Orchestration Template

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Orchestration Template

2018-12-19 12:38 pm

I like to compose by ear, and I have an idea to help me learn orchestration: create templates for each instrument showing range, idiomatic figurations and use highlight colours to indicate problematic areas, change in timbre, etc.

Does this exist already?

What else would you include?

What about transposing instruments...do the templates in concert pitch?

Thank you for your feedback,
SEBC

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #1 – 2018-12-19 08:02 pm

My experience is that my template is not that useful for you: My ranges are not yours, my special notes are not yours - because my soloists and chorists and instrumentalists are not yours. When I started to write for choir, I collected some ranges and "risk information" ("dont use tritoni!") ... but then I found that our choir has other ranges and other problems. So I have now a template, but it's for our choir (and I have written down ranges for a few of our solists).

Still, technical support is nice, and therefore I wrote the RangePitchMarker.hmm plugin. I have attached three of my templates that use this object -

one for choir and piano;
one for "20er" crank organ - the RangePitchMarkers in this template define the single notes, as such small organs have only diatonic scales, with a few additional flattened notes;
one for Bavarian brass band, for which I started to write - but it will take a few years until the results will be acceptable, I think. My template contains all instruments in concert pitch - I can not compose directly in transposing staffs (and, anyway, I typically write a particell, which is in concert pitch), and then transposed staves for all instruments, which end up as the final score and voices.

Maybe this helps you ... however, as the two pdfs mentioned in that other thread, and every book on instrumentation show, there's so much more to know which cannot be written down "formally", but needs to be explained and, in many cases, tried out and heard - that's the reason it's an art (or at least craft), isn't it?

H.M.

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #2 – 2018-12-19 08:16 pm

It’s definitely a craft! I’m blessed to have musicians willing to work with me and correct my writing. I just performed five new pieces with piano, oboe and vocals on two of them.
I’m going to start with an oboe template and see if that helps me remember the details!

Do you have any oboe suggestions?

I downloaded your marker but I need step by step directions to use it. Could I colour the notes above the staff as blue for Thin tone and the Lower notes as orange for warm and out of range notes as red? How will I use it to help me in a new piece?

Thanks

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #3 – 2018-12-19 08:20 pm

Can you tell me which ranges you consider to be "above staff", "lower notes", and "out of range"? - then I could try and show you how to do it (if my object can do it ...).

Edit: I added two simple examples - one marks all notes above g" with blue circles (using a range starting at g" and going up "very high") - the color is the one given to the RangePitchMarker object (with Visibility|Item color).
The second example defines an additional orange marker for lower notes; the example shows that even transposed notes are marked correctly.
Pressing F11 shows that none of this is visible when the score is printed.

H.M.

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #4 – 2018-12-19 08:35 pm

How do I run the tool?

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #5 – 2018-12-19 08:38 pm

Nothing to "run" - RangePitchMarker is a plugin object, which always does its drawing while you enter or move notes around (unless the object is set to "Invisible" ... but you mostly never do that).

H.M.

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #6 – 2018-12-19 08:46 pm

I downloaded it and now it is in my user tool window. How do I get it into the box that I access by pressing J ? (If that's where it is supposed to be)

When I said I needed step by step directions, I was telling the truth.

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #7 – 2018-12-19 08:49 pm

Here is a small "video" that shows how to set up a single RangePitchMarker. The smaller example above just did exactly that; the other one added one more such object - that's it. If you have any more questions, just ask!

H.M.

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #8 – 2018-12-19 08:54 pm

It's embarrassing to be so computer inept.

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #9 – 2018-12-19 08:55 pm

... well, I cannot cook (my son is much better at it than me!). So it goes ... I added a link to an explanation video to my last posting above.

Edit: Ah - I did not answer your question "now it is in my user tool window. How do I get it into the box that I access by pressing J ? (If that's where it is supposed to be)". Mhm ... I always forget how this works, I confess - mainly because I have all the necessary plugins installed for a long time. Can you find that out yourself? - it must have been explained somewhere in the forum a handful of times.

H.M.

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #10 – 2018-12-20 07:19 pm

I'm still looking...

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #11 – 2018-12-20 08:17 pm

I just realized that you said "user tool window", and I think you are talking about the RangePitchMarker.hmm plugin. As you probably remember, user tools and object plugins are two different animals. You might have downloaded the plugin file as though it was a user tool, but that won't work. The easiest way to install a new plugin is by doing the following:

Go to the forum page for that plugin (i.e. here).
Download the score or clip that the author has provided, and load that into NWC. In this case, the score is named "20131027-31er.AveMariaFirstFewChords.nwc"
If the plugin isn't installed yet, you'll see a popup message of the form "Detected x unknown user objects in blahblahblah.nwc". Go to Tools > Manage Objects... and click "Online Synch..." which completes the installation process.

