# What is "vertical" development versus "horizontal" development in a piece ?



## ManicMiner (Jan 7, 2019)

Is _vertical _in terms of energy increase, and what does _horizontal_ development mean ?


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## kurtvanzo (Jan 7, 2019)

I believe vertical means the instrumentation and density of a piece, while horizontal is it's development over time. Both interacting with each other obviously.


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## jbuhler (Jan 7, 2019)

kurtvanzo said:


> I believe vertical means the instrumentation and density of a piece, while horizontal is it's development over time. Both interacting with each other obviously.


I feel like vertical development is more about contrapuntal elaboration (additional relatively independent layers) than just instrumentation and density per se. I agree that horizontal development is the traditional mode of working through/working out material over time. A passacaglia is a form built primarily on vertical development, a sonata or fugue follows more horizontal development.


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## d.healey (Jan 7, 2019)

Vertical means you keep playing the same thing but adding more and more instruments/layers as the piece goes on. Horizontal means the piece itself evolves over time independently of any layering.

To put it another way, a piece with only one monophonic instrument can only develop horizontally (if it develops at all).


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## ed buller (Jan 11, 2019)

It's a big question. " Pierre Boulez once described The Rite as a piece in which a "vertical chromaticism" stood opposed to a "horizontal diatonicism." By this he meant that while the vertical alignment is often chromatic, the individual parts are in themselves often simple and diatonic."(Van den Toorn p.129). If you listen to the beginning this is very obvious . Perhaps the most groundbreaking music making at the time occurs in the last two pages of the first movement. When the rhythms and pitches become almost Kaleidoscopic.

Whereas if you listen to a piece of Mozart ( any Mozart ! ) you are hearing music aligned vertically. Rather than each instrument play an individual part they play a piece of a whole. Most often a chord tone as this music is basically traidic in nature ( with added chord tones and suspensions throughout ). In fact so much music from the Common Practice Period is basically Chords that are given Movement. From Handel to Holst, you can hear it as block chords with some figuration, Along with pedal and single lines.

This started to change in the late romantic era and music became more linear , perhaps the most complete example would be Ligeti's Atmosphere where at key moments everyone in the orchestra is playing virtually the same set of pitches ( albeit with octave displacements for their instruments) but all shifted about by tiny amounts in timing . This gives us a Carpet of sound !




the clusters you hear are all made up of very fast runs and tiny changes in pitches all displaced in time . If you look at the score you will see huge rows of notes across the entire orchestra in Divisi, but with each player starting on a different point . Perhaps the ultimate Linear piece !


best


ed


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## erica-grace (Jan 11, 2019)

d.healey said:


> Vertical means you keep playing the same thing but adding more and more instruments/layers as the piece goes on. Horizontal means the piece itself evolves over time independently of any layering.



So, how do you have both, at the same time?


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## d.healey (Jan 11, 2019)

erica-grace said:


> So, how do you have both, at the same time?


For example, you could have a repeated ostinato that you keep adding more layers too while at the same time have a melody/harmony that develops over time.


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## mverta (Jan 11, 2019)

Vertical development, as I refer to it in my masterclasses, is trying to substitute orchestration for composition - changing the sounds, but not the music; changing the way we say something, but not what we're saying, merely repeating ourselves. It's a type of development, but not a substitution for actual development, though it's often used that way, especially today. We add layer after layer after layer, but the story's not really going anywhere. Film music wise, this is in contrast to, I dunno, I guess everything written before about 1996.

If you catch my Unleashed show on YouTube tomorrow, critiquing pieces people send in, you'll hear this come up about a million times


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## ManicMiner (Jan 11, 2019)

mverta said:


> Vertical development, as I refer to it in my masterclasses, is trying to substitute orchestration for composition - changing the sounds, but not the music; changing the way we say something, but not what we're saying, merely repeating ourselves. It's a type of development, but not a substitution for actual development, though it's often used that way, especially today. We add layer after layer after layer, but the story's not really going anywhere. Film music wise, this is in contrast to, I dunno, I guess everything written before about 1996.
> 
> If you catch my Unleashed show on YouTube tomorrow, critiquing pieces people send in, you'll hear this come up about a million times


Thanks, I've actually been watching previous unleashed videos this week. Just trying to get the glossary out so I'm on the same page, as I am pretty much a beginner in Orchestral/Cinematic. Another term used was "color change" which I presume is just a change in instrument/instrument type.


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## mverta (Jan 11, 2019)

Color _usually_ refers to timbre/instruments/orchestration, but can totally be applied to harmony or chordal quality. It's a flexible term!


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## Consona (Jan 11, 2019)

This is interesting, since every layer added brings something new, because people don't layer the same thing over and over again, they repeat the original thing, then bring a layer that plays something else. They just don't modulate, develop the original idea through fluent variations, etc.

Take Zimmer's Time, isn't that like 4 chords without any modulation playing for over four and a half minutes, just adding layers and layers that are different from each other?

Sometimes you can have a horizontal development that just skillfully milks the same idea over and over again through modulations, changing orchestration, etc., i.e. @mverta 's "changing the sounds, but not the music", but in a horizontal way.

What makes a great piece, IMO, is when you can fluenty develop the original idea, very carefully, so you don't change it too much yet boldly enough to say something new over its development.

The problem with vertical is not it's not saying anything new, the new layers are different from the original idea and other layers, the problem is, it's done in a block-y, clumsy, non-fluent way. The music does not flow, it just repeats itself and adds more layers, then very often abruptly changes into something totally different, and it's all done with very shallow harmonic language, so those new layers are kinda plain. What I hear when listening to golden era composers is fluency (they can develop ideas so incredibly well) and richness (melodies, harmonies, orchestration) of their music. That's something very different from what we hear in the majority of music these days.

