# How common is divisi writing in modern film scoring?



## EFlexMusic (Sep 11, 2022)

I just had a thought and after listening to multiple modern film scores, specifically by James Newton Howard, Hans Zimmer, and a few others, I can't tell if string sections are being used in divisi at times. My ears still aren't good enough to be able to hear different instruments and what they are doing but, if anything I guess I've heard the celli section split at times but, I can't tell if any others are typically written in divisi! 

Is anyone able to confirm or deny if divisi is common in modern film scoring?


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## JJP (Sep 11, 2022)

It is common.


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## Gil (Sep 12, 2022)

Hello,
Quite common, you can look at some sample pages at OmniMusicPublishing and ChrisSiddallMusic.
Regards,
Gil.


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## JohnG (Sep 12, 2022)

I divide strings and brass all the time, but how brave you are with that depends on the players' ability.

If you are expecting less-than-stellar players, it is risky to divide too much because the fourth or fifth French Horn player (or the fourth trumpet, fifth desk of violins -- whatever) is not strong enough to play accurately if the chord is some kind of cluster that needs to be tuned exactly right. In other words, divisi of necessity means that the players have to be able to play accurately and confidently without the 'air cover' of the strongest players.

If you're wanting really intense brass chords, best to record in London, Los Angeles, or maybe Nashville. Or, of course, any major city will likely have some good players (Tokyo, Paris, NYC)

If, by contrast, you're expecting somewhat weak players, write big unison lines if possible. It's much more likely to deliver a solid performance to have all the FHNs or trumpets or whatever on a single big line if you know that some of them are not A-plus players.

By the way, in general string players seem the most comfortable with dividing, partly because their literature is crammed with it.


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## KEM (Sep 12, 2022)

A lot, that’s how they get those huge, dense tutti chords and such, they also record shorts and longs separately, so that would technically be divisi if you recorded it all at once with a section


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## Noeticus (Sep 12, 2022)

It is VERY common.

Now, the use of Second Violins? Woah, don't even ask. (That's a little in joke).


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## KEM (Sep 12, 2022)

Noeticus said:


> It is VERY common.
> 
> Now, the use of Second Violins? Woah, don't even ask. (That's a little in joke).



You meant to say violas


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## JohnG (Sep 12, 2022)

KEM said:


> they also record shorts and longs separately,


_Sometimes_ people do that. It is by no means a rule or even all that common. It takes forever and costs a fortune.


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## KEM (Sep 12, 2022)

JohnG said:


> _Sometimes_ people do that. It is by no means a rule or even all that common. It takes forever and costs a fortune.



He mentioned James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer in his original post and they very famously did it for The Dark Knight Trilogy, and it’s something Zimmer, Balfe, and pretty much all the RCP guys still do with pretty much every score. I know other composers don’t do it as much, especially for the reasons you mentioned, but his points of reference certainly do!


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## JohnG (Sep 12, 2022)

KEM said:


> He mentioned James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer in his original post and they very famously did it for The Dark Knight Trilogy, and it’s something Zimmer, Balfe, and pretty much all the RCP guys still do with pretty much every score. I know other composers don’t do it as much, especially for the reasons you mentioned, but his points of reference certainly do!


I know that some composers do it but not on every score. It’s a very specific approach that leads to a highly stylised mix-heavy score — totally appropriate for the Dark Knight and some of the other scores that you admire (you’ve mentioned a few). I also love those Dark Knight scores, especially “Batman Begins,” even though the movies themselves — less.

But that “pop song mix” approach also has its limitations; it’s a cool sound for some movies and games, but it’s not for everything. You wouldn’t do that for rom-coms or ’family’ movies, for example. James Newton Howard’s scores don’t ‘usually’ do it — think of Dinosaur or Treasure Planet, or Dave. 

And unless you have a very big budget it’s unaffordable.

Just want to clarify that it is by no means a typical approach, just for the most maxed-out movies aimed at a certain aesthetic.

You can split the difference a bit if you have really good samples and write that way from the start, which is to separate longs and shorts on your sample stems. That way if you want a really chunky short passage you can mix in more of your samples (for instance). It also allows you to use different reverbs on shorts and longs (Junkie XL / Tom H. does that).

Lots of ways to get it done!


