ManicMiner
in the Skylab landing bay
Is vertical in terms of energy increase, and what does horizontal development mean ?
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.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.
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.
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.So, how do you have both, at the same time?
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.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
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.
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