IMHO.


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## muk (Jan 11, 2019)

In the classic sense 'vertical' basically means harmony. If you layer several notes on top of each other you get a chord, and a chord outlines a harmony.

Horizontal development basically means melody and voice leading. It is talking about the shape of each individual line. If you follow what a viola is playing throughout a piece you follow its vertical development. It may play a melody at one point, then pause for three measures, then play a simple accompaniment figure etc.

If you then examine the harmonic function of the viola at a certain point you look at its vertical function. It may be playing the fifth of a dominant chord at some point, then the root tone of the next chord and so on. These functions only become clear in context with the other instruments.

A simple way to explain: place a ruler horizontally on a score. It follows one single instrument throughout the piece. Place the ruler vertically on the score. Now it shows what all instruments toghether are doing at one specific moment in the piece.


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## CT (Jan 11, 2019)

Bach's answer to your question:



I don't know what the answer is, exactly, but it's definitely better than any you'll get here.


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## Lionel Schmitt (Jan 11, 2019)

That's something I have no idea why people care about it. Either you have a problem with vertical development or not. I mostly don't. I depends how well the track is done... some vertical developments are boring, others aren't. 
Of course if you literally have the same thing playing musically and just hulk it up with more instruments, it will mostly be fatiguing. But I've rarely ever heard that... although there are tracks who tread on the same thing musically for _some time_... Doesn't put the track on a blacklist in my mind.


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## tehreal (Jan 12, 2019)

This piece has contains some nice elements of vertical composition. The timbral evolution is a main driver.


Edit: I guess others are pointing out that this isn't actually "vertical development" in the common classical sense. Although some others have described as re-orchestration apparently it's not. Live and learn.


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## muk (Jan 12, 2019)

tehreal said:


> This piece has contains some nice elements of vertical composition.



Actually it is an example of no vertical development at all, at least in the common use of the term. It's the same three chords over and over again with no harmonic development at all. 'Vertical development' in the usual sense does _not_ mean orchestration/timbre etc - that is usually called, well, orchestration. Rather 'vertical development' means harmonic development. In a sonata form, for example, that would mean defining the tonic in the first theme zone, then modulation to the dominant, consolidate the dominant in the secondary theme zone and so on. That's what is meant by the term in its common usage, not orchestration.


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## Rob (Jan 12, 2019)

I think there is no universal consensus on these terms... basically every now and then somebody decides to give their own names to things. Just go and listen to the music they have written and choose who to trust on this or invent your own lexicon... my personal view of course.


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## tehreal (Jan 12, 2019)

muk said:


> Actually it is an example of no vertical development at all, at least in the common use of the term. It's the same three chords over and over again with no harmonic development at all. 'Vertical development' in the usual sense does _not_ mean orchestration/timbre etc - that is usually called, well, orchestration. Rather 'vertical development' means harmonic development. In a sonata form, for example, that would mean defining the tonic in the first theme zone, then modulation to the dominant, consolidate the dominant in the secondary theme zone and so on. That's what is meant by the term in its common usage, not orchestration.



Thanks muk. Re-orchestration it is.


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## mikeh-375 (Jan 12, 2019)

It could also mean developing harmony. Think of mirror harmony perhaps, or mutation of chord structure with chromatic principles and their implications. It could refer to developing harmony by widening or compressing the intervallic structure in order to open up new sound for exploration.
I tend to agree with Rob above, make vertical development your own, but thinking along the lines I've just mentioned can often get you out of a rut and even if you aren't in one, the techniques are a handy tool to find material within.


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## marclawsonmusic (Jan 12, 2019)

ed buller said:


> This started to change in the late romantic era and music became more linear , perhaps the most complete example would be Ligeti's Atmosphere where at key moments everyone in the orchestra is playing virtually the same set of pitches ( albeit with octave displacements for their instruments) but all shifted about by tiny amounts in timing . This gives us a Carpet of sound !
> 
> 
> 
> ...




I think James Horner must have been inspired by Ligeti for Star Trek 2! There is a lot of aleatoric / dissonant stuff on that soundtrack. I just heard some similar music in this Ligeti. 

Very nice. Thank you for sharing.


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## Saxer (Jan 12, 2019)

The main style for pure vertical development is EDM. Compose a one to four bar loop with a bunch of tracks and switch them on and off. At the end add sound efx.


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## mikeh-375 (Jan 12, 2019)

Saxer, make sure it goes up at the end too....


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Jan 12, 2019)

Wow, there’s not a lot of love for composing with colour more than other sonic aspects. I guess not much has changed in a hundred years in some quarters.
And the EDM bashing is silly. Writing a solid EDM piece is just as demanding as any other form of writing. There’s good and bad in every genre, even EPIC.


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## Saxer (Jan 12, 2019)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> And the EDM bashing is silly.


I didn't see is as bashing. But isn't it the paragon of vertical development?


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Jan 12, 2019)

The way it was described made it sound like paint by numbers. A lot of it is, but there’s amazing music in the genre as well, that is far more challenging to make than what is caricatured by our colleague.


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## jbuhler (Jan 12, 2019)

muk said:


> Rather 'vertical development' means harmonic development.


