# High on the left, low on the right?... and combinations of string articulations?



## Lode_Runner (Nov 10, 2015)

Hi everyone, I'm new to the world of orchestral music composition, and have a couple of naive newbie questions I'd like to ask.

Firstly, I've been wondering (as someone who has high pitch hearing loss in my left ear) why high pitched instruments are generally positioned to the left of lower pitched instruments in an orchestra? ie going left to right:

Violins - Violas - Cellos - Double Basses
piccolos - flutes - oboes - Cor-Anglais
clarinets - bassoons - contrabassoon
French horns - trumpets - trombone - tuba
(sometimes this seems to be the pattern with percussion as well - eg triangles to the left, timpani to the right)​
I've read (https://brainsidea.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/the-biological-basis-of-orchestra-seating/) that our right ears have better high pitch perception than our left, and that as a result the orchestra is positioned in the way it is for the benefit of the musicians rather than the audience or conductor. This has made me wonder if there might be better, more balanced, stereo field arrangements for sample library based productions? Or should I stop wasting my time and accept the combined wisdom of generations of far more accomplished musicians than myself?

My second question is something I thought about after looking through articulations lists for various string libraries. It's not uncommon to see lists including articulations such as:

* Con Sordino
* Flageolet
* Sul Ponticello
* tremolo​
However, you rarely see combinations of these eg the above four could theoretically be played simultaneously, or less extreme possibilities could be things like pizzicato flageolet, sul tasto con sordino, sul ponticello spiccato etc. I know to cover all possible articulations without modelling would require a Petabyte hard drive and cost more than I could ever hope to afford, but do such combinations exist in real-world orchestral arrangements and are any of them common?

Thank you for your patience


----------



## sleepy hollow (Nov 10, 2015)

Lode_Runner said:


> do such combinations exist in real-world orchestral arrangements and are any of them common?


Of course. _Portato_ is a good example - a combination of staccato and legato, if you wanna put it that way.


----------



## KEnK (Nov 10, 2015)

The orchestra is seated that way because of the way sound works
and is expressed in the real world by real musicians.
Mainly the instruments are grouped together so they can blend as needed-
Tuba and trombones often play w/ the basses
Cellos will blend w/ either the basses or the violins.
You wouldn't want the basses in the middle of the stage because it would divide
the strings, and hamper that all important blending of tone and phrasing-
Where would the woodwinds go in such a case?

When you see a real orchestra the sound is mostly everywhere anyway.
All that said- I recently saw the MTT and the SF Symph.
For a particular piece in the 2nd half of the performance the seating arrangement was changed.
Basses and cellos on the left.
I don't know why as the piece seemed not texturally different from most.

When you go see a real orchestra- so many of these questions become crystal clear.
For example, only in a live setting do you realize that the bass drum is 10 times as loud as the tympani.
That's why it's called the "Gran Casa". You don't get things like that from recordings.
And I have to say I've never read anything about frequency response being inherently different in one ear or the other.
But it is a fact that we don't get "directional" information from low end as much as high end sound.

Hope that helps

k

p.s. I just read the post you linked to and a couple other posts at that blog.
"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain"


----------



## jacobthestupendous (Nov 10, 2015)

Much of it comes down to traditional placement for live performance combined with libraries making decisions about where to place the "listener" in the stereo field. It seems that libraries that bake in "proper seating positions" in their sample panning assume that you want to hear it from the conductor's perspective, instead of from the audience's perspective, which KEnK rightly pointed out largely makes everyone blend everywhere. I expect orchestras tend to sit in roughly the same places for many of the practical reasons that KEnK mentioned but also because conductors prefer not to have to relearn where to point to cue different sections.


----------



## D.Salzenberg (Nov 10, 2015)

Just to wind everyone up, I would venture that in a mix the bass always sits central, and if you mixed the bass to the far right it would sound rubbish, and so the orchestral convention of having the bass on the far right has always been WRONG!!!!!


----------



## KEnK (Nov 10, 2015)

??
Do you listen to any classical music?
I just listened to some Bartok, Mahler, Rachmaninov and Mendelssohn.
Basses are to the right.
When I listen to classical radio in the car- basses are to the right.
Why confuse the op w/ non-real world unsubstantiated suppositions?

"Some" recorded music actually attempts to replicate what musicians are actually playing.


----------



## D.Salzenberg (Nov 10, 2015)

I did say it was a wind up, and I wasn't being serious!