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## R.G. (Sep 12, 2022)

EFlexMusic said:


> I can't tell if string sections are being used in divisi at times. My ears still aren't good enough to be able to hear different instruments and what they are doing but...


Just keep working on it and you'll get better at it. Lots of stuff is always buried and you can't always hear it even though it's there.

Divisi in the hands of someone like JW is well beyond what you get from composers playing a strings ensemble patch with 10 fingers that the orchestrators have to thin out a bit, the result of which is sometimes striped, in which case you don't have actual divisi, but simulated 60 violins, etc.

But in all three parts of _The Last Battle_ from _SW_, the upper strings spend most of their time in real divisi (natch), the cellos divide a good deal too, and the basses just in isolated spots. In this example you have a good variety (in 2, in 3, and everyone but the basses divide). All divisi is at the stand, except for the violas in 44 where the fronts take the upper and backs take the lower.






About 11 seconds after the Death Star explodes, you have this texture, which Rozsa used to do at epic "awe" moments, where every string section is divisi, planing major triads.









These divisi examples aren't even a drop in the bucket for Williams. He learned the techniques from Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Elgar, Vaughan-Williams, etc.


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## R.G. (Sep 12, 2022)

JohnG said:


> If you are expecting less-than-stellar players, it is risky to divide too much because the fourth or fifth French Horn player (or the fourth trumpet, fifth desk of violins -- whatever) is not strong enough to play accurately if the chord is some kind of cluster that needs to be tuned exactly right.


Clusters don't have to be precisely tuned because of the acoustic merging that happens with minor seconds. Clusters mainly need a straight, non vibrato tone, since they have no true harmonic property and essentially just an effect. Actual chords in typical voicing arrays are where the intonation has to ring by bringing the notes closer in alignment with Just tuning.

Also, the higher numbered stands in a string section are not lesser players than the lower numbered ones. It doesn't work like that since it was determined long ago that that sort of distribution is deleterious to how string sections work. And there are some ways in which it's more challenging to play second violin than first (but not in all respects, obviously), since the seconds have a few unique burdens that the firsts don't.



JohnG said:


> If you're wanting really intense brass chords, best to record in London, Los Angeles, or maybe Nashville. Or, of course, any major city will likely have some good players (Tokyo, Paris, NYC).


There are dozens of cities in the U.S. alone with professionally-equipped orchestras that have brass players (and the other sections) that easily rival those in the cities you mention. Conservatories churn out a new generation of them every year, and since there are many more high level musicians than chairs, the competition is _very_ intense for every open spot. Conductors and orchestra directors are really spoilt for choice nowadays, as the caliber is so consistently high across the board. Add to that Canada, Europe (but with some caution required for some of the Baltic states), and so on...

The drop-off happens once you get to the second and third tier orchestras in medium-sized cities, and in community orchestras of course.



JohnG said:


> If, by contrast, you're expecting somewhat weak players, write big unison lines if possible. It's much more likely to deliver a solid performance to have all the FHNs or trumpets or whatever on a single big line if you know that some of them are not A-plus players.


If your brass players are _that_ weak then you shouldn't be recording anything with them at all. In the case of a low budget, you need to hire a skeleton crew of professional players, and supplement with samples.

Otherwise you're going to have community orchestra-level intonation problems on those thick unison doublings, which sound amateurish even to the average listener. You're better off writing parts at a more modest playability level in these situations. Prefer concerted textures. Be conservative with the ranges, and avoid the more delicate types of exposed scoring. Don't get fancy, use straightforward rhythms, and watch out for the types of textures where you could have ensemble issues.



JohnG said:


> By the way, in general string players seem the most comfortable with dividing, partly because their literature is crammed with it.


Brass players spend most of their time with one on a part, not in unison.


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## Inventio (Sep 12, 2022)

EFlexMusic said:


> I just had a thought and after listening to multiple modern film scores, specifically by James Newton Howard, Hans Zimmer, and a few others, I can't tell if string sections are being used in divisi at times. My ears still aren't good enough to be able to hear different instruments and what they are doing but, if anything I guess I've heard the celli section split at times but, I can't tell if any others are typically written in divisi!
> 
> Is anyone able to confirm or deny if divisi is common in modern film scoring?


It's common but with the increased size of the string section, it's more a doubling than a divisi, if compared to what film and classical composers did in the past...