I don't think vertical development generally means harmonic development. At least, that's not how I understand the term. I agree it's a bit more than re-orchestration. I understand it as the mixing and matching of relatively independent layers usually over a recurring harmonic pattern or bass line in the manner of a passacaglia. So a bit like variation, but generally oriented around organizing of layers and their interaction against a recurring harmonic framework rather than elaborating some tune.


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## jbuhler (Jan 12, 2019)

Saxer said:


> I didn't see is as bashing. But isn't it the paragon of vertical development?


I would agree with this, that vertical development is a basic principle of composition in the genre, and like other compositional techniques and principles working with loops and layers in EDM fashion can be done well or not. I mean it's perfectly possible to write a recognizable sonata that is completely mediocre and even shitty, and the principles of sonata form can be reduced to an insipid sounding formula delivered in under 5 minutes as well.


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## re-peat (Jan 12, 2019)

If Mike V. is right (and if I understand him correctly), that would mean that you can’t really have vertical development in a piece for piano solo, right? I don’t agree with that. And it would also make Ravel’s "Bolero" the ultimate example of vertical development, yes? Don’t agree with that either.

I lean more towards the interpretation that vertical development has to have harmonic implications. It needn’t be harmonic development as such (though it would often be just that — even in a passacaglia such as the closing variation of Brahms’ “Haydn Variations”), but harmonic enrichment would at the very least always be a part of it.

_


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## jbuhler (Jan 12, 2019)

re-peat said:


> I lean more towards the interpretation that vertical development has to have harmonic implications. In needn’t be harmonic development as such (though it would often be just that — even in a passacaglia such as the closing variation of Brahms’ “Haydn Variations”), but harmonic enrichment would at the very least always be a part of it.


I don't think so, though it certainly can have such harmonic enrichment. I think it's more a layer interaction thing. So something new has to happen—something has to develop—but that can be adding the layer of a new countermelody, say, rather than expanding the harmony per se. With respect to Bolero, I think it does use vertical development but I wouldn't call it an exemplar of the technique. It's more a set of variations in timbre.


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## muk (Jan 12, 2019)

Completely agree with re-peat. I don't know where the term stems from, but the way it was taught to us in harmony and counterpoint courses was the way Piet and I have outlined. I am almost certain that it has been in use long before the terms 'layering' and 'mixing'. It's possible that 'vertical development' is now being used in that sense as well. But at least in the realms of classical music it still has the former meaning.


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## jbuhler (Jan 12, 2019)

muk said:


> Completely agree with re-peat. I don't know where the term stems from, but the way it was taught to us in harmony and counterpoint courses was the way Piet and I have outlined. I am almost certain that it has been in use long before the terms 'layering' and 'mixing'. It's possible that 'vertical development' is now being used in that sense as well. But at least in the realms of classical music it still has the former meaning.


As far as I'm aware, vertical development doesn't have a standard meaning in music theory. And what some here call horizontal development is just the traditional meaning of development as _Durchführung_, a leading or working through. Vertical development as you define it would, I think, ordinarily just be called harmonic development, that is, traditional development applied to harmony (which could be done through enrichment but also through a motivicization of harmonic relations). As this idea stretches into post-tonal music and verticalized motivic formations are built into and extracted from recurring sonorities, the invocation of something like a concept of vertical development to distinguish that would seem appropriate and even cogent. But that's not at all how I've generally encountered the term being used on this forum or even generally. Mostly, I've heard it applied to a loop based constructive principle where music is spun out of a combinatorial approach to a set of looped layers. The concept is then generalized out from there, often with an implicit judgment that this kind of vertical development has less musical value than the traditional form of development, even though I would argue it is part and parcel of traditional technique, notably in the passacaglia.


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## MartinH. (Jan 12, 2019)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> Writing a solid EDM piece is just as demanding as any other form of writing.


I really like a few EDM genres and have a ton of respect for e.g. Neurofunk producers, but I think you're overgeneralizing here. _Some _EDM stuff is definitely easier to compose than a classical symphony or John Williams style soundtrack.



re-peat said:


> If Mike V. is right (and if I understand him correctly), that would mean that you can’t really have vertical development in a piece for piano solo, right?


You can play louder/faster and double in more octaves. But it's certainly way more limited.


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## gussunkri (Jan 12, 2019)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> The way it was described made it sound like paint by numbers. A lot of it is, but there’s amazing music in the genre as well, that is far more challenging to make than what is caricatured by our colleague.


My background is metal, rock, classical and jazz. I know very little EDM (does Aphex Twin count?). Could you give some examples of great EDM? I would be happy to learn.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Jan 12, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> I really like a few EDM genres and have a ton of respect for e.g. Neurofunk producers, but I think you're overgeneralizing here. _Some _EDM stuff is definitely easier to compose than a classical symphony or John Williams style soundtrack.
> 
> 
> You can play louder/faster and double in more octaves. But it's certainly way more limited.


Some EDM, correct. But I was referring to the more interesting pieces in the genre.


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## PeterN (Jan 13, 2019)

mverta said:


> If you catch my Unleashed show on YouTube tomorrow, critiquing pieces people send in, you'll hear this come up about a million times



So the class was live when went to sleep last night, woke up and it was streaming at breakfast, and soon its lunch and its still streaming.

A “thanks” is not enough for the guy, I hope some institution keeps an eye open an issues some award.


