Orchestration Tip: Scoring Horns in 3 Parts
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- Horn Section Teamwork Tip:
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4:20 David Bruce talks about this exact passage as a sort of musical illusion: the melody gets passed from the winds to the strings quite seamlessly
And in fact that is really quite common in orchestration. Please watch my lectures on The Planets, The Rite of Spring, Pictures at an Exhibition, and Schoenberg's 5 Pieces for Orchestra for many other such examples.
@@OrchestrationOnline I've been following your channel for a long time ;) I'm just always excited by crossover opportunities in the Composer-UA-camr Cinematic Universe
nice
@@katetranscribes we need more Thomas goss in UA-cam music theory land.
Nice
As far as I'm aware, he wrote that 3rd horn part for his horn playing friend, and that's why there's even 3 horns in the first place.
And that's also why it's so featured.
I believe it was Giovanni Punto!
Just discovered this channel, REALLY appreciating it! Thanks so much
And consider that Beethoven was among the first composers to ever score for three horns! He didn't have any templates to work off of. Some "bad orchestrator" he is (looking at you, Bernstein) to get it so right despite having no precedent, hm?
I'm wondering if I'll ever figure out why Mahler scored for exactly *seven* horns in the first symphony.
Alex Kindel and 10 in his second symphony
@@anthonyflanders1347 That's not so strange to me. Four and six are both pretty common choices, and what that symphony has is six onstage and four offstage, with the latter are allowed to come onstage as well at the end because they have nothing better to do at that point.
The weird thing about choosing seven is that it's enough that they're doubled with each other a lot, but the fact that it's a prime number means there are a lot of cases where one line has one more horn on it than the others. One can imagine that he wanted to bring a line out, or that he was using the uneven distribution of players to counteract the inconsistencies in projection between different registers, but I would expect cases that warrant such techniques to be the exception rather than the rule. He made it the rule in that symphony.
Alex Kindel That makes a lot of sense I have never really thought about it that way. However as a clarinet player the sheer amount of parts just baffles me.
pro trick: watch movies at flixzone. Been using it for watching lots of of movies these days.
@Jeremiah Cayden definitely, been using flixzone for since november myself :D
@6:19 I've seen "124" and "134" in Mahler as well.
Great video! And just what I needed!
Don't forget folks, Eroica horn parts are for Eflat horn not Fhorn or in concert pitch. Transposition heaven here, just be grateful its not B basso horn!
Yup, and all the examples are clearly marked as such. :)
Thank you for making these videos, they are fantastic!
Just love this channel. So educational.
DUDE I'm watching this instead of practicing the Eroica bass part and I feel called out
Aw thanks for watching but eventually get back to work! 😏
Not having thought it through and being far from an expert on horn playing, my off-the-cuff intuition for how to score three horns would be - jokingly speaking - II&III as a bomber squadron and I as a free-roaming fighter escort. That is, score it as a traditional horn pair, plus one independent solo instrument. That, or I&II as … well, I&II … and III providing strategic support, such as for selective note doubling, or filling in critical harmony. Again though, that’s just my off-the-cuff gut-feel thought…
Thank you, THOMAS ♥
Always interesting and useful. Thanks
I regret that the horn players were invisible!
I think the 2nd movement of Weber clarinet concerto n.1 is a great example too
I agree, and thanks so much for bringing that example to mind.
Thanks, this is quite useful 👍🏻👍🏻
Thanks!
I have always wondered what to do for odd numbers of horns and now I know. Thanks Thomas Goss for your videos. Another thing I have wondered about is what to do if there are fewer horns in the orchestra than I scored for and it isn't 3 horns, for example 4 horns instead of 6 in the score. What should I do then, add an alternate part for Bass Clarinet and 2nd Clarinet in the case of there being 4 horns instead of the 6 in the score(after all, the horns and clarinets do blend together well)?
Please make band composers be obliged to watch this. They so often double the highest note with horn 3 and 1 which most of the time makes it extreamly unbalanced because of the natural higher projectiveness of the higher register. (+the fact the first horn is doubled in most bands too.)
I'm still hanging on the horn's lower register being schizophrenic. If you slip a pill into the spit valve, that'll tidy right up! 🤪
Do these horn layouts also apply to concert band?
what do i do if i have to score 4 horns as a soli melody or countermelody in a 3 part harmony?
I notice in the scores of the Dvorak pieces you recommended (the cello concerto and Serenade, Op. 44), the 3rd horn gets the base chord note, for most of both the works, even during the few movements when the 3rd horn is in the same key as 1st and 2nd. I've been researching these past few weeks (this video came out at a really serendipitous time!): I know that seating 4 horns in a row, you most definitely need to alternate low/high players for intonation purposes. But with 3 players only, would it be too much to ask the horns to seat in ascending pitch order? I have a set up in mind for writing erhu concerti, in which I'd like to try and have 3 horns seat low to high, rather than high - low - high. I'm wondering if the highest horn would have too much difficulty hearing the lowest horn in 'low to high' setup.
Any horn players who have experience with the Dvorak works (or similar ones where the 3rd horn gets the lowest note), by all means, chime in! Did you need to seat yourselves in a triangle instead of a line when you played these works?
For best results, Jace, you should ALWAYS observe protocols in horn seating. Go read the tip I linked in the info, and others on my website about horn scoring. If you don't follow the standards, you may end up with a less experienced player on a more demanding part, or with the horn players confused or irritated at your score. You may also trip up the conductor. In my experience of hundreds of rehearsals by now, things work the way way they do for extremely good reasons, and it helps your score to stick to the basics.
Plays bouzouki and lifts? Anyone with that kind of dedication to that stuff probs is pretty good at writing horn charts.
Thanks! The "Irish bouzouki" is actually tuned as a mandocello and is part of my trio of mandos.
Do you ALWAYS wear the same clothes, Steve Jobs style? :)
The clothes wear me.
Every man has his uniform.
@@itznoxy7193 I'm too poor to afford other clothing. ;-)
A due not a 2
You will find that "a two" has entered the English vernacular amongst professional orchestrators and arrangers, and is absolutely nothing to get fussed over.
@@OrchestrationOnline Can confirm. Especially with a3/a4...