be easy as double-stops.

5: Stacked, like normal. Emphasizes the 5ths, and mi2nd is separated.

6: Voicings in 4ths are always stacked. To emphasize the 4ths voicing rather than lines, you'd give the whole chord to each section and divide by player.

7: Enclosed for situations such as the firsts playing double-stop 8th reps staccato, but the seconds divisi sustain.

8: Interlocked to emphasize the octave couplings. And to emphasize the line writing, you'd give the top note of each octave to the front half, and the bottom note to the back.

9: Stacked to emphasize the couplings in 6ths. Same comment as in no. 8 about emphasizing the line.

10: Interlocking resulting from scoring the different rhythms to each section. Same comment as in no. 8 about emphasizing the line.


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## MusicPad (Aug 27, 2022)

thanks for your answer, which do you think is better interlocking or stacked?


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## R.G. (Aug 28, 2022)

For page 1 I like stacked better. When you interlock violas and cellos, especially in this region, the top cello note, which will be bright, will likely stick out of the four-part pad with respect to the violas. The pad should be homogenous and neutral, and this level of tessitura and string mismatching between the top cello and the bottom viola is incompatible with that.

For page 2 I still like stacked.


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## mikeh-375 (Aug 28, 2022)

interlocking is also a way to make a part more interesting. sorry if that's been covered.


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## Duncan Krummel (Aug 28, 2022)

Not apropos to how this question is being asked; but, in the case of VIs, there’s an argument to be had regarding the different timbres between recorded sections. Interlocked voices may blend better in such a case, potentially at risk of blurring the stereo image a bit.


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## MusicPad (Aug 28, 2022)

I have seen that some arrangers prefer to do divisi on the cellos when they have a 6-voice chord, How do you prefer to distribute the voices?


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## R.G. (Aug 28, 2022)

The act of dividing the cellos for the extra note instead of any other group would of course be done on account of spacing and tessitura.

For a neutral voicing, still keeping the top cello line below the violas is best as the default.*** But good voice-leading can result in that sometimes being temporarily a secondary consideration.

Additionally, the cellos a2 don't thin out as much as violins or violas do when they divide. And what little thinning there is, is advantageous to keep the bass register from becoming over-thick in any event, as long as the lower intervals are well-managed.

In concert works, the bottom cello is often doubling the basses in octaves, and in such cases it works better to allot the back half players to that line because of their proximity to the basses, while also placing the top line players nearer the other strings with whom they are integrated. This allotment is both musical _and_ (ensemble-wise) practical, by separating the elements better and allowing the cellos to hear their place in the texture, and to adjust their intonation, phrasing, and timing accordingly.

In classic commercial arranging, dividing the cellos stacked by player is a good default, since the lowest cello note is in most cases rarely tethered to the string bass and is usually not bass related.
____________________

***As a related aside, here's one of many examples demonstrating why, as a default, you want to avoid putting any cellos above the violas when the two should be neutrally balanced. This is the first two bars from an unfinished transcription of portions of the second movement of the Brahms four. (The instrument abbreviations are singular because of my shorthand system for transcriptions, but the full sections are playing here.)

The foreground is scored for the cellos, which remain on their A-string for the vast majority of the time in the passage to bar 51. All strings are marked *p*, but cellos are _*espressivo*_ while the other strings are *dolce*. It shows Brahms's confident management of tessitura, when everyone has the same dynamic and they are all rubbing elbows in this tight spacing throughout, that the cellos will emerge subtly and naturally.






With about 7 seconds of pre-roll, here's Orazco-Estrada and the Frankfurt.


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## MusicPad (Aug 28, 2022)

R.G. said:


> The act of dividing the cellos for the extra note instead of any other group would of course be done on account of spacing and tessitura.
> 
> For a neutral voicing, still keeping the top cello line below the violas is best as the default.*** But good voice-leading can result in that sometimes being temporarily a secondary consideration.
> 
> ...



thanks for your contribution!


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## MusicPad (Aug 28, 2022)

My orchestration teacher told me that he preferred the more open intervals when making divisi on cellos (fourths, fifths, sixths and sevenths) and the smaller intervals such as seconds and thirds darkened the sound, on violins it was better to make divisions with thirds and second

in summary more open in the low register and more closed in the high register

this makes sense?

He also told me to avoid making seconds between sections, for example if he had an F-Eb-D cluster

Violin 1 was assigned F, Violin 2 was assigned D and Viola was assigned Eb, thus avoiding the second between violin 1 and violin 2

this makes sense?


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## MusicPad (Aug 28, 2022)

in this example the Calandrelli encloses violin 2, I think it prevents seconds from forming between sections like violin 2 and violas


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## MusicPad (Aug 28, 2022)

I have come to the conclusion that there is no book where they talk about interlock on the strings, in fact they do not dedicate more than one page to divisi, I think this is a practice that has been passed from generation to generation, by the way Simon, what a good you opened debate hehe.


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## Electric Lion (Sep 1, 2022)

MusicPad said:


> I share something from Tim Davies blog:
> 
> We often have six or eight horns on a score and a lot of the writing is in unison. Using three or four staves is a waste, so I use one or two and leave the copyist to split out the parts according to how many notes there are, with the assumption that the section will divide evenly (three players each for two notes, two each for three notes, etc.). This now needs no labeling from me. If I want something different, I will mark it as such. The second staff will automatically hide when not in use. Also note that in the scoring world we do not interlock the horns in the traditional way (1/3, 2/4, etc). We just go in pitch order like every other section of the orchestra. It makes life a lot easier when it comes to making changes. I have found that when you record in places that do not record scores all the time, you need to communicate this to the contractor or they will book a traditional section of high and low specialists. In the scoring world I generally need all to be able to play high.
> 
> ...


I recently revised my score template and took out a bunch of superfluous staves. Just for the brass I had 8 horns on 4 staves, 4 trumpets on 2 staves, 4 trombones on 2 staves and 2 tubas on 2 staves. I changed it to 8 horns on 2 staves (or even 1 if playing a8), 4 trumpets on 1 staff, 4 bones on 1 staff and 2 tubas on 1 staff. This visually keeps it looking like a more traditional score that had 4-2or3-3-1 on 5 staves as well as reducing overall verticality. Of course I can add split staves for a part here and there if it gets too busy but I find overall it's actually easier to read.

P.S. regarding the 3rd trumpet on its own staff. In many scores the 3rd trumpet is the "low trumpet" and will actually join up with the horns or trombones while the 1st and 2nd play a completely different part. It's all over the score to Star Wars for example including the main title (bar 46).


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## bryla (Sep 2, 2022)

For my writing I completely join the 'Trumpet 1 on it's own staff if only 3 trumpets'-team just because of the nature of the music I tend to score.


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## johncdl (Sep 2, 2022)

NoamL said:


> *Don't worry* too much about blending the strings. They are the easiest group to blend in the orchestra, and if they can rehearse the piece once or twice so each section understands their place in the texture, they can make almost anything "work okay."
> 
> I agree with Tim Davies that in a 6-10 voice orchestration for the strings, interlocking the divisi parts "so they'll blend better" just doesn't do much.
> 
> ...


Tim Davies likes to use that Elgar trick. A lot of his orchestrations have the melody on the 1sts, (counter)melody on celli, bass line on basses (+ 2 or 4 celli players if needed), then finally, harmonic pad on the 2nds and violas.


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