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## Matt Riley (Jan 13, 2019)

re-peat said:


> If Mike V. is right (and if I understand him correctly), that would mean that you can’t really have vertical development in a piece for piano solo, right? I don’t agree with that. And it would also make Ravel’s "Bolero" the ultimate example of vertical development, yes? Don’t agree with that either.
> 
> I lean more towards the interpretation that vertical development has to have harmonic implications. It needn’t be harmonic development as such (though it would often be just that — even in a passacaglia such as the closing variation of Brahms’ “Haydn Variations”), but harmonic enrichment would at the very least always be a part of it.
> 
> _


I think Bolero is a good example of vertical development. Not sure why that would bother you though. It’s a great piece and Ravel made use of vertical development in that piece. Pachelbel‘s Canon in D would be another example.


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## mikeh-375 (Jan 13, 2019)

Ravel developed vertically in Bolero with harmony that deviated from the ostinato/pedal, at one point it feels like he is playing with the an equivalent to altering organ registrations. Like I said before, re-inventing chordal structures with compression or expansion of intervals is also a good way to think about it.


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## ManicMiner (Jan 13, 2019)

Which one of Mike V's masterclass videos focus the most on _Horizontal _development ?


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## PeterN (Jan 13, 2019)

Correct me if Im wrong - or whatever - but _horizontal development_ is pretty much the language you talk through music. Sure, thats a definition from here. Yea, its a bit vague to try to define anything around this horizon, but anyone having nothing to say, horizontal development is then pretty much a horizon of parking lots or something like that. A clinical hospital or a boring academic chamber. This overly technical approach to music trying to cut it from its creative sources is a modern misconception. Or simplification. Misunderstanding. A sacriledge. Better to have three chords and talk a language that ten hovering technically along parking lots outside a hospital in gloomy portland. Try to cross Sahara with one bottle of water and check the horizontal development after that if u survive the journey.


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## marclawsonmusic (Jan 13, 2019)

Not sure it helps the discussion, but should music be limited to only 2 dimensions - e.g. vertical and horizontal? Could there also be a 'z axis' to music?

<Non-Academic Hypothesis>
If harmony is vertical development (e.g. adding chord tones, voices - the y axis),
And song structure is horizontal development (e.g. ABACAB - the x axis),
Then orchestration and dynamics would be the 'z axis' - e.g. doubling, adding instruments, loud / soft, etc.
</Non-Academic Hypothesis>


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## PeterN (Jan 13, 2019)

Would love to see a "Jungian" school of orchestration with terms such as trickster, transcendent function, unconscious factor, wholeness, synchronicity, symbol, libido and such.

Simplifying orchestration in two terms (words), may also simplify (affect) creativity. Just a thought.


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## jbuhler (Jan 13, 2019)

marclawsonmusic said:


> Not sure it helps the discussion, but should music be limited to only 2 dimensions - e.g. vertical and horizontal? Could there also be a 'z axis' to music?
> 
> <Non-Academic Hypothesis>
> If harmony is vertical development (e.g. adding chord tones, voices - the y axis),
> ...


Sure, why not? But one of the difficulties is that none of these dimensions is really independent from the others (as the analogy to three dimensional space implies). Adding notes to chords can be a form of horizontal development (if there is a logic, syntax, or structure to its unfolding over time), similarly with the z axis where timbre is often used to define sections of form. Horizontal development can also be at the service of a z dimension dynamic process such as a build, as for instance when a motive is reduced or liquidated in the drive to a climax. 

Still, I like the distinction between development through timbre and and development through layers that this model implies. I also think folks who criticize orchestration and production effects barely recognize the very long tradition of the critique of orchestration as effect, and the modern form of this critique is a direct descendant of Wagner's very questionable attack on Meyerbeer, a classic instance of kettle/pot projection.


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## jbuhler (Jan 13, 2019)

PeterN said:


> Would love to see a "Jungian" school of orchestration with terms such as trickster, transcendent function, unconscious factor, wholeness, synchronicity, symbol, libido and such.


I agree this could make for a fascinating way of thinking about the issues, and it would get more at the function of orchestration/production, which is generally more than (or at least I think should be more than) something added to some sort of abstract musical idea to give it concrete definition.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Jan 13, 2019)

So in the end who is liking what more? I see a lot of vertical packing these days, but very less horizontal development. Just curious who of you guys like what in particular more? There are places in my opinion for both worlds though I personally study a way more motivic development.


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## NoamL (Jan 13, 2019)

.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Jan 13, 2019)

NoamL said:


> .


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## NoamL (Jan 13, 2019)

The funny thing is I strongly disagree with something Mike said yesterday about how "You don't have to study to write epic stuff the way you have to study years to master counterpoint. Could learn it in a weekend, no, that's minimizing it, two weekends."

That's wrong. I used to think the epic Zimmer stuff was easy too, then I was hired to write some, and I can barely create a track every few weeks and I am still in awe of artists like 2WEI, 2SFH, Mark Petrie and others. It is really hard. It carries its own set of creative challenges. Yes the ideas in trailer music don't _*d e v e l o p*_ but you still have to manage the development of audio across the track. Rather than the development of notes or musical ideas.

It is easy to make the loudest piece of music ever. You just take grey noise and pass it through +40dB and a limiter and you have something louder than will ever come out of Remote Control. The challenge lies in keeping up an "audio interest" (if not a "musical interest") for 2.5 to 4 minutes. In a way it's like if you had the last bar of chocolate in the world, how would you savor it and get the most out of it? By nibbling and making each bite count. Because if you eat the whole thing in one bite you're not getting any more pleasure than if you ate half of it in one bite. You are overloading your mouth's ability to tell the difference between a small bite and a large bite.