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #12 – 2018-12-20 08:34 pm

... or, if I remember well, simply drag and drop the plugin on the NWC window.

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #13 – 2018-12-21 05:08 pm

Thanks for the help getting it installed properly. I'm off to figure out how to use. You may hear back from me!

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #14 – 2018-12-21 08:24 pm

Is there any way to do two or three circles around each note? I'd like to do dynamics as well. Some instruments are counter-intuitive for dynamics, such as the oboe which is loud in its lower register and soft in its high register.

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #15 – 2018-12-21 09:06 pm

Here is what I came up with, plus I have a cheat sheet of comments from orchestrations manuals on how to write for the oboe.

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #16 – 2018-12-28 09:48 pm

Quote from: SEBC – 2018-12-21 09:06 pm

Here is what I came up with, plus I have a cheat sheet of comments from orchestrations manuals on how to write for the oboe.

Does this look sensible? I’m thinking of adding all the winds then doing a separate one for brass, strings, percussion etc.

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #17 – 2018-12-29 01:53 pm

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #18 – 2018-12-29 02:33 pm

Quote from: David Palmquist – 2018-12-29 01:53 pm

<snip>
The colours you apparently want to use are missing - other than the first few "chords" showing ranges, all the notes are the same colour. The dynamics as shown don't clearly show the message you're trying to convey. Why are they there?

You need to install the user object... Load the file and then press <Ctrl+J> to get the dialogue and check for updates.

His "Orange" ones show up as white if you are using default highlight colour assignments,

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #19 – 2018-12-30 07:57 am

Thanks Lawrie. Had I not been writing at 4:30 in the morning, I might have thought to look for that!

Happy new year, eh?

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #20 – 2018-12-30 08:13 am

Hey David - Happy New Year to you too. I hope you also had a wonderful Christmas.

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #21 – 2018-12-30 10:31 pm

My wife and I went to Maui and had a very quiet and different Christmas. I hope your Christmas was as enjoyable as ours.

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #22 – 2019-01-26 07:28 pm

Quote from: David Palmquist – 2018-12-29 01:53 pm

~~Didn't see an attachment for your 28-12-18 question.~~ Looked at the 21-12-28 example, and the concept seems okay.

~~The colours you apparently want to use are missing - other than the first few "chords" showing ranges, all the notes are the same colour.~~ The dynamics ~~as shown~~ don't clearly show the message you're trying to convey. ~~Why are they there?~~ You should explain them on the page.

The "beginner" range seems awfully limited, and are you sure where it begins?

Range diagrams in Sammy Nestico's The Complete Arranger don't describe the tonal qualities.

I don't have the book readily to hand but I believe he writes just the bottom and top notes of the instrument's range, marking the difficult ones with parentheses more or less like this:

!NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.751,Single)
|Clef|Type:Treble
|Text|Text:"( )"|Font:PageText|Scale:70|Pos:-14|Justify:Center|Placement:AtNextNote
|Text|Text:"Concert pitch"|Font:StaffBold|Pos:14|Placement:BestFitForward
|Note|Dur:Half|Pos:b-14
|Spacer|Width:150
|Note|Dur:Half|Pos:b-12
|Spacer|Width:125
|User|Glissando.ms|Pos:-13|Text:
|Note|Dur:Half|Pos:7
|Spacer|Width:125
|Text|Text:"( )"|Font:PageText|Scale:70|Pos:12|Justify:Center|Placement:AtNextNote
|Note|Dur:Half|Pos:11|Opts:Stem=Down
|Spacer|Width:200
|Bar
|Text|Text:"Notated as"|Font:StaffBold|Pos:14|Placement:BestFitForward
|Note|Dur:Half|Pos:-13
|Spacer|Width:150
|Note|Dur:Half|Pos:b-11
|Spacer|Width:125
|User|Glissando.ms|Pos:-13|Text:
|Note|Dur:Half|Pos:8
|Spacer|Width:125
|Text|Text:"( )"|Font:PageText|Scale:70|Pos:12|Justify:Center|Placement:AtNextNote
|Note|Dur:Half|Pos:12|Opts:Stem=Down
|Spacer|Width:150
!NoteWorthyComposerClip-End

Sorry, David, I missed your response in the flurry of getting back to my studies. The beginner ranges change depending on which book I consult. I am not familiar with the one that you mentioned.

How do I get the nwc example you posted to show up in NWC? I can't remember how to do that.

Re: Orchestration Template

Reply #23 – 2019-01-29 09:50 pm

Just highlight the entire clip (from "!NoteWorthyComposerClip(2.751,Single"to "!NoteWorthyComposerClip-End") then copy it, and paste it into a new NWC staff.