# Great tutorials on orchestration



## erikradbo (Aug 3, 2017)

I stumbled upon a guy called JJay Berthume on youtube, where he's doing very condensed and efficient orchestration tutorials. A good start is this one where he's analyzing John Williams Harry Potter score (Hedwigs Theme).

I have been watching lots of other tutorials, paid ones and not, and I find this guy to be really concise and to the point.


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## Architekton (Aug 3, 2017)

Thats nice...


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## PeterN (Aug 3, 2017)

I wonder when someone will 'crack' Williams and make a sample library of this style. If you can call it style. Do you guys think this is possible?

From what I understand John Williams uses a certain logical part and a certain chaotic part, but its still within a mathematical frame, well to some degree, and with the tools today, at least some his techniques could be made to a sample library. Right? Say, you press 'brass d' and you get this star war styled brass, within a certain tempo frame and time signature. 

Then again, in some of the midi scores online, Williams keeps switching the tempo and time signature on a conituous basis. Its really impressing. And the way he uses some instruments, like the clarinet, for example. You have to have a deep affection, respect and relationship with that instrument to be able to get it to share back its affection, respect, and even improvise for you alive. It seems Williams relationship with certain instruments is deep, almost like a father, and look what the clarinet does. Its like the clarinet was saying: "thank you for recognizing me, this is what I can do". For anyone to achieve that, you need to live on a desert island, isolated, 5 years, with a clarinet, to develop this type of relationship and affection, no sample library will be able to do that.


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## fiestared (Aug 3, 2017)

erikradbo said:


> I stumbled upon a guy called JJay Berthume on youtube, where he's doing very condensed and efficient orchestration tutorials. A good start is this one where he's analyzing John Williams Harry Potter score (Hedwigs Theme).
> 
> I have been watching lots of other tutorials, paid ones and not, and I find this guy to be really concise and to the point.



Thanks for the link, this guy is "passionnant " and he LOVES Music so much, we need more people like him...


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## Paul T McGraw (Aug 3, 2017)

PeterN said:


> Then again, in some of the midi scores online, Williams keeps switching the tempo and time signature on a conituous basis. Its really impressing. And the way he uses some instruments, like the clarinet, for example. You have to have a deep affection, respect and relationship with that instrument to be able to get it to share back its affection, respect, and even improvise for you alive. It seems Williams relationship with certain instruments is deep, almost like a father, and look what the clarinet does. Its like the clarinet was saying: "thank you for recognizing me, this is what I can do". For anyone to achieve that, you need to live on a desert island, isolated, 5 years, with a clarinet, to develop this type of relationship and affection, no sample library will be able to do that.



I totally agree with the quotation above. Williams is very, very impressive in lots and lots of way. I have purchased many of his scores and the more I study Williams, the greater my respect for him grows. I do not believe anyone will ever be able to recreate him with software. For me, the defining quality of Williams music is the use of themes and motives. The first step would be creating themes and motives that are memorable, easily recognizable in different instruments, different tessitura, different timbres and clearly indentify with a character or concept. Then weave those themes and motives into lots of different musical frameworks. I don't think a computer could do it.


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## PeterN (Aug 3, 2017)

Paul T McGraw said:


> I totally agree with the quotation above. Williams is very, very impressive in lots and lots of way. I have purchased many of his scores and the more I study Williams, the greater my respect for him grows. I do not believe anyone will ever be able to recreate him with software. For me, the defining quality of Williams music is the use of themes and motives. The first step would be creating themes and motives that are memorable, easily recognizable in different instruments, different tessitura, different timbres and clearly indentify with a character or concept. Then weave those themes and motives into lots of different musical frameworks. I don't think a computer could do it.



Good points Paul. I suspect theres even more to it. That you cant just sit down any day and weave a great melody, or motive, its something that either decides to come to knock on your door, or it wont. Or you have the partial access to it or you dont. Or you dont have the access to but can develop it. Sometimes small coincidences play in here too. I mean, there are several ways to compose, but some of the greatest melodies are likely more than just sitting down and doing a motive. Maybe some are actually, but theres still a touch of something - what you could call - spiritual around.


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## JohnG (Aug 3, 2017)

Good idea to have this thread.

Here are a couple of sites that are interesting, dependent, naturally, on one's background; for some they will be too elementary, for others maybe too advanced?

http://www.timusic.net/debreved/extreme-australian-orchestration/#.VEAAuL5XQs3

https://orchestrasounds.com


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Aug 3, 2017)

PeterN said:


> I wonder when someone will 'crack' Williams and make a sample library of this style. If you can call it style. Do you guys think this is possible?
> 
> From what I understand John Williams uses a certain logical part and a certain chaotic part, but its still within a mathematical frame, well to some degree, and with the tools today, at least some his techniques could be made to a sample library. Right? Say, you press 'brass d' and you get this star war styled brass, within a certain tempo frame and time signature.
> 
> Then again, in some of the midi scores online, Williams keeps switching the tempo and time signature on a conituous basis. Its really impressing. And the way he uses some instruments, like the clarinet, for example. You have to have a deep affection, respect and relationship with that instrument to be able to get it to share back its affection, respect, and even improvise for you alive. It seems Williams relationship with certain instruments is deep, almost like a father, and look what the clarinet does. Its like the clarinet was saying: "thank you for recognizing me, this is what I can do". For anyone to achieve that, you need to live on a desert island, isolated, 5 years, with a clarinet, to develop this type of relationship and affection, no sample library will be able to do that.