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## Dave Connor (Sep 12, 2022)

I don't think it's wise to employ a general approach to orchestrating, outside of being confined to a specific sized orchestra. By that I mean - assuming you have enough strings to sound an effective divisi - one should employ divisi in pursuit of a certain _sound_. It may be to present more complex harmonies such as the John Williams example above or it may be you want the light shimmer that divisi can give which weightier undivided sections can't, and so on. There are fundamentals of orchestrating to be sure. Also practical solutions which divisi often is. But in all cases there is a resultant sound which you want to add to the data base in your head. You may not always _need _a divisi but in certain cases you may _want _one.


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## Marcus Millfield (Sep 12, 2022)

R.G. said:


> Clusters don't have to be precisely tuned because of the acoustic merging that happens with minor seconds. Clusters mainly need a straight, non vibrato tone, since they have no true harmonic property and essentially just an effect. Actual chords in typical voicing arrays are where the intonation has to ring by bringing the notes closer in alignment with Just tuning.
> 
> Also, the higher numbered stands in a string section are not lesser players than the lower numbered ones. It doesn't work like that since it was determined long ago that that sort of distribution is deleterious to how string sections work. And there are some ways in which it's more challenging to play second violin than first (but not in all respects, obviously), since the seconds have a few unique burdens that the firsts don't.
> 
> ...



This 100%.

The skill of the players isn't reflected by the seat they are in. This is true in an orchestral setting, as well as in others like big bands. I'll even go so far as to say that in some settings, first chairs/leads have an easy ride as they will often lead, where the rest need to follow. In very edge chords, it's harder to be third, fourth or fifth chair and fit your note in than it is for the first/lead. Also, especially in big bands, second players often do the most work as the lead is there for the thematic work/solo's.


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## EFlexMusic (Sep 13, 2022)

R.G. said:


> Just keep working on it and you'll get better at it. Lots of stuff is always buried and you can't always hear it even though it's there.
> 
> Divisi in the hands of someone like JW is well beyond what you get from composers playing a strings ensemble patch with 10 fingers that the orchestrators have to thin out a bit, the result of which is sometimes striped, in which case you don't have actual divisi, but simulated 60 violins, etc.
> 
> ...


Thabks for these great examples! What made me actually start this post was because I was trying to mock up a part of this cue (specifically at 1:08) that I like a lot, but just listening by ear isn't really helping me because I can't get it to sound similar which made made me think I'm missing a note somewhere I do think ihave it pretty close though.


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## PedroPH (Sep 13, 2022)

KEM said:


> A lot, that’s how they get those huge, dense tutti chords and such, they also record shorts and longs separately, so that would technically be divisi if you recorded it all at once with a section


What do you mean by "hey also record shorts and longs separately"? Do they separate the score into two, one with the long notes and one with the short notes, and record them at different times? Or they have some players playing only shorts and some playing only longs?


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## KEM (Sep 13, 2022)

PedroPH said:


> What do you mean by "hey also record shorts and longs separately"? Do they separate the score into two, one with the long notes and one with the short notes, and record them at different times? Or they have some players playing only shorts and some playing only longs?



They’re completely separate takes, they record the entire section playing just long notes and then they record the entire section playing just short notes, that way there’s no loss of weight and power. It’s more expensive and time consuming but the results speak for themselves


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## PedroPH (Sep 13, 2022)

KEM said:


> They’re completely separate takes, they record the entire section playing just long notes and then they record the entire section playing just short notes, that way there’s no loss of weight and power. It’s more expensive and time consuming but the results speak for themselves


Thanks! That's what I had understood, but I couldn't figure out why they would do that.


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## NoamL (Sep 13, 2022)

Hmm I learned this a bit different. Although there's nothing wrong with using terms differently as long as we understand each other.

But how I understand it, recording parts separately is not divisi, it is '_*striping*_.' When the same musicians play two stripes of different material, that is '_*overdubbing*.' _When two brass or wind players play the same line & then have separate parts later that is not divisi, not sure there's a special word for it, but _divisi_ is really a strings term. Wind and brass players handle solos often, either featured melodies or 1-note-per-musician chords. When Vn1 and Vn2 have separate parts I still would not call that 'divisi' (although maybe some people do??).

