IntroductionIntro

1

Introduction Professional Orchestration’s Writing For Strings is a one semester length course designed as the second semester following the standard one semester orchestration course, which is usually given in the senior year of college.

Because of its design, Writing For Strings can also be used as a private home study course.

The course has newly added lessons and is supported at the OrchLinks tab at www.professionalorchestration.com.

The textbook for this course is Professional Orchestration Vol. 1, which is included in our Writing For Strings Expanded - Master Package, or can be purchased separately as a print or PDF eBook from www.alexanderpublishing.com. You will also need the Spectrotone Chart, which, again, is included in the Master Package or can be purchased separately as a download from www.alexanderpublishing.com

How TaughtWriting For Strings fulfi lls its purpose by you:

1. Learning the coloristic instrumentation issues for the strings;2. Learning how to do score analysis;3. Learning techniques within the context of a full page score to

build a set of orchestral compositional devices to draw from for your own writing;

4. Doing a MIDI mock-up of your score analysis;5. Applying what you’ve learned to your own original compositions;6. Attending concerts/watching concert videos to learn bowings

and how a melodic line is bowed.

End Result GoalsAs a result, the end goals for this course are for you:

� To learn the basic vocabulary of string writing;� To learn what works;� To NOT reinvent the wheel as a beginning composer;� To write with confidence whether as an arranger, composer, or

orchestrator.

Writing For Strings, 5th Edition. Copyright © 2011 Peter Lawrence Alexander. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

In the Book� As you go through Writing

For Strings you’ll be referred to specifi c chapters to read in the required text Professional Orchestration, Vol. 1 (POvol1)

Videos to Watch� Watch the Introductory

video

Scores to Study� In the Professional Orches-

tration book and the included Adobe PDF scores - you’ll be referred to specifi c music scores to study.

IntroductionIntro

2

Tools IncludedTo facilitate your learning, this course includes:

� The lessons (one would hope so!);� New video lessons to support selected lessons;� The String Positions PDF Booklet;� Audio files of students performing the range of each string

instrument non-chromatically;� Additional scores to study (approx. 500 pages worth);� Links to YouTube videos of selected works.� Links to download live performances of many works that are

“unprocessed” in terms of reverb, EQ’ing, etc.

In all, this is a very complete learning package for you.

How AchievedNot to sound harsh and mean, but the purpose and goals of Writing For Strings can only be achieved by your sitting down at a desk, turning off the cellphone, and focusing on the task at hand. The learning approach set up for you has been proven successful for several hundred years. What I’ve added that’s new is the use of MIDI mock-ups to hear lines that you may not hear, even when listening to or watching several different versions via DVD or YouTube.

Here I want to encourage you to repent from a notion plaguing modern students, which is that you’re not accomplishing enough when listening to or viewing a complete work with focus.

As a composer, once beyond having learned the facts of music, your job is to develop your musical imagination so that you can conceive the complete work, including its full orchestration, in your mind. This is how professionals work. And it takes time. Unlike in the movie The Matrix, you cannot insert these lessons into your brain, download them, and instantly have them at your fi ngertips!

This imaginative muscle is developed by hearing a work, repeatedly, in its entirety. When I worked as a media planner/researcher in an ad agency, the general rule for budget planning was that until a customer actually saw/heard a commercial at least three times, they hadn’t learned what the ad was actually saying. This came out of a study from General Electric called Why Three Exposures Might Be Enough.

Apply this idea to any Mahler symphony.

After having listened to any Mahler symphony three times, on three separate occasions, without napping, can you genuinely say you’ve heard that work to the point that you can remember it, bar for bar, in your imagination without needing a CD or MP3 to remind you of what it sounds like?

Mahler must have, because he wrote it!

IntroductionIntro

3

Therefore, listening/viewing is working, more so if you attempt to conduct the work. This active involvement brings the score page alive where you literally see things missed when just actively listening, including seeing/hearing the devices/combinations in score context that I’ve worked out for you in the books Professional Orchestration 2A, 2B, 3, and beyond.

For Those Who Don’t Read MusicOne of the most diffi cult teaching tasks I’ve encountered in the past few years is trying to teach students orchestration who don’t read music and have no solid foundation of harmony and counterpoint from which to draw from in their studies.