That's what trailer and modern production music is like. It's not just about making it loud, but making each step up towards the climax matter and feel impactful as much as you can, because you can't ratchet back downwards. Sometimes this can be a huge challenge across a 4 minute track, for example I've revised sections in the middle because they were actually too _loud_ and thus stole the thunder of the final buildup. Together with using up the volume range as "nibble by nibble" as you can, you also have to do the same with the dynamic ranges of the instruments and also with the frequency spectrum. So you might introduce an instrument not for a _musical_ reason per se but because it is the right time for that instrument to nibble away one more bite of dynamics or frequencies, working towards the full-spectrum, limited-to-shit climax.

I only watched the Unleashed video for half an hour yesterday but I heard Mike got a lot of trailer-esque tracks submitted and what they all seemed to have in common is that they started out at max and went sideways. Of course that doesn't grab you by the ears.

IMO the hardest parts of this kind of music are the *beginning* and the *end*. The end, because you still have to make a clear mix while everything is playing full blast and trying to slam the limiter (it's also quite hard to make a mix that sounds treble&bass balanced at both high and low listening volumes!). The beginning, because you have to figure out how to grab the audience's attention without biting down the whole bar of chocolate and leaving yourself nowhere to go.

If you study some Zimmer pieces like "Time" or "Planet Earth" with this in mind you will see that he really has this "building genius." It is a skill or a craft just like compositional genius or orchestrational genius. It might not be development in the classical sense but it deserves to be considered development. For example study where and how he enters the brass in both tracks. It's not about orchestration in a "colors of the orchestra" sense, it's about building up exactly at the right pace.

There are negative and anti-creative forces in the trailer world for sure, for example many final trailer mixes are just trash masters that would benefit so much & feel so much more musical if they had more dynamic range... but they have to start out as loud as possible to compete with everything else and in particular to seem like "Remote Control Plus" pieces - there are few recent trailers I've heard that are as well mastered as Mind Heist back in the day, because they have to _beat_ it. Yet in general, trailer and epic-music composers are much deeper artists than I ever expected before I tried to join their ranks.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Jan 13, 2019)

NoamL said:


> The funny thing is I strongly disagree with something Mike said yesterday about how "You don't have to study to write epic stuff the way you have to study years to master counterpoint. Could learn it in a weekend, no, that's minimizing it, two weekends."
> 
> That's wrong. I used to think the epic Zimmer stuff was easy too, then I was hired to write some, and I can barely create a track every few weeks. It is really hard. It carries its own set of creative challenges. Yes the ideas in trailer music don't _*d e v e l o p*_ but you still have to manage the development of audio across the track. Rather than the development of notes or musical ideas.
> 
> ...



Well I admit I don´t think that this is learned in a couple of weeks too, but I don´t think it takes decades to master it. Regarding motivic development and its mastery I think it takes decades though. Think of Williams and how long it did take him to get at the level of his writing when he created the first star wars or Jaws score. He was already like 30 years doing music and over 25 years a working composer, session and jazz pianist and went through a school where nobody of us will probably ever will have the chance to go through. I think Mike exxegerated there a little bit but the essentiel message was imo for him that epic music and its vertical packing demands skills for sure but they are more approachable and you don´t need to learn decades to become a master in that genre.


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## PeterN (Jan 13, 2019)

jbuhler said:


> I agree this could make for a fascinating way of thinking about the issues, and it would get more at the function of orchestration/production, which is generally more than (or at least I think should be more than) something added to some sort of abstract musical idea to give it concrete definition.



I like the thought of the “trickster” and “transcendent function” in orchestration. The transcendent function is something like a miracle that manifests itself. Beatles would be excellent to analyse through Jungian Orchestration Analysis. (Which is called JOA). John Williams may be good too. And so on.

If we look at history of music - or just music as a phnomenon - it is not materialistic by essence. Yes, it did become like that. Maybe modern orchestration is influenced by (edit) Descartes and Karl Marx.

So any thoughts out there on whether, or how, Descartes influenced modern orchestration?


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## CT (Jan 13, 2019)

AlexanderSchiborr said:


> So in the end who is liking what more? I see a lot of vertical packing these days, but very less horizontal development. Just curious who of you guys like what in particular more? There are places in my opinion for both worlds though I personally study a way more motivic development.



I like good music more than bad music. 

Really, I agree that there's a need for both approaches, however we want to define them, and I'm not sure that I prefer one over the other. 

I *do* know that I can be bored equally by both ends of the spectrum, be it crappy "epic" stuff or cringey faux-Williams....

Heck, there are plenty of great, but undoubtedly long-winded, classical composers who try my patience on a regular basis. I might have followed Debussy right out the door when he supposedly said, "Let's go. He's starting to develop."


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Jan 13, 2019)

A little add to my last point: I believe that 95 percent of the composers nowadays were jobless when the skillset of the past would be required to score movies and write themes and I am honest: myself too.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Jan 13, 2019)

miket said:


> I like good music more than bad music.
> 
> Really, I agree that there's a need for both approaches, however we want to define them, and I'm not sure that I prefer one over the other.
> 
> ...


I think it is totally cool and legit to have both things in a track while there is an approach of control to show also that you can do both. And even in classic soundtrack there are cases for vertical development which is nothing bad at all. I think with the current epic music its not just the vertical packing but also the lack of diversity in orchestration and sameness of chord progressions which makes it very limited though: very approachable which is also imo a reason why its so successful.

And classic symphonic repertoire music with its longform takes even more time than classic filmscores. YOu know filmscores are like the quint essential versions of classic longform symphonic pieces, some might say a watered down version therefore. I like both..so :D


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## jbuhler (Jan 13, 2019)

AlexanderSchiborr said:


> So in the end who is liking what more? I see a lot of vertical packing these days, but very less horizontal development. Just curious who of you guys like what in particular more? There are places in my opinion for both worlds though I personally study a way more motivic development.


