# Divisi strings. When to do it?



## Peter M. (Jun 4, 2014)

Other than the obvious reasons where you want a high chord sustained by violins while having celli play the melody, when do you usually use divisi in a full orchestra setting. Lets say it's a tutti chord. Would you divisi some of the section, or have them play in 4-part harmony style?


----------



## Jem7 (Jun 5, 2014)

When you need more notes to play you have to divide or when you need more blend within notes.


----------



## Guy Rowland (Jun 5, 2014)

Peter M. @ Wed Jun 04 said:


> Other than the obvious reasons where you want a high chord sustained by violins while having celli play the melody, when do you usually use divisi in a full orchestra setting. Lets say it's a tutti chord. Would you divisi some of the section, or have them play in 4-part harmony style?



I'm no orchestrator ("oh really" cry the stalls), so someone more knowledgeable than me can give you a much better / fuller answer but I think the principle is pretty simple. With 1st and 2nd violins, viola, celli and bass you have 5 notes or voices to play with across the whole strings range. If you need more than that, you'll need to divide at least one instrument's players into 2 or 3 to create more voices. Of course for artistic reasons you may want to do this on other occasions - if you have a triad in the violin's range, you could separate the 1st violins alone into the three parts.

Splitting the part into divisi obviously has an affect on the sound itself - there's less players playing each part. If you had 1v playing a triad and the cellos playing a unison melody, the melody might sit better than if you split that triad into all the players unison playing each note in 1v, 2v and va - there's less players and therefore less weight placed on the triad overall.

In terms of samples, divisi can stop the build up of unrealistic / fake sounding section sizes. In the above example, if you played a triad on a 1V non-divisi patch, you might have 48 players scraping away at it - you therefore wouldn't get that reduction in weight overall. Often the effect of this isn't so much that is sounds big, but synthy - and of course if you play one note, then three, then one, 32 players are magically added just for that triad in the middle. If you had LASS and used the A, B, C sections to play the triad, you'd have 8, 4, 4 players =16, which would be the more realistic way of doing it. LASS' auto arranger can handle this on the fly, so one note is A, B and C all playing in unison, while three would take a different line each, keeping the overall size consistent.


----------



## AC986 (Jun 5, 2014)

I think that's well put and explained Guy. 

There's also the effect divisi can have on the mood of a piece through sound as Guy alluded. The splitting of notes (if you like) goes across the other orchestral choirs; brass for example etc.


----------



## Stiltzkin (Jun 5, 2014)

Can be for a few reasons really, first would be for the quality of the sound - you get a very lovely thin and clear sound from divisi writing. That same thin sound also allows for more tension to be heard, dissonance is much clearer and less muddy when used in a divisi setting.

But balance is the other issue, you can't have your entire string section play and expect to hear a soft flute line live, but with divisi you have a better shot at it, while still getting the harmony you want there. That's obviously a simple example, but the principle is applied to all areas of orchestration really.


----------



## bryla (Jun 5, 2014)

Stiltzkin @ Thu Jun 05 said:


> But balance is the other issue, you can't have your entire string section play and expect to hear a soft flute line live, but with divisi you have a better shot at it, while still getting the harmony you want there.


Divisi or not you can hear a soft flute line very well accompanied by the entire string section. The divisi really don't make a difference in that.

Apart from more notes, you can also think of the spread. For example if you have two notes you can either have the 1st violins play top and 2nd play bottom - one left and one 'right'. If however both sections play the two notes divided you have from left to right: top bottom top bottom. Spread out.

You can also have different roles spread out. Top divisions play melody unison - spreads out across the stage - and bottom divisions play some kind of accompaniment.

You can make a homogenous triad spread out between 2nds and Vla for example by dividing them 'unevenly' so 2nds play top - middle and Vla plays middle - bottom.

Really there are a lot of different uses and a lot of ways to employ divisi. Study the literature and ask yourself: why use divisi here?


----------



## marclawsonmusic (Jun 5, 2014)

I found this article to be very helpful. There are some interesting real-world insights into how players and section leaders handle divisi.

http://www.timusic.net/notation/dived-and-conquer/


----------



## Hannes_F (Jun 5, 2014)

When to do divisi strings? 

