Orchestral Voicings Part 12: Line-Up Considerations

The size of the ensemble that we're writing for has an influence on how we voice chords and what kind of voicings work best. This is not only depending on how many different colors are available but also on how many individual players of similar color are present.

In the last post of this tutorial series I already mentioned that with smaller line-ups, it might become necessary to "borrow" instruments from another section to fill up the notes to "display" the voicing correctly.

If the line-up is even too limited for this strategy, you need to prioritize chord functions, omitting certain tones that are not essential to create the chord impression.

It is very tricky to look at these things without profound knowledge of instruments so the further we progress in this series, the more the things we talk about are based on decisions that are informed by several factors. I will cover instrument specific things in later parts of this series which you might need to wait for in order to fill in some puzzle pieces but for several reasons it makes more sense to talk about the broader approach as in this part before dealing with the tiny specifics of certain instruments.

The Unlimited Voicing Approach:

In cases where you hardly are limited in voicing choices, such as full symphonic line-up, you of course can decide very freely on what colours you want. You can build from extremely heterogenous to extremely homogenous sound combinations of sounds and anything in between. You could voice the identical 6 part voicing in 6 different sound colours across all instrument families to the identical instruments (like for example six horns).

There are several general rules of thumb when approaching a voicing without limits:

1. The more heterogenous the voicing the less brilliant it will be:

The more different sound characteristics you employ, and especially when you double the same note several times on different instruments, the more different higher harmonics you will introduce into the sound which as a consequence and contrary to inuition has the result that the sound will become less brilliant. So if you want a particularly brilliant sound out of a specific group or section, try to mix as little as possible with other colors. Of course, this applies not in absolute but in relative terms. It is of course possible to create a heterogenous voicing that is brighter than a particularly low voiced trumpet chord but comparing the same voicing with different approaches between heterogenous and homogenous voicings will tend to show more brilliance with the more homogenous voicings. With woodwinds there is the other phenomen that the more of the same instrument you add to the same note, the thicker but duller the sound will become, however this is only partially relevant for what we're talking about here.

2. The more heterogenous the more challenging it is to balance the voicing

There are general rules of thumb as to how instruments balance. For instance 4 woodwinds equal 2 horns equals 1 trumpet/trombone is a pretty solid fundament to work with. However, such rules never work in extreme cases and don't replace an experienced inner ear. No matter what you do for instance with 4 oboes, if you try to match a high trumpet at ff, you simply don't have a chance. In more "civilized" scenarios you can however assume that these rules are relatively useful. Remember however that it might not necessarily be desirable to balance out all parts of a voicing equally. A slightly weaker third might make the voicing feel more resonant than a too strong third. With extended harmony, the distribution of tight intervals in the voicing might be a delicate matter to voice.

3. Interval structure has an influence on how homogenous a voicing sounds

If you choose to create a very heterogenous color mix and additionally space the voicing quite wide you will have the result of the different colours remaining quite distinguishable from each other. This of course could be a desired effect depending on what you aim for. And of course, this is not only an effect that has to do with different colours as a widely spaced piano voicing will also remain quite transparent but of course different colors favor this effect. Contrary to this, for instance even a quite widely spaced string voicing will sound very homogenous. On the other hand, tightly spaced intervals will make it trickier to distinguish the different colours that the voicing consist of.

The Limited Voicing Approach:

With budget boundaries or conscious conceptual decisions we more often find us in the situation where it is not possible to distribute the voicing in a way that we would favour under ideal circumstances. In the last part of this series I mentioned a 6 part voicing that you would like to have as "brass chord" with a line-up of only 1 Horn, 2 Trumpets or 2 Trombones (or another combination of 5 brass instruments). In such cases, it is very common to borrow another instrument from other sections. The choice of which instrument to add in depends largely on what is available, what the voicing should do and in which range you need to fill up the voicing.

