These are super helpful, I'm a flat out beginner and am just interested in learning how to just break this stuff down honestly. You did lose me a bit on the later parts. I would greatly appreciate if you could do some sort of chronological class from very basic to harder concepts, including your workflow in one video, maybe the program, and basics of breaking this stuff down. You're a great teacher and make this stuff seem pretty simple, but I think in some of these videos the range from beginner to advanced is too far for me, and I imagine some more advanced people might skip the beginner talkings
I totally agree. I totally understand everything that you taught in this video. I think you would do great at an orchestration course. I would definitely sign up because I like your style of teaching
I can’t overstate how helpful your videos have been. I’ve been trying to improve my understanding of orchestration and your channel has been a goldmine of inspiration. Thank you Zach! 🙏
I'm a guitar player, piano dabler, and I've barely touched my BBC Orchestra plug-in. But dude, you just help me understand it all more than five years of guitar theory gurus and piano tutorials. The concept of the overtones on the third just blew my mind. Now I know why I was often instinctively voicing that way. Thanks so much. Subscribed! ❤
Thank you Zach, nice introduction. This could easily be expanded to a whole series of videos. I could imagine somethink like: passing tones. voicing with extended chords and combining instruments playing harmony with different rhythms, say short strings and long trombones.
You sir, are the reason why RU-vid is the most powerful platform ever for learning and growing skills. You have a new subscriber! Hope you have a wonderful day Zach :D
I appreciate your philosophy about watching out for thirds in chords. Anže Rozman taught me the same thing, so you’re in great company! Really solid stuff, Zach.
I need much much more of this. Thank you! What lead me to you is on my own channel that I am trying to learn exactly this concept through mockups by ear (all orchestrations except one). I know I'm making mistakes or ears are deceiving me. And of course I know why. But I wasn't able to fix it. I am definitely subscribing!
Just earned a subscriber my friend. Easily the best explanation I have seen on this topic in years. Thanks for showing the piano roll and the on screen keyboard.
Im about to go study music production, and I will be bingeing your videos when I compare more orchestral stuff!! Thanks alot for these tutorials! You're amazing! 🤩
Honestly, this is the best orchestration tutorial I've found so far :) The way you explain things really is amazing and helpful. Thanks a lot, I'll binge your content :)
This video is a goldmine for me. My background is rock guitar, self taught amateur. I have no formal training but have become so excited about orchestral stuff lately. I don't have access to all the gear, soundbanks, etc. I have my phone and the BandLab app. I'll get an idea while hiking in the woods, hum it into my phone, then work it out later on the little piano on there. It's been so fun to learn more about scales, add harmonies, build chord progressions, break it all apart and orchestrate it for the different sections, etc. But all along I know how much I don't know... I constantly question whether my parts are even playable by a competent musician on the various instruments... I always wonder if I'm committing some egregious theoretical error. I've been reading and watching all I can to learn -- this is one of the best single videos I've found for someone like me. Thanks!
16:07 onwards is great info. Makes so much sense that loud brass has so many overtones so using other instruments to copy it's contents and rhythms is redundant. Same about 2 horns = 1 brass. Thanks!
In my experience as a bass trombonist, when dealing with three or more trombones, the lowest part is always implied or explicitly written as a bass trombone part, at least in modern orchestral practice. This is just me being nit picky abt my specialty though, great content!
Really helpful. I studied music at the Conservatoire for 13 years as a clarinet player, but was always uninterested by theory and orchestration. Now I’m a full time composer for film and advertising but mainly in pop and rock stuff. So these videos help me bridge the gap and get what I’m missing. I’m now going back to using orchestra and it feels soooooo good. Really inspiring! Your videos helped me want to get a lot more into orchestral music :) I clearly owe you this! 🎉
Most important to understand is that sample library is NOT AN ORCHESTRA. Orchestra is made up of people who have to play these instruments and there are physical limits what can be done and for how long. Wind instrument players need to breathe, lower notes need more air. String players can only play a note at a time (unless pizzi or double stops) and their bowing has limits and there are shapes that are more or less difficult to play. Instruments sound completely different in different ranges and open string sounds different than fretted string even if same pitch. Players have limits to their physique, you might love that ostinato, but after playing it for 60 bars, people can get tired. You need to understand when to split your sections and when not and understand how that'll effect the sound.. etc.etc. You can do physically impossible things with sample libraries, but the really good sounding music comes from understanding the real physical orchestra and the instruments and using it to an effect.
A very helpful video! I especially appreciate the rules of thumb about range and where to start with orchestrating a chord (melody, then bass, then harmonies). I wonder if you would be interested in doing a video that goes deeper with voicing methods like interlocking, enclosure, overlapping, and juxtaposition. Would love to hear your take on how each of those techniques can be characterized.
An excellent point! Well presented! That's one of the reasons why learning a bit of music theory can help hugely when writing music for orchestra or multiple voices. Too many people are convinced that theory is all just supplementary voodoo for classical snobs who want to talk music-theory jargon to sound fancy lol.