----------



## Lode_Runner (Nov 10, 2015)

You did succeed in confusing me though D , as I am used to the conventions of Rock mixes, so was considering the possibility that what applies in a concert hall may not be the same as what should apply in a stereo speakers in the lounge-room setup. 

Thanks for the explanation K. I think I'll need to go see a real orchestra perform as I haven't yet but have always wanted to. I'm guessing, given that the sound from the audience's perspective is basically everywhere, and that positioning is more about blending sections, that it might not matter too much if I choose to mix in the reverse mirror image order (basses to the left, violins to the right etc) as this would help with my hearing. 

Thanks for the input regarding the difference between conductor perspective and audience perspective as well Jacob. More food for thought.

And thanks Sleepy for pointing out portato in relation to my other question.


----------



## wpc982 (Nov 10, 2015)

Definitely go to a live orchestra in a good hall ... the clarity will be very surprising if you are used to recordings ... you can really hear things from all corners of the orchestra, and the dynamic contrasts are far far greater than any recording ... so many recordings, seems to me more and more recently, tend to highlight just one prominent line and you can hardly hear anything else, but in a live performance all the texture becomes more real.


----------



## Daryl (Nov 10, 2015)

D.Salzenberg said:


> Just to wind everyone up, I would venture that in a mix the bass always sits central, and if you mixed the bass to the far right it would sound rubbish, and so the orchestral convention of having the bass on the far right has always been WRONG!!!!!


Yeah, but proper musicians don't do artificial things like "mix". 

D


----------



## Hannes_F (Nov 10, 2015)

Lode_Runner said:


> I've read (https://brainsidea.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/the-biological-basis-of-orchestra-seating/) that our right ears have better high pitch perception than our left, and that as a result the orchestra is positioned in the way it is for the benefit of the musicians rather than the audience or conductor.



I think that article might be somewhat off track. [...] How can we talk about orchestra seating without considering the main sound direction of the violins going to the right side of the player (player's perspective)? Since most people are right-handed the bow is right (big movements) and the violin left (small movements). Thus the violin is somewhat tilted to the right, meaning that the right side of the violin is lower than the left side. As a consequence the sound goes more to the right than to the left. As a consequence the first violins have to sit on the left side in order to beam their sound into the audience while keeping eye contact with the conductor. There are plenty of variations for the other sections, and all have reasons, but the first violins are fixed, and it has a simple acoustical reason.

You can check this easily if you look at the orchestra from the front - you will see the bows in front of the violins, not behind. Sometimes the second violins or the violas are sitting at the right side, and then the instruments will be in front of the bows (which is acoustically unfortunate).


----------



## KEnK (Nov 10, 2015)

Hannes_F said:


> he querty keyboard is an outcome of most people using two hands,


Hannes- I'm not sure if you know this or not-
I've read that the qwerty ordering of letters was designed to slow people down.
At the time people could type faster than the mechanism could respond to-
So this was thought of as a solution to the slow response of the typing mechanism.
Perhaps this is "urban legend", but I always thought it must be true-
because it's so absurd.

k


----------



## Hannes_F (Nov 10, 2015)

KEnK, you are probably right, and it is a distraction anyways. I erased that part of my post, thanks for that information.


----------



## KEnK (Nov 10, 2015)

Hannes-

You didn't need to erase it!
What if I just made that up? 
This is the internet you know,
nothing is "true" except what you agree with-

k


----------



## Markus Kohlprath (Nov 11, 2015)

In the Vienna states opera the basses are behind the other string sections in the middle. At least last time when I was there wacthing Wagners Ring and Bergs Wozzeck. And I think it was Barenboim if I remember right and it was the New Years concert (Wiener Musikvereinsaal) I think where the Basses also have been in the middle. Very often at least in vienna I've seen 1. Viol on the right and 2. Viol on the left. So I assume the orchestral seating positions are not so much a natural law but depend rather on decisions made by the conductor and maybe by the acoustic circumstances of the hall and the composition and maybe also if it is recorded. I don't know it's just an observation.
Anyway it might not be a bad idea to experiment with different panning in mock ups.


----------



## KEnK (Nov 11, 2015)

Here's a link to various seating diagrams

http://andrewhugill.com/manuals/seating.html


----------



## Lode_Runner (Nov 11, 2015)

Thanks Hannes, Markus and KEnK. The diagrams you provided are very useful KEnK, thank you.


----------



## KEnK (Nov 11, 2015)

Lode_Runner said:


> The diagrams you provided are very useful KEnK, thank you.