IMO the #1 best rationale for divisi is that it's needed to cover all the parts. Two scenarios come to mind immediately

The first is the one RG illustratd: divisi will be needed if you give the strings a large harmony part with multiple octave doublings... especially above middle C. But, this will not necessarily sound more powerful or 'bigger' than a voicing with fewer doublings. It will sound rich but lack 'weight.' That has to come (as in the Star Wars example) from brass & winds thickening up the orchestration. That very thick tutti orchestration is not what JW does all the time, he saves it for special moments.

The second scenario that springs to mind is if you give the strings *multiple compositional roles*. Suppose Violin1+Violin2+Cellos are playing the melody in 3 octaves. But you also want the bassline and the harmony (which are covered elsewhere by winds and brass) to also be represented in the strings. In this case, you could give the harmony parts to the violas but they will need to divide to play a full chord. And, you could give the bassline to the basses; but if it is a bassline in octaves, then you would either need to divide the basses, or you could divide the cellos instead and assign the top half to the melody and the bottom half to the octave doubling of the bass.



EFlexMusic said:


> Thabks for these great examples! What made me actually start this post was because I was trying to mock up a part of this cue (specifically at 1:08) that I like a lot, but just listening by ear isn't really helping me because I can't get it to sound similar which made made me think I'm missing a note somewhere I do think ihave it pretty close though.




I'd have to transcribe this to be sure but I don't hear divisi between 1:08 - 1:25. When the strings are playing around middle-C like this, you have four string sections (V1 V2 Violas Cellos) that can form close-knit chords. Together with the percussion and winds that are also in the cue, you can outline clear harmonies without needing to divide the strings here.


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## NoamL (Sep 13, 2022)

Here's a simple example of the 2nd scenario from the Williams cue I transcribed elsewhere. Violas divided here just because it's needed to cover harmonies.


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## JohnG (Sep 13, 2022)

R.G. said:


> Clusters don't have to be precisely tuned because of the acoustic merging that happens with minor seconds....


I don't know if you just wanted to have a go but you seem to have deliberately misconstrued everything I wrote.

Sometimes clusters need to be in tune -- I specifically wrote that, not some kind of atonal / effect kind of cluster, which is another thing altogether. Sometimes they are just four or five-note chords that need to be in tune. Either way, there are hardly any locations in the USA or anywhere else that have brass players of the calibre in London or Los Angeles. There are not "dozens" of cities in any country that has that level of brass playing. I'm talking "Malificent" or "Treasure Planet." There's a reason that material (and a lot of trailers) get recorded in Los Angeles and London.

And it is also true that, especially outside major recording venues, the fifth and sixth call brass players are not as strong as the top few, whatever chair they're sitting in. Ditto the down-the-list strings.

The benefit of London or Los Angeles is that there are enough dynamite players that you have little or no fall-off in quality even with a big section. Besides, the players there are much more accustomed to playing with clicks and dealing with all that. 

I've recorded in quite a few cities over the years. It's just not the same everywhere.


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## JohnG (Sep 13, 2022)

Marcus Millfield said:


> This 100%.
> 
> The skill of the players isn't reflected by the seat they are in. This is true in an orchestral setting, as well as in others like big bands. I'll even go so far as to say that in some settings, first chairs/leads have an easy ride as they will often lead, where the rest need to follow. In very edge chords, it's harder to be third, fourth or fifth chair and fit your note in than it is for the first/lead. Also, especially in big bands, second players often do the most work as the lead is there for the thematic work/solo's.


I meant the 'last call' players. For sure, in most cities, the fifth or sixth (or eighth) French Horn player is not very likely as good as the top three or four.


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## NoamL (Sep 13, 2022)

EFlexMusic said:


> Thabks for these great examples! What made me actually start this post was because I was trying to mock up a part of this cue (specifically at 1:08) that I like a lot, but just listening by ear isn't really helping me because I can't get it to sound similar which made made me think I'm missing a note somewhere I do think ihave it pretty close though.



Here is a very quick takedown of that part. no guarantees it is perfectly accurate but it should get you going in the right direction, enjoy!


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## EFlexMusic (Sep 13, 2022)

NoamL said:


> Here is a very quick takedown of that part. no guarantees it is perfectly accurate but it should get you going in the right direction, enjoy!