Just my 2 cents here: This will end up sounding like a douchy version of williams, because his style and music is not in the sound of the samples, rather so much more in how he writes. When you want to write in such style you better learn the idiomatics in his composing, voicings and harmonies and the way how his music is orchestrated. I understand what you are after but believe me: It is not the libraries sound which is here important. Sure some of his effects and cool sounding textures are hard to replicate even with current libraries (not impossible..!), but this is not what the essence of his writing is about.


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## JohnG (Aug 3, 2017)

@AlexanderSchiborr is so right here. Luckily, the remedy is much less expensive than a single university course -- JW signature scores, available from many places. 

Not that owning the scores alone will make anybody JW in a hurry, but I agree with Alexander that learning to emulate his sound has (almost) nothing to do with the samples and everything to do with the writing. Even with EWQLSO from 13 years ago, one can mock up a Williams score with reasonably satisfying results, because it's all there on the page.

With more recent libraries and their ability to reproduce runs and whatnot, it sounds better, naturally. Literally 20 hours with JW's scores, mocking up four, or maybe eight bars here and there, can improve understanding measurably.


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## PeterN (Aug 3, 2017)

Hey JohnG (or anyone else here),

Would you, or anyone here argue, that JW uses a specific type of technique? That you can find in most of his works?

Personally Ive realized some of the JW scores may sound 'simple' and nice, but they have a lot more complexity there under the surface. I didnt buy that 'genius' stuff until I saw all this tempo changing. And it seems so fluent that one almost wonders if he was playing with those who would try to analyze him. And always being at least two steps ahead. Or is it possible to find a clear structure when you see all his work?

Just as if there was a certain amount of Bob Dylan in John Williams, and it would not be possible to hang him in a frame or put under a label. Or?

Edit: Oh, by the way, no intention here to change topic of this thread. Name of thread was Great Orchestral Tutorials, right. Maybe I started to mamble too much into Williams here.


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## jonathanparham (Aug 3, 2017)

erikradbo said:


> I stumbled upon a guy called JJay Berthume on youtube, where he's doing very condensed and efficient orchestration tutorials. A good start is this one where he's analyzing John Williams Harry Potter score (Hedwigs Theme).
> 
> I have been watching lots of other tutorials, paid ones and not, and I find this guy to be really concise and to the point.



I've been following him for a while and he's very responsive. He has a lot of tutorials and is passionate about composing. Berthune himself has said there are 'no shortcuts' for learning. He's also half way through his composition school.


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## JohnG (Aug 4, 2017)

PeterN said:


> Would you, or anyone here argue, that JW uses a specific type of technique?



Yes; in fact I think the most dazzling aspect of JW's composition is that he seems to be able to keep every technique he's ever encountered in his head at all times, deploying whatever he needs at the time.

Take just his chord substitutions, which possibly he learned as a piano player and jazz aficionado. He throws in these crazy, crunch Major 7th chords all the time, he uses tone cluster groups, chords made up of two different scales or of one unusual one.

And on top of that knowledge he has a concerto-level knowledge of every orchestral instrument there is.

He is able to keep his music coherent in part because he does use these techniques, so no matter how "outside" the harmonies get, he has an anchor.


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## aaronventure (Aug 5, 2017)

For those wondering if "JW Sample Library" could make them sound like John Williams or if there's one technique that will unlock the secret to his music, I would highly suggest you choose one of JW pieces that there's an orchestral score available for (even better would be to transcribe, but that would take much longer to get to my point) and mock it up using your existing sample libraries (it'll take some hours).

As long as you have an all-around string library, a decent brass library (even Adventure Brass will do), a decent woodwinds library and some piatti and timpani samples, you can do it. And you'll be surprised what good writing actually means and what you can do with your existing samples. And possibly convinced that buying new sample libraries won't make up for good writing.

You can't skip it or shortcut it, you can't buy your way out of it. The stuff JohnG talks about above he knows because he's seen it, analyzed it and studied it.

Sit down and transcribe, study, then go try and apply what you learned immediately in your own piece. Repeat. Same thing for every other composer whose techniques you want to become familiar with. It will take a long time for you to go through the amount of music available, analyze it and absorb it, so you might as well start today


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## PeterN (Aug 5, 2017)

aaronventure said:


> For those wondering if "JW Sample Library" could make them sound like John Williams or if there's one technique that will unlock the secret to his music, I would highly suggest you choose one of JW pieces that there's an orchestral score available for (even better would be to transcribe, but that would take much longer to get to my point) and mock it up using your existing sample libraries (it'll take some hours).
> 
> As long as you have an all-around string library, a decent brass library (even Adventure Brass will do), a decent woodwinds library and some piatti and timpani samples, you can do it. And you'll be surprised what good writing actually means and what you can do with your existing samples. And possibly convinced that buying new sample libraries won't make up for good writing.
> 
> ...



Good points. Just saying, it was more of a theoretical question, than a personal wish to 'push a button and sound like Williams'. A question to those who have analyzed Williams scores more deeply, and found a uniform structure, that whether theres a structure frame so uniform that it could be made to a sample library. I mean, theres computers beating us in chess now since years back. This year The Orchestra came out by Sonuscore. We are going this direction, arent we. But it was also meant as a tribute to Williams, that he is going beyond that frame.


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