Great video Zach! I notice that whenever I make music I usually just go off of what feels right, but I think having a method for the madness could make me a more efficient composer. I would like to ask though, what software do you use for recording? I would like to also start making content about my music making/learning journey and I feel like your videos are some of the highest quality ones that I watch, making them a good metric for what's good. Cheers!!
Thanks for the kind words, and awesome for you to start making videos yourself! I use OBS for recording, recording directly from a Sony A6600 mirrorless camera. But start within your means--don't overinvest in gear so early into making content. (Look at my earlier videos for reference on what things looked/sounded like 😁)
A very useful video, Zach. For me it comes exactly at the right time as I'm trying to expand my work from just writing melodies and basic harmonies into creating something which has more depth and width. Thanks!
How would you go about voicing jazz chords where 5ths are often omitted and 3rds and 7ths (sometimes 6ths) are the guide tones and are of utmost importance?
I love the sound of that lower-octave "muddy" triad. But do agree with you about it being muddy. If it's being used intentionally that way it's good. But it's usually not.
Zach, are you focusing on balancing the voices within each section, or balancing them within the orchestra? For example, maybe if the strings section was very 3^ heavy, you could balance it with very tonic/5th heavy brass?
6:04 The famous warm and lush sounding finale hymn in Brahm's sym 1 is for the violins written entirely (except for one high A) in the range you just described as not really sounding best.
Orchestration is somewhat like Chemistry (or at least how *I* understand chemistry): certain rules can be bent and broken depending on what other elements are at play. If all the violins are playing a unison melody and there aren't many other instruments playing overtop of them, you can get away with putting instruments in a low register. I myself love the sound of flugelhorn and flute playing in a unison low register. I'm particularly drawn to the blend. But a single flugelhorn will overpower a single flute in that register. So I have to typically compensate for it by having a flute section (in a concert band) all play unison to balance it out against the single flugelhorn.
Nice video. I was dropping the cello and bass on my voicing, but I was keeping a more closed position on the others, I will try opening them up a bit more. ty
Be warry of doubling notes in several octaves - octaves will tend to make the note heavier and more conspicuous - being the reason the woodwinds almost never double with themselves.
this video is so incredible and so helpful. holy. i am curious though, what is the thing that’s around your neck? it looks like you are blowing into it?
Nice Lesson Zach! Thank You for sharing your knowledge in such a great way. Can you tell me what an controller you use for the brass? Haven't seen such a thing.
I agree with overusing muddiness. Sometimes it can be hard to distinguish especially when you want to add a lot of "weight" to a song. However, I actually used some muddiness in context to a song that I wrote, and it actually ended up being more powerful than when I used good voicing, especially sing the song is a "dirty rotten pirate" theme lol.
Nice video! My geeky part speaking, what do you call the little black thing you blow whenever you want to play winds or brass? Definitely want to get one of those
while this is definitely true, a huge part of why a lot of orchestral compositions feel muddy is down to the mixing. A lot of people who are really great at arranging don't know so much about how to mix properly using EQ and compression. These two things are immensely important. Everything in a mix needs space, the ammount of difference a slight dip in EQ on other instruments to give say a cello some more space is incredible, the same is true of compression
Good point! It's definitely a snowball effect... you need good arranging, orchestration, and mixing to really have clarity in your music. If any one of those elements falls short, the piece as a whole suffers.
Playback in stereo, mono, monitors, phone speaker, hi-end speakers, rubbish speakers, IEMs... etc., and of course a reference track, all play a part in creating a descent balance. I've noticed a bad mix played back on high quality speakers/IEMs doesn't sound too bad, yet it can sound atrocious on bargain-bin speakers where the emphasis is on muddy mids. But this 'clarity' in orchestration is about the choice of notes, the greater the range the more expansive the sound. I think it's instinctive.
Shift Up/Down selects the top or bottom voice, then Command X to cut, then Command V to paste (though I use "Paste at Original Position", which you can custom assign)
Wow, that's a really powerful orchestration and good voicings. I am curious how you would deal with more complex harmonies like Cm11 or F triad over E triad.
Hello @ZachHeyde I have a question - do you use reverb in your composing template all the time? Or just for the purpose of the demonstration in the video? I've seen people teach to use separate, and have a completely dry templates. I guess it makes sense for more hybrid projects, than purely orchestra. Wondering what's your take on this.
Very good advice, I'm sure many people starting out will have good reference points and tips from now on if they see the video. As a composer who uses manuscript paper + notation software, wouldn't all this be easier scoring on staffs? It seems hard to 'see' the voice leading this way for me
Good question! Because the work I do for media is on tight deadlines, there's often not enough time do both notation and mock-up work separately. But yes, it can be a good exercise to practice these things using both methods!
@@ZachHeyde yeah, I figure this is the method to produce music for games,tv,film. Scores after all are instruction for musicians/conductors. Aside from this all good orchestral music follows good voice-leading, careful doubling of the notes in a chord, careful spacing...