Orchestral Voicings Part 15: Registral Homogenity

One of the biggest problems that I see quite a lot with learning composers and orchestrators is the lack of registral control in voicings. This whole subject touches heavily on orchestration already and requires a deep understanding of the properties of each instrument but mastering it will result in considerably better sounding orchestral voicings.

To read the previous parts of this ongoing tutorial series click here.

A voicing can look well balanced on paper with a great voicing structure, perfect voice leading and excellent spacing and yet it can become a total trainwreck when being spread out in the orchestra without proper care.

Typical situations would be a soft voicing with an unfortunate high trumpet note that effectively cannot be produced at a soft dynamic and sticks out like a sore thumb over the voicing.

However, the simple volume balance is only part of the issue that I want to address here. Of course, every fundamental text about orchestration includes specific instrumental properties that have a strong influence on how much volume an instrument can produce. Mostly near the lower and higher limits of the instrumental range, you will find notes that are trickier to control and have a limited dynamic range. However, even this can not be generalized. Some instruments lowest notes are without any compromise (e.g. Clarinets) while others really struggle (Horns). Memorizing these instrumental specifics are some of the first steps every learning composer/orchestrator has to take when learning to write for the orchestra.

This will give you a general idea of which notes are compromised on which instrument and tricky to produce or control.

However, beyond these "red flags", there is another layer of registral balance that is important which I would call "registral homogenity". In many cases, writing a voicing that has all instruments in their same respective registers will sound more satisfying than more heterogenous registral choices.

What do I mean by that? 

Imagine for instance a woodwind voicing that is rather relaxed in its dynamic and emotional intention. Besides the notes on each instruments that become really problematic (super high/super low etc.) within the easily playable and controllable range of each instruments there are different intensities in the sound independently of the dynamic. A rather high played Oboe or Bassoon note in spite of being perfectly controllable will still sound rather strained. Imagine for instance the high bassoon solo at the beginning of Rite of Spring. While at the time of writing this passage it was (intentionally) at the uncomfortable high end of the instrument, by now Bassoon technique has developed to make these notes relatively easy playable and controllable. And yet, we wouldn't really consider this to be a relaxed Bassoon sound. 

So introducing such a note into our "relaxed woodwind" voicing from above will work against its intention and "send mixed signals" to your audience. As a side note, there are of course many instances where it would be absolutely plausible to combine different registers, however in most cases, there's a specific textural intention behind that and they don't happen by accident.

Similarly, imagine a high energy voicing, maybe in a passage that leads towards a climax with most instruments gradually pushing into their brightest most energetic register while one or a handful instruments gradually move into a less bright, more relaxed register. This would consequentially weaken your compositional intention as again, there is not a consequent translation of the idea berhind that passage.

Of course, a lot of energy and intensity is transported via dynamics. We all know that a horn note in the middle register can be produced between a super soft romatic piano and an ear shattering epic fortissimo. But while we're talking about horns, imagine the notes roughly below middle c (sounding). While they are in a perfectly playable range and speak to all dynamics they simply don't have the same energy and intensity of the notes roughly an octave higher.

You might be surprised how limited the "sweet spot" of some instruments and their registers are. For instance, if you study Big Band arrangement, you will learn that for a shout chorus, the first trumpet shouldn't move outside of a range of more or less a perfect fifth (between more or less the high c two octaves above middle c and the f below that). As soon as you move lower than that, it will move out of the "punchy sweet spot" and lose that high energy feeling in spite of keeping the same dynamic and substance.

With brass instruments being particularly sensitive to registers and dynamics (and of course being most prominent in the audience's perception), EVERY instrument has different registers that create a different feeling of energy.

Even with the super homogenous strings that have no problem creating the same timbre and a full range of dynamics over their entire range, we would still agree that violins in their highest register feel considerably more energetic than the same dynamics in the low/mid register.

So the consideration of how to distribute a voicing should not only be made based on pure volume/balance decisions but also on intensity/energy.

As I said at the beginning, it is a year long study process to develop a feeling for the instruments and where they create what sort of intensity/energy but it helps tremendously to be aware of these properties beyond volume and take them into your consideration when voicing chords.

However, it is also important to qualitatively weigh this against other musical properties. Of course, it would be nonsensical to move every instrument out of the bass register because you want that super high energy that practically no instrument really creates in the lowest register. In such cases there are of course musical properties that are more important, like in this case covering the entire musical range.

The higher instruments that are hopefully in their high energy register will dominate the higher frequency range anyway so the actual sound colour and higher partials of the lower instruments will be masked. But of course, in order to create a high energy impression having a solid low register, is equally important.

Additionally, in a high intensity tutti, it is rather irrelevant whether there might be one or more instrument(s) not playing at the most brilliant register in order to provide essential balance to the voicing.

So it is of course permissible to consciously decide against that but with every "rule" in music, it is perfectly fine to intentionally break it but really problematic to break it by accident.