Combining instruments to make new sonorities.

[rasputin1963]

Something I very much want to learn nowadays is: How to combine two or more instruments (primarily orchestral/acoustic instruments) to create new sonorities. This is perhaps something of a lost art in the pop domain. It was a big deal in the 50's and 60's.

 

Example: a jazz guitarist might have his melody-line doubled by a xylophone or marimba.

 

A strings melody might be doubled by a piccolo flute.

 

A pianist might have his melody-line doubled by a vibraphone.

 

A clarinet cluster might be accented with an oboe or bassoon.

 

A trumpet cluster might be undergirded by a mellower-sounding french horn.

 

 

I am interested in the magic that happens when two distinct sonorities are combined to make an interesting-sounding pad.... the sum of the parts being greater than the individual sonorities themselves.

 

Looking for a book specifically dealing with COMBINATIONS of sonorities; any ideas or leads here?

 

ras

[MikeRivers]

You need a book? Why not just try some and listen to what appeals to you? A great thing to start with in this age of earphone listening is to double a bass part with something an octave higher so anyone who can't hear the low frequencies will still hear what the bass is playing.

[KindredDuo]

Try listening to one of the master orchestrators of the 20th century (in classical music), Ravel. Try listening to the piano version of Pictures at an Exhibition, and then see what ravel does with the orchestra. Bolero is also a pretty good intro. Just my two cents.......

[blue2blue]

You need a book? Why not just try some and listen to what appeals to you? A great thing to start with in this age of earphone listening is to double a bass part with something an octave higher so anyone who can't hear the low frequencies will still hear what the bass is playing.

I was kind of thinking the same thing. Maybe it's my orientation as a self-taught musician, but I think of you well-rounded, professional trained musician types as having a couple legs up on stuff like this.

 

I guess I recall hearing a lot of this sort of thing, as you note, in 60s jazz... people were looking for new, sometimes radically new approaches to harmony -- or around harmony. I remember a fascination with counterpoint, unison lines, harmony lines. ('Remember' being a bit of a fudge -- I listen to jazz from the period all the time.) Folks were experimenting with modal music as well (leaving things open for freer forms of linear improv and de facto counterpoints.)

[Lee Knight]

You know who was great at that stuff? TJB! Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Really. Then there's Bacharach's famous doubled Flugelhorn. The same instrument but it really is an iconic aural signature. Precisely because of the double. As well as Alpert's doubled trumpet. But their (TJB's) arrangements were full of creative pairings.

 

How about those great Bones Howe / 5th Dimension records.

 

I recently doubled a piano single note line with a mandolin. I loved it though it didn't fit the track. Too sparkly. It's been replaced with an electric guitar. Sometimes I find using a "pointed" instrument, something with a sharp transient like a glock or marimba, can be just the thing to spruce up a line played by something more legato, like a fiddle/violin for instance.

[blue2blue]

Folks who come up in brass sections often have some good insights into these issues, no question. Ditto string arrangers, of course. As I recall, Herb started out playing a number of his own horn parts, did he not? Wasn't "Lonely Bull" pretty close to a one-man recording? [EDIT: actually, it was apparently just the demo version that Herb did himself in his garage; according to Wikipedia, the single and album versions were recorded at Conway Recorders in Hollywood.]

[Lee Knight]

Yeah... the demo. But that was some very productive mining for gold out there in that garage. Demo or not. It's the idea that works.

[Dilrod]

First thing that comes to mind is...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[rasputin1963]

First thing that comes to mind is...

 

 

 

OMG. Truly, f*** me sideways. That is the most beautiful thing I've ever heard. I'm literally in tears here. To think that Brian was little more than a teeny-bopper, and making music like this. Brian had chutzpah: could YOU bark at this stellar personnel the way he does? It is truly a SPIRITUAL record... it brings down angels into the room. And gone, gone, gone with the wind this pop sensibility/MO is. Weep for today's pop music, that mostly makes you feel like digging a hole and pulling the dirt in after you.

[mister natural]

totally remember my composition teacher talking about this technique - he said that "doubling" two instruments playing the same line creates a new, third instrument.

[UstadKhanAli]

Looking for a book specifically dealing with COMBINATIONS of sonorities; any ideas or leads here?

 

ras

 

I do this regularly. I often like to combine something that has a soft attack but long sustain with something that has a quick attack but also a quick decay.

 

An example of this might be a piano with a violin, which I've done before, and in my opinion, sounds great. But I've also done it with a cello and a toy piano, and simply a clean electric guitar and a really affected guitar with long sustain, or an acoustic guitar and a distorted guitar, or a synth line and a clean electric guitar. I like doubling lines with a gamelan in the distance, like maybe a piano and a Javanese gamelan sound, or an electric piano and a guitar or whatever. Sometimes it makes a new instrument, like mister natural said above. And if one of the sounds is affected, it often makes it really difficult to recognize either sounds, making a *really* new sounding instrument.

 

 

[AlamoJoe]

Not while guys like you are around and making music Lee....Throw that shovel away before you do somethin' stupid and I have to hunt you down and kick yer ass..Brians sensiblities live in you and your music.