It depends on the piece, right? And the two are not really separable to the degree that some contend. I mean insofar as there is a temporal logic to how the layers unfold and build, there is horizontal development going on as well. And even @mverta acknowledges in his calmer moments that the two are intertwined. Pieces that follow horizontal development add countermelodies and use orchestration to elaborate repetitions; and cyclical repetitions and harmonic locks on the dominant intensified with added layers are common devices to build to a climax from the classical era on. 

One thing I will add is that DAWs greatly facilitate creating a piece combinatorially from a set of loops, ostinatos, layers, and one-shot samples. DAWs also make editing larger structures (shifting sections around) relatively trivial. They do not help that much with the traditional working out of material over longer spans except for repetitions and perhaps somewhat for variations. I don't think that DAWs really get in the way of this kind of writing (I write this kind of music about as quickly in a DAW as I do on paper or in a notation program) but they don't offer the efficiency enhancements that looping (vertically developed) structures do. 

A final coda: one place that I have found DAWs to be very deficient is when I come back to a piece after a time away. With paper or notation program, it is trivial to get back into the piece and figure out where I am. But pieces I worked on only in the DAW take a lot longer to get back up to speed on, and I find I almost always have to dump it out to notation before I can get a good view of the whole again.


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## NoamL (Jan 13, 2019)

Forgot to add Mark Petrie to the list of artists. Anyone who doubts the artistry of this kind of music, just give him a listen with an open mind.


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## NoamL (Jan 13, 2019)

to @jbuhler 's point, I think DAWs do facilitate this music but maybe in ways other than what people would expect. DAWs make it very easy to husband and manage both dynamics (velocity/modwheel programming) and volume automation. If you want something to build from exactly 50 velocity to 70 across 15 seconds, you can do that easily. I think the general impression from epic-music-dislikers is that DAWs facilitate trailer music because they make it easy to copy and paste, but actually there's probably no more copy and pasting in trailer music than in any kind of DAW-facilitated filmscoring.


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## jbuhler (Jan 13, 2019)

NoamL said:


> IMO the hardest parts of this kind of music are the *beginning* and the *end*. The end, because you still have to make a clear mix while everything is playing full blast and trying to slam the limiter (it's also quite hard to make a mix that sounds treble&bass balanced at both high and low listening volumes!). The beginning, because you have to figure out how to grab the audience's attention without biting down the whole bar of chocolate and leaving yourself nowhere to go.


Yes, one thing about the Unleashed examples I heard was the difficulty of signaling the function of introduction, which often fuses with the initial stages of the build in these short pieces. (Something Verta often seemed confused by in a way that I did not. He also does not like suspended time, another thing that introductions often do.) In any case, many of these openings reminded me a bit of Bruckner in this respect of fusing introduction and build or Bruckner's model, the opening of Beethoven's Ninth. Like trailer music, introductions seem like the simplest things in the world, but they are really hard to do well.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Jan 13, 2019)

jbuhler said:


> Yes, one thing about the Unleashed examples I heard was the difficulty of signaling the function of introduction, which often fuses with the initial stages of the build in these short pieces. (Something Verta often seemed confused by in a way that I did not. He also does not like suspended time, another thing that introductions often do.) In any case, many of these openings reminded me a bit of Bruckner in this respect of fusing introduction and build or Bruckner's model, the opening of Beethoven's Ninth. Like trailer music, introductions seem like the simplest things in the world, but they are really hard to do well.



For me (just only my opinion) an introduction makes (most of the time) no sense to me when there is no connection to the idea which is presented after that. Sure..I know cases where an intro is just used to set an atmosphere or specific "tone", still I think it is always good to keep in mind to build bridges to your core idea, and if the intro has something, it might be just a bass line..why not keeping it as an development in the core idea, e.g. move it to a different register but there is the point: Most intros don´t worked like that: They presented an idea and after that they completely dissed that idea away and started something else which had nothing to do with the presented idea before and there comes the question of why doing an intro in such cases. Its not effective imo. However..there comes also that taste..where some people are fine with such things and some not. All good.


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## jbuhler (Jan 13, 2019)

AlexanderSchiborr said:


> For me (just only my opinion) an introduction makes (most of the time) no sense to me when there is no connection to the idea which is presented after that. Sure..I know cases where an intro is just used to set an atmosphere or specific "tone", still I think it is always good to keep in mind to build bridges to your core idea, and if the intro has something, it might be just a bass line..why not keeping it as an development in the core idea, e.g. move it to a different register but there is the point: Most intros don´t worked like that: They presented an idea and after that they completely dissed that idea away and started something else which had nothing to do with the presented idea before and there comes the question of why doing an intro in such cases. Its not effective imo. However..there comes also that taste..where some people are fine with such things and some not. All good.


This is a different problem, and one that did come up some in the examples as well. But look at the slow introduction to almost any classical symphony. They rarely have anything much to do with the movement that follows. I mean, we can make them relate (just as I could make any of the introductions I heard relate) but the explanation wouldn't really be convincing. And with the more amorphous introductions we heard, the point seemed rather to create an effect where order emerges out of that amorphous chaos, which is also the point, I think, of the introductions that build through repetition and rudimentary elaboration.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Jan 13, 2019)

jbuhler said:


> This is a different problem, and one that did come up some in the examples as well. But look at the slow introduction to almost any classical symphony. They rarely have anything much to do with the movement that follows. I mean, we can make them relate (just as I could make any of the introductions I heard relate) but the explanation wouldn't really be convincing. And with the more amorphous introductions we heard, the point seemed rather to create an effect where order emerges out of that amorphous chaos, which is also the point, I think, of the introductions that build through repetition and rudimentary elaboration.



