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Ok, question for the musicaly minded here. Now, with filmscore…The composer and the orchestrator always seem to be different people. I know Elfmans buddy from his Oingo group does ALOT of his orchestrations, Steve Bartek. So do they collaberate the whole time? I’m just curious to WHY Elman doesn’t do his own orchestrations and what does he write? A piano recuction of sorts? Just melodies and chord progressions? I’m musically minded, but nieve when it comes to this process. Fill me in, who can..
I don’t know jack, but i’d think maybe they’re friends, so…you know how that goes. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. I mean, he certainly doesn’t use Shirley Walker anymore…
*takes breath*
Make no mistake. Elfman writes orchestrally. Otherwise he wouldn’t be as big as he is. He only makes mistakes sometimes (warranting Bartek’s presense). Steve Bartek was already savvy with the orchestra when Danny was in the band. In 85 (with Peewee) Danny was knowledgeable but not as much as he wanted to be so he asked his buddy to give him a crash course. During the composing proccess Bartek stayed on as orchestrator and (in a sense) proof read Elfman’s stuff to make sure it was playable. Composers have to write so much music in a certain period of time that orchestrating all of it in that small chunk is virtually impossible (save for maybe Bernard Herrmann and a few others). Danny is primarilly concerned with writing good music and making good time. Logistics come later and Bartek takes them over.
Danny writes his own music. He doesn’t compose something on the piano and hand it over to the orchestrator. That’s a totally different type of orchestration all together. Bartek’s job is to polish the score over and fix the errors in notation as he goes along — makes string fingering possible, adding breath marks, harp pedaling and removing exceptionally long notes on the woodwinds (stuff like that). He doesn’t make the music sound different. He only alters it a bit to adhere to a live performance. Example: Listen to Elfman’s demos for Nightmare Before Christmas. They are un-orchestrated. Except for maybe a few small differences in instrumentation the songs sound the same as those Bartek had his hand in on the album. Elfman did them all himself though.
The head orchestrator is there with the composer from day one until the end. After Elfman finishes a cue he’ll send the music to Bartek for proo freading (and that’s basically all orchestration is). It’s like editing on a newspaper.
Skip ahead a little ways, to the recording sessions. Bartek will find out right quick if his orchestrations work or not by the work of yet another team of orchestrators and (of course) the players.
In summation…
Don’t be fooled. Danny can orchestrate. He’s been doing this for almost twenty years himself, so I know he can. He just doesn’t have the time to do it so he calls in someone he trusts.Well, it’s good that they stick together…that sounds like a best friend, to me.
Dawg Man, you surely are the cat’s pajamas.
Basically, due to huge time pressures created by movie schedules, the composer rarely has the time to write the full score. It’s correct that piano reductions are sometimes written. Film composers have ranging ways of writing this. Yeah, sometimes a piano reduction, sometimes something written on anywhere from 2 to 20 staffs. A Williams score, say, usually specifies which staff matches which section, or instrument should be playing it. Of course, the orchestrator fills in all the other parts. I myself used to think it was a farce that these composers got all the credit, seeing as they hardly ever orchestrate themselves (as a point of interest, composers used to get more time for their work. So people like Morricone, Herrmann and some of the viennese composers who emigrated to New York often insist on doing it. Bernstein inists on having more time specifically, as he not only likes orchestrating his own work, but he madly researches into the film’s subject, and everything related to it musicologically, with intense detail!)… but it’s very true to say that all the orchestration in the universe could never save a musically bad idea! And, as Dawg Man says, Danny certainly does write orchestrally. Of course, his rappor with Steve Bartek is likely to mean that he could, in a good few cases, write in no orchestration suggestions at all, and Bartek would know exactly how to orchestrate it to achieve that Elfman soundworld. However, looking at scores like Spiderman, I doubt the orchestration there would have much been decided by the orchestrator. It used distorted guitar, with a rocky sound etc. – not too typical of Danny, of course, so I’m sure it was Danny who specified this, as any orchestrator would probably have just anticipated that he’d want his usual dark soundworld.
Anyhow, I’m trailing of a little…
That’s how it works – it’s mostly because of the time constraints. After the orchestrator, the score gets proofread by someone else (usually the music editor), then the parts get made by a whole BUNCH of copyists, then proofread again (often by the same guy that proofread the score, but sometimes by someone else.)
