5 Things Digital Composers Need to Know About Orchestration

First of all thanks to Dan Hultman

for this article.

About the Author: Angelina Panozzo is a Jack of all music, and a master of Netflix and video games. Composer, performer, and journalist, she wanders around lost a lot of the time. You can catch her on her website or on her blog, Musically Notable. She’s also on Twitter and Instagram.

Digital composition is a land of endless possibility, filled with electro-acoustic marvels, more samples than you can ever own, and the ability to create just about anything with the right equipment, a fast processor, and some patience. As the video gaming community continues to grow and expand, more companies will need composers for their games, and that’s great news for us.

Still, even with buttons, knobs, and filters galore, there are some essential things to know about the orchestration and arranging of music, even when it goes from birth to completion in a digital format, never leaving your studio (or half-baked music desk in the bedroom, in my case).

The Pyramid of Sound

Just because you had 47 flutes and one trombone in your middle school band doesn’t mean that’s the best way to do things, (said one of those 47 flute players). With the way that acoustics and ears work, higher frequencies are much easier to discern. They float over the top of ensembles, and these instruments (flutes, violins, etc) can be extremely pervasive in a piece of music. If you think in terms of food like I do, your bass instruments are your grains, vegetables, and fruits. Your mid range instruments like tenor saxophones, violas and the like are your dairy and your protein, and the oils, sugar, and fat are the highest of the high. You need them all to have a thick, beefy sound.

Some techniques will always sound comical

I think we’ve all learned this the hard way at some point. About 8 years ago, I wrote a percussion piece with a xylophone and 12 other pitched and non-pitched percussive instruments. The piece focused on texture rather than melody, and at one point I decided to use quick running notes on the xylophone.

It sounded like Bugs Bunny was running from Elmer Fudd. (Or like this clip.)

Strings can do more than just sustain

Composers love strings, because they never need to take a breath. They can also provide stunningly gorgeous soundscapes, full of righteous swells and lonely, solitary, pining melodies. With the advent of decent sound libraries, anyone can have the sound of an orchestra without leaving their half-baked music desk in the bedroom.

It’s important to remember the enormous amount of sounds that a string instrument can produce. No, not all of them have been successfully replicated into sound libraries, but the more common techniques like pizzicato (plucking the strings like a guitar) have, and you should use them, because it will sound awesome.

Budget permitting, you could always snag a string player for an hour’s worth of recording – or if you have friends that play for fun, bribe them with pizza and beer.

Um, maybe wait until after the recording to break out the beer.

If you ever want this music to be played live, keep the humans in mind

Basically, if you want your music to be performed by actual living, breathing humans, you should read up on some orchestration texts to become familiar with the limitations of the instruments you’ll be using. I love my copy of Alfred Blatter’s Instrumentation and Orchestration – I’ve had it for 6 years and not a week goes by that I don’t flip it open to check something or remind myself of something. It’s way more user friendly than the Rimsky-Korsakov (for non-classically trained musicians), and it has pretty much any instrument you’d want to use, including things like brake drums, guitars, and jaw harps.

If you’re using woodwinds (or voices, for that matter), remember that they have to breathe sometimes.

Horns are really picky about ranges and jumps, and piano players only have 5 fingers on each hand (unless they come from Gattaca).

Right now you’re writing some loops for a small mobile game, but if it blows up and goes viral, you might (will definitely) have musicians hammering your inbox asking for the sheet music. Video game music is relatable and people love it – why do you think Lindsey Stirling’s rendition of the Zelda theme has over 26 million views?

Sometimes, less is more

With the pyramid of sound firmly in mind, consider that an ensemble of flutes and violins might not sound as full as you’d like it to. Doubling up melodies in the bass can make them sound muddy, and adding 142 kinds of snare drum might not be effective.

Of course, there’s always an argument for intent and musicality – maybe you want those flutes and violins to sound shrill because there’s a murderous ghost on the loose. Maybe you doubled the melody in the bass because the character is wandering around in a swamp. Maybe the drums are meant to scare the bejeezus out of you – that’s all fine.

Learning orchestration and arranging is like learning what the “rules” are, specifically so you can break them. If you know what to expect, you’ll never be surprised when you hit playback, and you’ll waste a lot less time reworking stuff to sound the way you want it to.

Onward, fellow composers, and make music for the gamers of the world!