Yes, you are right in that case which I noticed too, and there comes also that point of preference in the game which I mentioned. So in the end, just for myself: When I have nothing to say in my intro which is reflected afterwards chances are high that I might skip it or re-write it. But man..you can make a whole study just out of intros and learn from classic repertoire a lot and so your point is also very valid here.


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## InLight-Tone (Jan 13, 2019)

NoamL said:


> Forgot to add Mark Petrie to the list of artists. Anyone who doubts the artistry of this kind of music, just give him a listen with an open mind.


Mark Petrie is VERY good at this genre. He can take a simple motif/theme and build it up into the biggest most epic idea ever (he calls it the hook). People think that trailer music is simple and easy, but try and match his level of presentation and build, good luck. 

The production side of things is as important as the pacing. Of course we're talking orchestration that implies combining multiple libraries together to get an over the top, other worldly sound, that takes skill as well.

I am not surprised that Verta doesn't appreciate this style of composition, but at the same time, I don't believe he could create credible, competitive cues in this genre either and that's not putting him down, more like apples and oranges.


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## PeterN (Jan 13, 2019)

For starting composers hangovers (from alcohol) can also be great for horizontal development in orchestration. It can induce a very sensitive state of mind where new windows may open in the deep chambers of the human mind. You can be very sensitive for music. Hangover can therefore be used as a tactical tool for horizontal development in orchestration.

Tea can also open secret windows in the chambers of the human mind, almost on an esoteric level - in particular strong tea like Puer - and it can be used for horizontal development in orchestration. But you need to approach tea from Eastern tradition - (not the English) - where it has been a tool from everything in enchancing poetry, art, creativity and meditation. Particularly in Japan.

Many ways to enchance the horizontal development in orchestration.


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## mikeh-375 (Jan 13, 2019)

Being sensitive to, and able to manipulate timbre for maximum emotional impact over time is a big part of the horizontal too. Always best to have instruments in mind as you compose to get the best effect by exploiting instrument characteristics...obvious I know, but sometimes overlooked.


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## PeterN (Jan 13, 2019)

Finding new horizons or exploring horizons must be part of it too. In the ”hOriZontal develOpmenT”. Getting lost there, in the horizon, then have a sudden lightning strike, and while you hear the lions roar, follow the rainbow, over there under its bow, thats where the perfect chord is hidden.


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## mikeh-375 (Jan 13, 2019)

nice Peter, but jeeez, I've had to write with a twat of a hangover more than once and mate, it's no way forward.....


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## jbuhler (Jan 13, 2019)

PeterN said:


> I like the thought of the “trickster” and “transcendent function” in orchestration. The transcendent function is something like a miracle that manifests itself. Beatles would be excellent to analyse through Jungian Orchestration Analysis. (Which is called JOA). John Williams may be good too. And so on.



So a JOA of your practice would be trickster, right?



PeterN said:


> If we look at history of music - or just music as a phnomenon - it is not materialistic by essence. Yes, it did become like that. Maybe modern orchestration is influenced by (edit) Descartes and Karl Marx.
> 
> So any thoughts out there on whether, or how, Descartes influenced modern orchestration?


No, but Adorno made some comparisons of orchestration to epistemology that are pretty spot on. I'm trying to recall where. Maybe the Wagner book? or the Mahler book?


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## PeterN (Jan 13, 2019)

jbuhler said:


> So a JOA of your practice would be trickster, right?
> 
> 
> No, but Adorno made some comparisons of orchestration to epistemology that are pretty spot on. I'm trying to recall where. Maybe the Wagner book? or the Mahler book?



My practice?

Hey mate, its cool.  I will not hijack this thread with the JOA, but it could be intresting analysing tool in another thread.

(Very brief explanation, and I leave it here:
Trickster is e.g. when the trumpet plays a wrong tune on purpose. Or any odd thing that could/would show up as a surprise element in an orchestration. All academics could then say ”Aaaahhhh.... Thats the trickster!”)


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## jbuhler (Jan 13, 2019)

PeterN said:


> My practice?
> 
> Hey mate, its cool.  I will not hijack this thread with the JOA, but it could be intresting analysing tool in another thread.


Oh, please hijack! It just seems from your posts that you get a bit of pleasure in playing the trickster, but more in the classic sense of someone who introduces a bit of chaos to mix things up a bit and see if something interesting will fall out. If so, I figured that personality would find its way into your music. But maybe I misinterpreted the tenor of your posts. Easy enough to do on these kinds of fora. 

And I actually do think JOA could be an interesting analytical tool. I've done a bit of thinking about it in terms of Jungian functions and crossing that with Deleuze's analysis of the affection image in his Cinema books to come at the idea of orchestration in the epic style as extroverted power, introverted quality analog to the Fe (extroverted feeling) function as opposed introverted power, extroverted quality analog to Fi (introverted feeling) function of a more atmospheric approach. Still working out the details and the coordinates of it all, but I've found the framework broadly suggestive for thinking through the marketing of VIs, which is a strange application, but you know...


