A Few Weeks Ago, I Wrote A Piece Of Music That Made Me Feel Inadequate
The Story
A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece of music that made me feel inadequate.
It was one of those moments where everything I did made me feel like I wasn't good enough at my job.
I realized that, while I was happy with my music production and composition skills (big/clear sounds, good melodies, and solid grasp on harmonies) my orchestral arranging skills were comparatively imbalanced.
For those of you that don't know what orchestration is exactly:
Composition is creating melodies from (seemingly) thin air. Just pure musical ideas.
Orchestration is giving those melodies (and harmonies) to different instruments in the orchestra.
If I could offer an analogy, great composition without solid orchestration is a delicious meal that's haphazardly thrown onto a plate...
It tastes pretty good, but it would have been a lot better if they'd put everything in its place. (And if you're really good at plating, then you can charge a lot of money for that meal.)
So I dug in...
I chose one of my favorite composers, Joe Hisaishi. And I went into this with the goal of recreating his piece, “The Legend of Ashitaka” from Princess Mononoke, from scratch.
My Process: Treat It Like A Workout (i.e. Don’t Cut Corners Because Every Little Bit Counts)
To extract the most out of this exercise, I listened to his piece a million times, and did a simple piano reduction by ear. I also cross-referenced a couple of fan-written scores online.
I limited the piano reduction to 4 voices (essentially, the notes that make up the melody and chords) because this is how I'd previously started my compositions.
I've enjoyed this way of working because it helps me establish a very basic structure. And it instantly allows me to see voicings "horizontally" (melodically, from left to right), in addition to "vertically" (harmonically, from top to bottom). A lot like regular sheet music does.
Once I'd finished the piano reduction, my next step was to blow it back up into all the different parts: Woodwinds, Brass, Strings, Harp, Percussion, and some Synthesizers for added color. Actually...
That's the biggest thing I got out of this—orchestration is purely about color. It's not really about size or volume—that's music production/mixing. My issue was that I had a hammer (confidence in production skills), and everything I saw (including orchestration) was a nail.
Finally, I finished orchestrating everything according to how Hisaishi did it—including playing with tempo so that I could give it more movement and life.
But I knew that wouldn't be enough for me. To truly get as much as I could out of this "workout," I added instruments to see if I could supplement without making things messy (my original problem)—and not rely on any mixing AT ALL.
In fact, I never touched a single fader on this piece, which is testament to how great all of these sample libraries are, and to how effective good orchestration can be. Good orchestration can often take the role of a good mix.
Speaking of samples, here are all...
The Sample Libraries And Tools I Used
Spitfire Audio: Symphonic Brass and Woodwinds, and Hans Zimmer Percussion
Cinesamples: CineBrass Core, Pro, Descant Horn, and CineHarp
Cinematic Studio Series: Strings and Solo Strings
8Dio: Lacrimosa Choirs and 8diOboe
EastWest: Symphonic Orchestra Gold Percussion
Performance Samples: Oceania
U-HE: Zebra
Audio Imperia: Scenes from the Multiverse
The Results of Diving Deep
Ultimately, it took me about 55 hours of deep work across 13 days to finish this. Honestly, it made me think back on why I chose this profession...
Using every second of each hour—intentionally—was invigorating. I could feel my musical muscles grow stronger with every technical challenge I overcame. And covering Hisaishi's music allowed me to reach down into my childhood roots, which helped me remember the fundamental things I enjoy about writing music.
I already want to do it again.
Here's the result of my journey...
