Intrada Soundtrack Forum

I love it when the tuba gets the melody. Rózsa's elephant music in The Jungle Book got me into film music. Actually, the melody dropping into the bass is something I adore in general ... much of Ronald Stein's The Haunted Palace was composed in this vein.

I love it when the full symphonic ensemble suddenly recedes, leaving only one section, such as brass or strings.

I love the accordion schmear Shirley Walker invented for Willard.

Speaking of Shirley, she was a master of orchestration. I've just been reviewing LLL's Batman set for FSM, and I'm constantly struck by the neat things she's doing. She's completely unafraid to let the melody take a back seat to whatever interesting things are going on in the harmony or countermelody. I'm listening to "Crashing The Party" from the episode "Joker's Favor" right now ... she's got the woodwinds stratified across the orchestral ranges, she's letting these heady accompaniment figures break into the foreground ... it's interesting and capricious and fun. One thing she's doing right now that I love is when two distinct instruments in different ranges have lines that intertwine, sometimes doubling, sometimes diverging -- in this case, french horn and clarinet, while the melody whickers away in muted trumpets.

With Angela Morley's passing, I've also been doing a lot of listening to Watership Down. God, that's a wonderful score. And she was a beautiful orchestrator as well. She knew how to use a whole section to good effect, particularly strings, but she also knew how to arrange things so that a solo instrument could really shine through and have an impact.

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Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

For any of you who are interested I strongly recommend the book PRINCIPLES OF ORCHESTRATION written by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. This book along with a CD of his Scheherazade will really help you understand orchestration and everything that goes along with it.

Ex... Bassoon...In the major, an atmosphere of senile mockery; a sad, ailing quality in the minor. It is sinister in a low register but tense in a high register.
Thomas

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"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which can not fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance...that principle is contempt prior to investigation.
Herbert Spencer

I love it when different instruments take up the main theme.

Previn did this a lot. In "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse", he would state a major theme in the French horns and later it would all be in the strings. He did this in "Inside Daisy Clover", too, going from a calliope effect to pure strings, he created orchestral magic that not only got into my head but it has remained there since the first time I heard it.