#1. You have no friggin idea how to distribute the many fingers you just plugged down on the keyboard for a chord. Since you have more fingers than voices something needs to be distributed.
#2. You are too lazy or hurried in order to figure out proper 4 part voicing (you actually could ... but did I mention you are lazy or hurried ....)
#3. You know what you are doing and really use it for sonic reasons.

#3 has to do with (incomplete list)

#3.1 harmonics (overtones) and the amount of friction/denseness they can produce between voices depending on their interval and pitch (think wall of sound vs. transparent sound)
#3.2 fullness of lead voices (e.g. splitting the Violins 1 can considerably weaken the fullness of the highest part which is something you might or might not want)
#3.3 the necessity or un-necessity of notes for harmonic reasons (it is not always necessary to play all the chord notes all the time, for example the major third of a chord might be skipped at times, or for another example the whole string section could play just one note in unisono, etc.)
#3.4 the relation of the second (sounding) voice to the first (highest) voice. With a typical keyboard-to-score approach you often end up having a perfect fourth between the both highest voices which can sound unfortunate for strings. Open voicing (have the second voice lower than that and play that fourth in the violas an octave lower) can sound less piercing and reduces the necessity for divisi writing in the middle voices.


----------



## bryla (Jun 5, 2014)

Actually Hannes that is pretty much spot on!

Don't use it unless you know what you're doing


----------



## Hannes_F (Jun 5, 2014)

bryla, for the records I edited my comment after yours in order to give some examples for #3.


----------



## Guy Rowland (Jun 5, 2014)

bryla @ Thu Jun 05 said:


> Actually Hannes that is pretty much spot on!
> 
> Don't use it unless you know what you're doing



Hannes' post was great, but not so sure about the implication of your addition. Like anything else, you use your ears and what knowledge you have. On my little LASS fumble-through video I do a simple AA on / off in LASS, to show the slightly subtle but so important difference between using divisi on block chords and not. If someone is just at the level of playing triads on a sus v1 patch all the time, even there divisi can help if they want to make it sound less synthy (the LASS multi Batman Cries is as good an advertisement for this as anything). No-one should be dissuaded from using tools just because they lack the formal training - try it, experiment.

Usually I write individual lines for the 5 (or less) instruments, but there are times when using divisi within one instrument - especially for delicate passages - works better.


----------



## bryla (Jun 5, 2014)

It was actually not meant seriously. Hence the smiley. Heck if I hadn't tried to use divisi I would never learn it. I still think that one should study all the divisi sections in for example Daphnis et Chloe which is a monstrous example of the technique and try to analyze what's going on and why. 

Regarding the 'too many fingers in the keyboard chord that I slammed down with my sustain patch' I've often orchestrated the voices out and written melodies out from the voicings for divided sections. It makes more sense for the individual player to see melodies that way.

And no, you should not only use it when you know what you're doing. It's not some kind of medicine you're giving patients. You should use it to your imagination!


----------



## Saxer (Jun 6, 2014)

here are some more divisi reasons


if you want a 'big' chord from low bass to high violins you have to double notes in different octaves to avoid gaps between the notes.

if you want full chords but a certain sound. i.e. only basses and celli

if you want to divide the string section for different tasks. i.e. low pad and octava melody

if you want chords in a register which are out of range for some of the instruments. i.e. very high tremolo chords to double harp.

if you work with upperstructure triads. i.e. Ab maj (in violins) over a C7 (violas, celli, basses)


----------



## Mahlon (Jun 6, 2014)

And another reason is if you _love_ divisi, comme moi.  

Mahlon


----------



## muk (Jun 6, 2014)

Don't forget about double stops. For a forte tutti chord you may more often than not choose double stops over divisi.
An instructive example for divisi writing would be Brahms. He often used it to avoid gaps in the middle register when the strings are spread. For example in the 4. symphony, first movement, from bar 41 where the second violins and violas are divisi. Brahms was very fond of the inner voices (which sadly often are neglected and treated simply as a filler) and did fantastic things with them.


----------



## Peter M. (Jun 13, 2014)

Very helpful, thank you all!


----------