Yes- It's very interesting.
A little hard to see but the conductors names and sometime the pieces are listed.
The 4th from the bottom is the only one where you have a symmetrical seating plan.
This is for Bartok's "Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste".
No pesky brass or woodwinds to muck up the works. 

k


----------



## Hannes_F (Nov 11, 2015)

KEnK said:


> nothing is "true" except what you agree with-



But I agree  sort of: querty still has its roots with two hands typing but at the same time the layout prevented messing up the type levers and in order to do that certain letters had to be separated. I knew that once but forgot ...


----------



## Hannes_F (Nov 11, 2015)

Just in order to add to the confusion: 6 Basses symmetrical to the back with the Vienna Philharmonics:





PS.: Price question: who can spot the mic systems? HD pics here:
http://herzundliebe.com/lebensweisheiten/attachment/dsc09508/
http://herzundliebe.com/wp-content/uploads/DSC09492.jpg
http://www.soundtracksandtrailermusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/739947_413892078688607_928865671_o.jpg


----------



## goodgrief! (Nov 11, 2015)

Lode_Runner said:


> Hi everyone, I'm new to the world of orchestral music composition, and have a couple of naive newbie questions I'd like to ask.
> 
> Firstly, I've been wondering (as someone who has high pitch hearing loss in my left ear) why high pitched instruments are generally positioned to the left of lower pitched instruments in an orchestra? ie going left to right:
> 
> ...



I think you would find 'Anatomy of the orchestra' by Norman Del Mar extremely interesting and beneficial in this respect. I enjoyed it very much, and was surprised to discover the many - and sometimes funny - reasons the different instruments and sections are arranged as they are. It turns out, also, that there are quite a few exceptions to the 'rules' of seating - a point worth knowing and keeping in mind. Good luck!


----------



## KEnK (Nov 11, 2015)

Hannes_F said:


> Just in order to add to the confusion: 6 Basses symmetrical to the back with the Vienna Philharmonics:


The mystery deepens, conspiracies continue-
What is the instrument to the conductors right? A Zither? A Washboard?
To tie the thread together-
the best seating arrangement would be by performers last name-
1st initial according to the qwerty keyboard, regardless of instrument.
I'm going to write that into my next symphonic work-
I'll call it the Qwerty Quagmire Conundrum! 

k


----------



## Lode_Runner (Nov 12, 2015)

Thanks for the reading recommendation Goodgrief


----------



## NoamL (Nov 12, 2015)

The orchestra wasn't always arranged according to the current seating chart. During the classical period it was often arranged Vln1-Viola-Cello/Bass-Vln2. This makes a lot of sense for the way baroque and early classical composers wrote for strings.

You get to put the (often extraordinarily uninteresting, but harmonically crucial) bass parts in the middle, and you get to spatially separate the two sections that have the vast majority of the melodic material.

The argument I've heard against this arrangement, is that it makes Vln2 point their instrument upstage instead of downstage, like Hannes said. In practice, I think another important objection is that players are just more used to playing, balancing and tuning together in the modern arrangement.

Why do trumpets sit on the right? I reckon it comes from back when the trumpet and timpani had similar, very limited roles in the orchestra, before both instruments became fully chromatic. Look at Beethoven symphonies, the two instruments are always doing 1-5-1-5 together, so it makes sense to seat them together.



> It seems that libraries that bake in "proper seating positions" in their sample panning assume that you want to hear it from the conductor's perspective, instead of from the audience's perspective



I think they are trying to give you a Decca tree perspective, which, yeah, is pretty close to what the conductor hears and different from what you'll hear in the hall.


----------



## NoamL (Nov 12, 2015)

Hannes_F said:


> Just in order to add to the confusion: 6 Basses symmetrical to the back with the Vienna Philharmonics:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Good grief, that arrangement just looks like they struggled to fit everyone on stage.

Timpani next to harps? Yeah that'll work. :|


----------



## KEnK (Nov 12, 2015)

NoamL said:


> Timpani next to harps? Yeah that'll work.


We don't know the piece that seating was for-
It's possible that the timps and harp didn't play at the same time-
Also the trumpet on the right makes sense since they play w/ the bones so much of the time.

k


----------



## Hannes_F (Nov 13, 2015)

@ NoamL, KEnK
Hehe, yes it look crowded on the photos but I've never seen them sit different. Also harp, timpani and trumpets are always there afaik.


----------

