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Still working on that little tune I posted earlier this week. I’ve got some basic harmonization down (and when I say basic I mean ‘I don’t think I could properly analyze this even with my music degree’), but I’d love some input on which sort of medium to continue with. ‘Medium’ being the best word I could come up with for orchestration, since I seem to have gained a few followers and I don’t want to scare them off with theory-babble right off the bat.

So, I’ve got a couple of setups that I’m thinking of working with. I’ve done samples of all of them and glued those together into one big file (because yay the way tumblr does audio is really annoying as always), so you’ll be hearing the same tune five different times played by different instruments/groupings. I’ve listed them below for attempted clarity.

Just piano. This would normally be just what I’d go with, but I don’t have access to one right now, so writing in this way is going really slow. I did the harmonization that I’ll be posting later in some form just in Finale with the piano, and it took a couple of days of working in 10-20 minute increments (in between getting too frustrated or baffled to continue) for me to come up with, like, sixteen bars; or around 30 seconds).

Harp! This one I’ve spent a lot of time learning how to write for without the actual instrument at hand (although now I at least have a folk harp of reasonable size I can test stuff on). However, the harp has some bothersome limitations when it comes to changing keys, and what I have so far would likely prove impossible to play for that reason (if you’re interested in knowing why this is, just send me an ask. It’s a little long to be explaining in this list).

Small Ensemble. I was thinking of something quintessentially (stereotypical) Parisian. Possibly acoustic guitar, accordion, upright bass, harmonica, a few strings, and a piano. Not actually sure if I have a harmonica software instrument, but I definitely have an accordion. The problem with this setup is that I really play none of those instruments, and their capabilities aren’t really covered in most texts on orchestration, so I might end up with something unplayable without knowing it, which would be sad. However, I’ve had a bit of an experiment with this (both in my head and a bit on my computer), and I think it would sound cool.

Celesta. An instrument you have doubtless all heard, but don’t know anything about. Basically, it’s the instrument that plays that little chime-y theme at the beginning of the first Harry Potter movie. It’s built sort of like a cross between an upright piano and a glockenspiel, where the keys activate little hammers that strike a set of metal bars (I should point out that it sounds SIGNIFICANTLY less sharp than the glockenspiel). I really liked how whimsical this tune sounded when I translated it to the celesta synthesizer, I would just have to do a bit of tidying up of chords and such which could be annoying.

Some sort of proper orchestra. Starting with strings, obviously (which I have already had a bit of a go at). Working on this would be a little annoying (since I don’t have my second screen set up, and the big computer I used for my thesis has the new version of Finale installed on it and so is functionally useless (don’t even get me started on how much of a screw-up the new Finale is). I’ve already given this a bit of a go; and while it still needs some work, I think the little bit I’ve written so far is working out okay.

If you bothered to read all of this and actually listen to the whole thing (which I wouldn’t blame you for not doing because it’s repetitious), then let me know what you think sounds best. Ultimately that’s what’s going to decide which one I do.