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## PeterN (Jan 13, 2019)

jbuhler said:


> Oh, please hijack! It just seems from your posts that you get a bit of pleasure in playing the trickster, but more in the classic sense of someone who introduces a bit of chaos to mix things up a bit and see if something interesting will fall out. If so, I figured that personality would find its way into your music. But maybe I misinterpreted the tenor of your posts. Easy enough to do on these kinds of fora.
> 
> And I actually do think JOA could be an interesting analytical tool. I've done a bit of thinking about it in terms of Jungian functions and crossing that with Deleuze's analysis of the affection image in his Cinema books to come at the idea of orchestration in the epic style as extroverted power, introverted quality analog to the Fe (extroverted feeling) function as opposed introverted power, extroverted quality analog to Fi (introverted feeling) function of a more atmospheric approach. Still working out the details and the coordinates of it all, but I've found the framework broadly suggestive for thinking through the marketing of VIs, which is a strange application, but you know...



Yea, you are right on that when it comes to some of my personal stuff, to some degree. If I understood you correctly. But I dont think thats really the point. I mean, what if approach on orchestration was not only "vertical" and "horizontal", but "vertical", "horizontal" and "the trickster element". Now how much would that one element possibly influence orchestration now, and in particular for people learning it. It could open a new element of creativity involved.

I used C.G. Jung just because he is not materialistic by nature. In particular that "transcendent element", which is spiritual. I mean if its just "horizontal" and "vertical" - like a materialistic dualism in modern orchestration - it sort of leaves something lacking - something like spirituality in music. Composing can also have spiritual dimensions.

Like if the only way to make a drink would be gin & tonic. Ive seen them put huge fires on those drinks in rainbow colors.

(Anyway, I feel Im on thin ice now, so dont critizise too much my writing here now, its too late now to try to think.  Time to sleep real soon)


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## jbuhler (Jan 13, 2019)

PeterN said:


> Yea, you are right on that when it comes to some of my personal stuff, to some degree. If I understood you correctly. But I dont think thats really the point. I mean, what if approach on orchestration was not only "vertical" and "horizontal", but "vertical", "horizontal" and "the trickster element". Now how much would that one element possibly influence orchestration now, and in particular for people learning it. It could open a new element of creativity involved.
> 
> I used C.G. Jung just because he is not materialistic by nature. In particular that "transcendent element", which is spiritual. I mean if its just "horizontal" and "vertical" - like a materialistic dualism in modern orchestration - it sort of leaves something lacking - something like spirituality in music. Composing can also have spiritual dimensions.
> 
> ...


Yes, this makes sense to me. There is horizontal; there is vertical. (And there's there's more.) And there is an interaction among all those elements, none of which is really independent. Then, too, there is a personality (e.g., trickster) that mediates between them and decides now some of this, now some of that, now neither, now both, now I'm going to stay in the box, now I'm going to stray from the box, etc., etc. 

But also broadly: I'm going to orchestrate for individual clarity so that every instrument plays its role as an individual versus I'm going to orchestrate for the blend so that no individual instrument is really identifiable as such. There's a lot of philosophy that manifests in such decisions so that music does indeed become in that sense a microcosm of the world, and it is not simply governed by an aesthetic. Then, too, something strange happens when we start pushing around samples, unlocking and reusing again and again the real labor that is stored in them, rather than writing directly for performing musicians. What kind of microcosm is that?


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## PeterN (Jan 13, 2019)

jbuhler said:


> But also broadly: I'm going to...



Even theres something that can be given, and its not only the ”I”. The whole concept of ”I” and ”am going” to ”do horizontal and vertical”, contains something inherently mechanical and materialistic.

It a major part of it yes, and it can be understood as a discipline yes, but theres more - or, lets say, there can be more.

So apologises for hijacking the thread partly now, it was encouraged. Just wanted to throw in a card for something more outside the ”vertical and horizontal”. If a composer is unaware of this dimension, its like a frog in a well. Or, lets say, like a painting artist lacking one or two colours in the pallette. Not knowing they even exist.

Ciao


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Jan 14, 2019)

gussunkri said:


> My background is metal, rock, classical and jazz. I know very little EDM (does Aphex Twin count?). Could you give some examples of great EDM? I would be happy to learn.



I’ll start with one of the best, a fellow Canuck you might have heard of (this is his latest track):


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## gussunkri (Jan 14, 2019)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> I’ll start with one of the best, a fellow Canuck you might have heard of (this is his latest track):



Thanks! I quite liked that actually. Yes, I can see how that production takes quite some effort.


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## Magunga (Jan 15, 2019)

Don't mean to de-hijack the thread, and it's possible I missed someone else say this same thing but to me vertical vs. horizontal isn't abstract at all, it simply means literally the x and y-axis on sheet music. I think if you're struggling with the concepts that's the best way to think of them. So put simply you can develop your subject by adding another voice on top or below it, or by having the same voice lead to something else.

Also I think it's important to know that these are 18th century terms, and while they still totally apply today "voices" aren't literally voices (solo instruments can definitely develop vertically) and "development" isn't really about "how does the piece develop from beginning to end," it's a category of musical devices like fragmentation or inversion that are employed over the course of one or two bars. Both forms are fundamental tools and you'd have to really be trying to make music that truly uses only one of them. Ravel's Bolero is actually a great example because while the piece as a whole develops vertically, I'd say it only works because that melody is SO well developed horizontally. The opening statement is 16 bars long, and it's developed even further later in the piece.

Sorry, back to Jung and EDM!


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Jan 16, 2019)

gussunkri said:


> My background is metal, rock, classical and jazz. I know very little EDM (does Aphex Twin count?). Could you give some examples of great EDM? I would be happy to learn.


And here’s another example, Jon Hopkins, one of my favourite composers these days:


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