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How much do you pay attention to voicing?

The guys who taught me the most in classes were those who themselves had to arrange stuff. There was a professor / teacher at Stanford who taught orchestration and who did all the arrangements for the marching band (so-called; Stanford's band doesn't "march;" it swarms, or something). That guy was practical.

The other guy was a composer named Don Ray who'd started writing for TV back when electronic instruments were expensive, hard to use, and often not very portable. So he knew how to write for a small ensemble and still make it sound interesting and give it variety.

It's a lot easier to have variety with 90 players than with, say, 11!

Standard Curriculum(?)

The point to this missive is that in general, universities are not packed with actual practitioners -- people who write, day in and day out, for ensembles of any size. Consequently, I am not aware of a "standard curriculum" for teaching practical orchestration. I'm not even sure it exists(?) There are books, some of them quite useful, but that's about it, methinks.

I learned what I know from two things:

1. Reading scores (including some of the scores that those guys used as sources); and

2. Orchestrating for other guys and then hearing it week after week. Quite a set of lessons that was!

I also was lucky enough to work quite a while with Immediate Music, who hired large orchestras for trailer music. It was awesome.

Oh yeah you're totally right. There isn't really a standard curriculum. Although I personally think there are basics that EVERYONE should teach. Voicings, part-writing, harmony basics, arranging (so you actually know how to use the ideas you have), instrumentation, melody development, etc. For instance some of the most basic things people say about arranging I was never taught. For instance: make something new happen every 2-4 bars, each section should have some contrast, NEVER make all of the instruments play all the time because tutti sections get old very fast. These are for sure guidelines, but they can get you quite far imo. Hell even just having well written part-writing makes SUCH a big difference haha.

The kinds of things you read in an arranging text within the first 30 pages. I learned similar to how you did. Mostly score reading, and writing for people outside of school. My comp professors were a mixed bag. One mostly wrote for 20th century orchestra, while the other was very into new age electronic music. So I'm sure that's a big part of it. They had already learned all this stuff and discarded it.
 
I find chord voicing (and voice leading) essential to composing (as in - I'm ALWAYS thinking of it). Both are dictated by genre and taste; which is probably why you don't find many texts on it.

As with all things in music and life, listening is your best teacher!
 
To me the OP question is about arranging, and here’s a nice introduction to working with that (there is a part two as well):



This is more about the voice leading, the other vertical type (instrument choices and ranges ect) is an artform itself, and not very well documented, so listen to scores for arrangements is important. This type of de-engineering/re-engineering is very often done when writing to briefs, when you want your work to be recognized in a specific context (like John Williams style ect.).
 
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What gave me the basis for learning how to voice is having learned how to write 4 part harmony - for both chords and leading. I guess it seems old fashioned now to some, but a month or so of doing those (in my case, Hindemith) harmony exercises really made a big difference for me. Also, both things Saxer said: voicing is everything; and playing with live musicians is a great way to learn too. I did both, but doing some of those harmony exercises was the most 'bang for buck' for me
 
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What gave me the basis for learning how to voice is having learned how to write 4 part harmony - for both chords and leading. I guess it seems old fashioned now to some, but a month or so of doing those (in my case, Hindemith) harmony exercises really made a big difference for me. Also, both things Saxer said: voicing is everything; and playing with live musicians is a great way to learn too. I did both, but doing some of those harmony exercises was the most 'bang for buck' for me

Definitely. Its not that I don't know voicing or voice leading. Its that I wasn't sure how conscious other people were about it. I've been part writing for almost a decade now haha! I learned by part writing in school, followed by tons of Bach analysis and moving my way through the times. It's definitely important, I just wasn't sure how much people really considered it outside of arrangers. Nice to know I'm not alone!
 
Hey everyone,

I've been diving deep into some voicing techniques to improve my arranging and sketch to full score process. How much do you all pay attention to these kinds of things? I feel like is so important yet so many composition texts overlook it or don't really explain how important it is. Especially when it comes to extended tertian harmonies in orchestral music or quartal/quintal harmony.

Just curious
When I compose it’s all I think about including both the vertical and the horizontal, but not only do I want the chords themselves to be voiced properly but I also want each individual part to flow nicely almost making another melody within itself even when their part is just supporting harmony to the main melody. For example, this is a good issue to have but I have been bombarded by commissions now ever since I completed my trumpet concerto. I priced a brass fanfare for a client to be written in a 2 day, 16 hour quote where I was supposed to be finished composing the piece in 1 day then engraving the score today. Well, for the past 3 hours now I have been staring at 1 measure in the 1st horn part how it is interplaying with the 3rd trumpet part, and it is driving me insane, but once I figure out the math I know I will finally be satisfied with it.
 
There's also a more elusive aspect of voicing, which is looking at it from an eq perspective... we are actually boosting/cutting frequencies, so that's also one thing to consider.
Talking about voicing here, not voice-leading
 
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Here is another aspect..the performers! (the non Vi ones..)
The origins of voice leading was just that..for choral singers to be able to smoothly sing their parts and easily find their pitch.
 
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