In general, there are again a few general rules that you can use in order to get to the sound that you envision:

1. The highest note defines the colour:

As long as it balances volume wise, the highest note of a voicing will strongly dictate the colour impression of the voicing. If we take the example from above and you use the trumpet as the highest instrument, you will get a clear "brassy" impression from the voicing and it will not make much of a difference what instrument you bring in somewhere below in the voicing from another section to fill the missing note. If however you bring in a clarinet and place it on the highest note (and balance out the chord with the remaining 5 instruments), you will get a quite noticeable woodwind quality to the voicing in spite of 5 of the 6 instruments being brass instruments.

2. The most "unnoticeable" range is the low to mid range:

If you add an alien color somewhere above the lowest note of the voicing, only very prominent colors will stick out. Everything else will most likely blend in.

Let's take the theoretical example from above and discuss what instruments could potentially help out in such a case.

In any case, you should use the instruments that you do have available and that support the idea of the sound that you have (for instance in our case "Brass chord") as effectively as possible placing them in the register where they support your idea best (e.g. higher for more brassy, lower for mor dark).

If you want the voicing to be quite loud, bright and brassy, the most likely candidate would be a saxophone. In "small orchestra" situations as we can often see them in musical pits, it is quite likely to have a saxophone available to help out there. In more classical settings, of course saxophones are not that common in which cases potentially two woodwinds instruments in unison at a more higher register could be an adequate choice. This contradicts what I said above about placing the "helper" rather low but it is unlikely to find an instrument in the rest of the orchestra that can balance out loud low trombones so you have a better shot at trying to balance higher up with woodwinds in their more projecting register.

If the voicing is not planned to be bright and punchy but more mellow and maybe more medium register, an excellent candidate to help out always is the bass clarinet. Due to its very "slim" harmonic footprint, it blends extremely well in many voicings and has a very large playing range to accomodate for almost any register that it is being needed for. Other useful candidates for this job would be a bassoon (with a thicker harmonic register than the Bass Clarinet) or one or several celli (which would introduce a bit more of "string overtones".

If you need a helper in a woodwind section, one horn would be the most suitable candidate, followed by cello or even soft trombone.

In a string section that is missing one voice, again horn, bass clarinet, bassoon or trombone might be good choices to fill.

The Strongly Limited Voicing Approach:

There are cases where you simply don't have enough voices available to play all notes of your desired voicing. Imagine writing for string quartet or similar small line-ups.

In these cases, you need to strip down your voicing to its essential tones. This of course needs an understanding about which tones are essential.

The general rule of thumb is that a chord impression needs at least three notes to sound at the same time.

The essential notes are:

Root: To define the tonality of course

Third: To define the gender of the chord (major or minor)

Seventh: To define whether it's a dominant or "not dominant" chord

If there is no seventh in the chord, of course the fifth would be suitable.

If there are more higher extensions, the "most important" one should be favoured.

If the chord type does not include a perfect fifth (augmented or diminished chords), the altered fifth should be favoured.

The perfect fifth of a chord is the first note that you can omit as it will be a very strong harmonic of the fundamental anyway.

Even with the most economical approach considering these points above, some more complex harmonies simply might not be able to be played simultaneously with a very reduced line-up.

In these cases you can use a different effect. Our brain "collects" all notes it hears in a logical unit (e.g. a bar) and combines it to a harmonic impression. So even if you can't play all important notes of your voicing simultaneously, if you play them relatively close together in succession it will still be possible for our brain to make sense of this. For instance you could alter back and forth between two notes in eighth notes and create some rhythmic momentum as well as two notes for the voicing. You could arpeggiate through the harmony to create a chord impression. Also, always take the melody note into account when voicing a chord. In situations where you need every last instrument to get the voicing idea across, having a closer look at what function(s) of the chord the melody already carries might help to free up ressources.

While the last case seems like a quite problematic situation that asks for many compromises, it is a great way to practice and sharpen your musical understanding. When I was back in uni, one of the first exercises my prof gave me was to write a piece with two voices only that would still feel like a complete piece with a melody, bass line and harmonic impression. Even though it was a very simple exercise, it opened my eyes about the fact how little "simulatenous" information you need to provide for the brain to still make musical sense out of what it is hearing.