While you’ll defi nitely glean a lot of insights, please note that Professional Orchestration: Writing For Strings, is designed to be a second semester collegiate course, so the more you can read music the more you’ll get out of this course.

MIDI Mock-Up ToolsIf you’re mainly using notation programs like Finale, Notion or Sibelius, you can use the orchestral sample libraries that come with them.

If, however, you’re using a sequencing program (which I recommend), then look at libraries like the EastWest Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Gold, IK Multimedia’s Miroslav Philharmonic, or the Vienna Special Edition.

If your writing (and your pocketbook) are more advanced, consider Audiobro’s L.A.Scoring Strings Full or EastWest’s Hollywood Strings GOLD with the 64Bit PLAY 3.0 player.

Study Time When a Writing For Strings class is offered in college, it’s usually worth two credit hours, which means two hours in the classroom and four to six hours studying outside of class per week.

So if you’re studying independently, schedule a lesson or so a week, then budget an hour a day or so for score analysis and doing MIDI mock-ups. Be sure to do your score analysis in a notebook, not a music notation program as the eye/hand combination is critical to the learning process.

SupportI’ve also set up a learning forum for Writing For Strings at the Alexander Publishing web site. This forum is for questions and learning. For customer service concerns, please write sales@alexanderpublishing.com

For additional web support, please click the OrchLinks tab at www.professionalorchestration.com. If you fi nd links you think others should know about, please post them in the forum thread I set up for this, and after evaluation, I’ll add them at OrchLinks.

IntroductionIntro

4

Live Performances of the Included ScoresIn researching the web, we’ve found a number of live performances of the scores included for this material. Many of these were performed by the Peabody Concert Orchestra and Peabody Symphony Orchestra in Baltimore, Maryland. All are available for free. Here’s the list:

Debussy – La Mer: “Jeux de vagues” (2nd Mvmt.)Performed by the Peabody Symphony Orchestra (2002-2003 Season):http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/psorecordings

Mozart – “Jupiter” Symphony #41 in C major, 1st Mvmt: Allegro Vivace, K551Performed by the New York Philharmonic Orchestrahttp://www.archive.org/details/MozartSymphonyNo.41jupiter

Ravel – Rapsodie Espagnole: “Malaguena” (2nd Mvmt.)Performed by the Peabody Symphony Orchestra (2004-2005 Season):http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/psorecordings

Rimsky-Korsakov – Scheherazade (excerpt from 2nd Mvmt.)Performed by the Peabody Symphony Orchestra (2003-2004 Season):http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/psorecordings

Mozart – String Quintet #6 in Eb Major, K614 Allegro di moltoPerformed by the Fine Arts Quartethttp://www.fi neartsquartet.org/listen.html

Wagner – Parsifal Overture, Act 1: VorspielPerformed by the Berlin Philharmonic OrchestraPart 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlIbqzSeIeEPart 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIuewebfd_8&NR=1MIDI File: http://www.rwagner.net/e-download.html

Stravinsky – Petrushka: 1st Mvmt.Performed by the Peabody Concert Orchestra (2002-2003 Season):http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/pcorecordings

Stravinsky – Rite of Spring: Dance of the Young Girls (Le sacre du printemps, 2nd Mvmt.)Performed by the Peabody Symphony Orchestra (2000-2001 Season):http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/psorecordings

Holst – The Planets: JupiterPerformed by the Peabody Concert Orchestra (2002-2003 Season):http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/pcorecordings

Tchaikovsky – Symphony #4, Part III: ScherzoPerformed by the Peabody Symphony Orchestra (2001-2002 Season):http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/psorecordings

IntroductionIntro

5

Ravel – Ma mère l’oye: Petit Poucet (Hop-o’ My Thumb, from Mother Goose Suite)Performed by the Columbia University Orchestra:http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cuo/audio.html

Ravel – Ma mère l’oye: Laideronnette, Imperatrice des Pagodes (Empress of the Pagodas, from Mother Goose Suite)Performed by the Columbia University Orchestra:http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cuo/audio.html

Ravel – Ma mère l’oye: Le jardin feerique (The Fairy Garden, from Mother Goose Suite)Performed by the Columbia University Orchestra:http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cuo/audio.html

Be Blessed!

Peter Lawrence Alexanderwww.professionalorchestration.com

Summer 2011