A composer (I can’t remember which one) is quoted to once have said:
“Film composing is becoming more of a team sport these days”>;o)
The JThank You! You guys were a BIG help. Though in my head, I imagined the like, I just had to be sure from somebody elses fingers. I remember seeing that little feature when you play the ‘Red Dragon’ CD on your computer, Danny was in the both behind the orchestra, penciling in little things to the big score sheets. It just always through me off, the whole orchestrator thing. But I can see, now, the film score process as being a HUGE team work effort, with input coming from all corners. So thanks guys, you sure know how to answer the way I was hoping!!! JT
See, I don’t know anything about music at all (and I really don’t have the desire to know everything), but topics like this help me get a better grip on what the boy does and all. You know, the general stuff.
I’ve got basic ideas, and it’s nice to see how the explanations of how it’s really done match up to my own. (I write a lot, so I always thought of the composer as a writer, and an orchastrator as an editor. Suppose it’s not too far off).
Don’t forget a few general points (interesting but probbly not helpful?):
1 (non Danny?). Piano reductions take on all forms, and very often they include the main thrust of the orchestration (e.g. particular solo instruments). Furthermore, it is approach some classical composers have used prior to orchestrating their works. Brahms tended to write his orchestral works on 4 staves first, reflecting his pianistic training; in an extreme example, I seem to remember that Liszt often got others to orchestrate his works.
2. Danny now writes heck of a lot of his work using midi sequencing. Much of this transfers to the score (drumbeats, “ethnic” sounds, etc.), but there will often be mock-ups of a score (or cues from it) done with surprising accuracy, used for preparation, rough tests of the film or even just convicing the director or moneymen that an approach will work. These at least show how close Danny is to the soundworld of his scores before an orchestrator sees a note.
Bluntinstrument
Liszt was a rather competent Orchestrator extending the symphonic poem into prominence. He did however “transcribe” other composers’ orchestral works for the piano (his Symphonie Fantastique is particularly successful along with his Paraphrases from various Operas and all Beethoven’s Symphonies). It is interesting to note that while Liszt is mostly know for his piano work and prowess at the instrument, his only Opera was written early in his life (Don Sanche) at the age of 12 or 14 I believe.
Nat
Sorry, Nat, I wasn’t denigrating his reputation as orchestrator, but rather giving an example of where a composer lets close associates/pupils do considerable amounts of his work for him. Below is an extract from the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians on his symphonic poems. You’ll see from this exactly how Liszt’s situtuation is very much mirrored by a number of today’s film composers…
***
Until he arrived in Weimar, Liszt had written very little for the orchestra. He lacked confidence in this field but resolved to master it. At first he was assisted by August Conradi, a composer of light music whom he had engaged as a copyist as early as 1844. Liszt used to submit to Conradi a short score marked with instrumental cues. Conradi would then prepare a full score which embodied Liszt’s instructions, and perhaps make some further suggestions of his own. From this version Liszt would rehearse the work and make revisions in the light of practical experience. The process might be repeated several times until Liszt was satisfied. Conradi lived in Weimar for about 18 months, from February 1848 until the summer of 1849. His work was eventually taken over by Joachim Raff who assisted Liszt until 1854. Since Raff later put out some inflated claims about his own role in Liszt’s composing process (his letters on this topic, suggesting that he was an equal collaborator, were published posthumously in Die Musik, 1902–3) a question mark was placed over the authenticity of Liszt’s orchestral music. Peter Raabe was able to remove it when he embarked on a careful comparison of all the known sketches with the published scores, and demonstrated that every note of the final versions is by Liszt himself (Raabe, H1931, ii, 71–9 contains a compressed account of his extensive discussion).***
For an interesting comparison, try listening to the Conradi orchestrated Hungarian Rhapsodies 1-6 and then the ones later orchestrated by Liszt himself.
No need to apologize Bluntinstrument. I’m happy to even be discussing this much-neglected yet great composer who is much more than his Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 and Les Preludes.
Nat
… and whose entry in New Grove has no fewer than 4 catalogue references. Makes searching databases for them like looking for a needle in a haystack. I’ll look out for the Conradi (although I’m more of a Brucknerian).
Ian
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