Thanks for this! I will try it out I couldn't even hear a celli section in that part of the cue lol I just heard violin sections violas and harp it seems and clarinet at least in the first 3 or 4 bars


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## TonalDynamics (Sep 13, 2022)

Modern film scoring has practically no rules or adherence to tradition, so literally all the time.

The objective _coherency_ of that writing however, is of course another discussion...


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## mikeh-375 (Sep 14, 2022)

JohnG said:


> The benefit of London or Los Angeles is that there are enough dynamite players that you have little or no fall-off in quality even with a big section. Besides, the players there are much more accustomed to playing with clicks and dealing with all that.
> 
> I've recorded in quite a few cities over the years. It's just not the same everywhere.


I can attest to that high quality depth John. Once or twice I even had session bands led by Irvine Arditti and some other members his quartet in the other first chairs. The lower numbered desks included some leaders and higher desk members of the likes of the BBC and L.S.O. et al. Wind and brass were always culled from the best orchestras and along with some other well known quartet members also in the string line-up, it made me thankful I had the dots right.


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## R.G. (Sep 14, 2022)

(My bended knee apologies to the Thread Starter. Anyone who wishes to remain on topic should please scroll past this. It's a TL;DR.)



JohnG said:


> I don't know if you just wanted to have a go but you seem to have deliberately misconstrued everything I wrote.


I'm not trying to change your mind on anything, nor did I misconstrue your plain words. I'm a firm believer that everyone is entitled to his or her own views, even when those views are manifestly and provably wrong. My only intent here is to counteract poor scoring advice when I encounter it, to assist any serious-minded aspiring composers who may be in the earlier stages of their musical pursuits, still getting a lay of the land, who may be reading the thread.

The unfortunate fact that you and I are talking about brass at all is a sure sign that something went awry, which happened the moment you brought brass into a thread that was supposed to be about _divisi_, a subject pertaining to _string sections,_ not brass (or woodwinds for that matter).

I'm not willing to engage in any _"Yes it is—Not it isn't"_ sort of gainsaying, so now I'll need to take the time to provide a level of detail I had hoped to avoid, though I can't address all of your assertions, and I'm only doing this in the hopes that a few innocent bystanders who actually read all this might find some interest or benefit herein.

Anyway...



JohnG said:


> And it is also true that, especially outside major recording venues, the fifth and sixth call brass players are not as strong as the top few, whatever chair they're sitting in. Ditto the down-the-list strings.
> 
> The benefit of London or Los Angeles is that there are enough dynamite players that you have little or no fall-off in quality even with a big section. Besides, the players there are much more accustomed to playing with clicks and dealing with all that.


This transparent attempt to move the goalposts, several times at that, and retrofit your earlier comment is not a good showing. I'll quote your original assertion below so it's easy enough to see that it didn't include any of that deep bench stuff.

Moreover, LA and London are hardly the only two cities with deep bench talent pools. This is true even if it lies outside your experience, since neither your experience nor anyone else's is the sum total reservoir of relevant facts when it comes to discussing information-laden subjects like this one.



JohnG said:


> If you're wanting really intense brass chords, best to record in London, Los Angeles, or maybe Nashville. Or, of course, any major city will likely have some good players (Tokyo, Paris, NYC)


"Likely" have some "good" players? That statement threw me back some, I gotta admit. You don't seem to have any grasp of the amount of talent, musicianship and skill level that is out there. It's quite over the top, frankly. If you had even the slightest inkling how off-base this is—the notion that the international market forces for the highest quality musicians have somehow confined them to a couple of cities—you would definitely not have said it. This is myopic _and_ provincial in the extreme.



JohnG said:


> Either way, there are hardly any locations in the USA or anywhere else that have brass players of the calibre in London or Los Angeles. There are not "dozens" of cities in any country that has that level of brass playing. I'm talking "Malificent" or "Treasure Planet." There's a reason that material (and a lot of trailers) get recorded in Los Angeles and London.


I said dozens of cities in the United States, not in _"any country,"_ careful reader. Studio players in LA and London are the best quick readers in the world, no doubt, but what they read doesn't begin to compare in difficulty of reading or playing to what you find in a great many parts of the standard repertoire, nor do they nearly require the comparable nuance and sensitivity.

