On Aug 23, 2004, at 11:15 AM, Christopher Smith wrote:
Orchestration
– You are assigning the composer’s notes to instruments without changing anything, except you can change and add octaves where necessary. You cannot leave out any notes unless you are eliminating an octave double, and that only when necessary.
– When changing or adding octaves, you cannot change the order of the outside voices, i.e., the top voice MUST stay on top, and the bass voice MUST stay on the bottom – you cannot cross any voices above the melody or below the bass.
– You generally do not change voicings, voice leading, or add/delete notes that the composer did not write, unless you are certain that it was only technical reasons that prevented him from doing so himself.
This is unduly restrictive, as witness:
Examples include Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s piano piece “Pictures at an Exhibition”
which omits an entire movement, puts prominent glissandos in a measure (3 before #113) where none exist in the original, adds measures that are not in the original at all (1 before #115 and the last two in the whole piece), creates 2-against-three rhythms where they don't exist in the original (#117 and before), doubles up the composer's rhythm at #118, and so forth and so on. If this transcription doesn't *easily* fit a definition of "orchestration," then there is something wrong with the definition!
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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