(Originally posted on December 10, 2008)
Orchestration, by definition, is the set of empirical rules and methods for making music resonate through an orchestra. However, this article will focus specifically on the practice and approach of creating music with orchestral sounds using a PC/DAW.
To put it bluntly, it’s safe to say that far more people in the world today have heard an orchestra “through speakers” via recorded media (like CDs) than have heard one perform live in a concert hall.
I was no exception. When I first witnessed a live performance, I was completely captivated by the sheer richness of the musical space created by the orchestra. It made me realize just how informationally limited and, in a sense, acoustically abstracted the orchestra I had heard on recordings was.
At the same time, it reinforced my thoughts on the unique, self-contained nature of a “recorded and edited orchestra” and the strength of its “image-evoking power.”
I felt that a recorded and edited sound possesses the power to evoke the cultural, social, and sonic images associated with an orchestra, transcending the context of the listening environment.
In the 1980s, when sampling technology became widespread and integrated into musical performance, a sound called the “orchestra hit”—a sample of a full orchestra tutti (everyone playing a fortissimo “crash!”)—took the world by storm.
One reason for its impact was that it made a fundamentally non-portable sound portable, given that an orchestral sound is inherently tied to the acoustics of the hall it’s in.
The image-evoking power of that single sound was immense. Its mere explosion could instantly and decisively set the mood of a piece of music. Incidentally, the orchestra hit itself later became a fixed image and descended into cliché, but the power of that “hit” (a powerful tutti) lives on in synthesizer patches today.
So, we have this sampled orchestral sound, which should be a far cry from its original form. Yet, listeners project and perceive a multitude of images through it. While pioneering recording engineers made it their mission to capture performances as they were, they also explored new sonic worlds that appealed to people’s imaginations.
For example, in experimental jazz and symphonic orchestra recordings from the 1960s onward, artists created music that could only exist on a recording by intentionally using effects on and exaggerating volume, balance, and timbre. This can be seen as a product of the “album as a complete work of art” philosophy that began with the introduction of multitrack recording (MTR).
If the final form of a PC/DAW-based production is a “recording played through speakers,” then I believe we should consciously strive to master an orchestration that is conceived for recording and editing. We must consider what kind of “orchestral image” the listener has (or doesn’t have) and decide whether to align with that image, subvert it, or exaggerate it.
Keeping this in mind opens up the possibility of treating the act of orchestration itself in a multi-layered way. This includes not just changing instrumentation, but also things like altering the assumed acoustic space of the performance or aiming for a “meta-performance” effect by applying effects directly to the sound in a non-physical way.
I believe that consciously adopting this approach—not just forcing real-world orchestration into the virtual world of recording and editing—is one way to truly leverage orchestration in a PC/DAW environment.
One of the works where I tried to experiment with these ideas is “Thoughts Floating in the Deep Blue.”
For learning, while it’s crucial to experience as much live orchestral music as possible, it’s also important to use that experience to perceive what is lost or altered in a recording. With that understanding, learning from CDs and scores becomes highly effective (References: “The Complete Orchestration” by Akira Ifukube, “Orchestration” by Walter Piston).
In fact, one of the pinnacles of orchestration practice within the modern recording and editing style can be found in film music. Listening from that perspective can provide many valuable insights and ideas for a creator.
I believe that expanding the idea of “using orchestration” to mean “using the *image* that the orchestra carries” and thinking flexibly is a musically important step.