And while studio musicians _do_ automatically play in that modern, punchy, picture scoring style that is the scoring stage default, symphony orchestra musicians have to switch from playing stylistic Mozart to stylistic Wagner to stylistic Stravinsky, all within one concert, changing tone, dynamics, articulation, and other performance values as necessary, including brass players often having to change mouthpieces or instruments. Know it or not, they _can_ pull off the punchy scoring stage style since it is in any event part of the repository of skills they require for certain scores within the standard repertoire. Again, this is a reality that exists despite your level of awareness.

Picture scoring for high level productions is recorded _mostly_ in LA, Skywalker, and London because that's where the infrastructure and necessary array of personnel are located for doing that: studio musicians enough for multiple concurrent recording sessions per day (including large pools of ethnic instrument musicians), composers, orchestrators, arrangers, scoring stages, scoring engineers, music editors, audio post houses, contractors, copyists, directors, producers, and the movie studios themselves. That's where the stuff is and the people are.

But none of that has any bearing on your original assertion regarding the quality level of musicians located outside of areas setup for studio recording, and contrary to your repeated implications, they hardly belong in some sort of second class ranking, seeing as how they happen to be some of the finest musicians in the world.

Remember this: What you get in the studio is a reading, but what you get on the concert stage is a fully invested interpretational performance of a piece of music that has to hold together in its form throughout, and in very long strands, some single pieces or movements even lasting longer than the 50 contiguous minutes allowed per each hour of a session, where music is only played in short bits at a time and then sewn together afterword.

Maybe examples would come in handy here, so if you want to start a **new thread** and provide bookmarked YT links to what you consider the brass highlights of the brass scoring in _Maleficent_ and _Treasure Planet_, then on my end I'll provide the same for scores by Bartok, Berlioz, Bruckner, Mahler, Prokofiev, Ravel, Respighi, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and Strauss. Then we can have a comparison carnival and maybe even a breakthrough.

So that's a short list of composers whose scores tap the ultimate level of skill required for the musicians in any fully staffed, professionally equipped symphony orchestra. Whether you possess the critical musical ear and evaluative expertise to understand it, or are intellectually honesty to accept it, the following cities have very well developed musician pools of some of the finest world class musicians you're going to find, some more than others, and some deeper than others.

Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Minnesota, Nashville, New York, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Portland, San Antonio, San Diego, San Franciso, Seattle, Saint Louis, Washington.

And on on top of all that, you have Montreal, Toronto, Vienna, Berlin, Europe et al, and some top flight orchestras in a few spots in middle and South America. It's a big world out there. Really!


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## R.G. (Sep 14, 2022)

@EFlexMusic, in an attempt to right the ship and get this back to your divisi topic, I also did a quick takedown of those same bars that Noam did in an effort to show you that, especially when it comes to strings, after writing down the existing notes, there might have to be some educated guesswork and interpretation since strings are so blend-y, and here, they are in somewhat close quarters, so there's lots extremely subtle masking.

For example, it's easy to transcribe the notes from Mahler's Adagietto from his 5th, but because of his meticulous tone sculpting it's difficult to figure some of the part distribution.

I start off the first bar in 3/8 just to keep it simple as an extract, but that's not what it is in the original score obviously. And this still needs dynamics, hairpins, and tempo stuff.

As you can see, my version and his are largely the same, but with slight differences here and there on the notes, part distribution, meter and beat. This is inevitable on account of two people hearing according to their own conditioning and hearing bias, different metric and beat preferences, and listening on different headphones of course.

In this excerpt, the resonance of the low register harp strings every other downbeat has a masking effect and can cloud or influence your hearing a bit, so you have to listen around things like that.

There are a couple things in mine regarding part assignments that I wouldn't bet my life on as being perfectly aligned with the score, and may be partially a reflection of my scoring bias.

In short, the act of transcribing is part technical and part interpretive educated guesswork, especially when strings are involved. There is not typically a pronounced difference between 8 and 16 soft violins in the low range, all else being equal, unless you're right in front of them where you can hear their width a lot better . I have V2 divisi, because that's how it sounds to me, and that's how I'd probably score it in any event.

Anyway, doing the takedown is just as valuable as having the score in written form afterwords.






And this is what I heard when I switched headphones:






A third and final version today, listening on a colleague's headphones:


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