Who came up with this technique?

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Inspired by KM's thread plus Blume and Grey's posts.

Sometimes you hear a cool effect in a film score (it can be acoustic or electronic or a combo), and you want to trace its origins. Well here's the thread for it.

A good interview with John Corigliano on aleatoric notation. BTW, the interviewer is Jeffery Gersham, not Jerry Goldsmith.

JG: Your notation is great. I was reading that you had credited Penderecki with it—with the idea of the boxes.

JC: No, boxes are me.

JG: Oh! That’s all you?

JC: That’s me.

JG: Is that Altered States? Is that were that comes from?

JC: Yeah. That started actually in Altered States. Yeah, boxes are me. Penderecki gave me some wonderful things though. And very simple ones—highest possible note, lowest possible note for example.

JG: So was that original with him? We’ve all come to accept that now.

JC: I think I’d never seen it before. There were several other things. He did some very nice things like having a series of notes in a box and then you could play it varying the speed and tempos. Things like that that I found very useful, but the idea of playing between pitches in a box, legato or marcato, that’s something I did. The other thing he did was he used to write out like when he wanted the fast “Morse code” thing that I use. I use my (sings rapid, uneven notes in a “Morse code” style) feeling and I use the jagged lines. He actually wrote out little groups of threes, twos, fives, fours. The problem with playing those is, if you’re trying to play in a beat, it’s hard to read those threes, twos, and fives while you’re following the beat of the tempo. So, I think what I did was an improvement on something that he did that I loved the sound it got but there’s a problem involved in counting while you’re trying to play all those things. Can it be done another way? And then the jagged line thing was my solution.

JG: The other technique where you start a figure with no heads and then you go to X’s—that’s all yours?

JC: Well I don’t know if that ’s mine or not, actually . But what it means is continue in a similar pattern and play as many notes as you can. Usually it has a slash like a grace note. And wh at that means is you start on this note, you have this kind of angularity in your playing, like if you’re a xylophone you have A Eb D G# X X X X and you end on an Eb. What that means is (sings a quick upward glissando). It means that you can play it without worry and as many notes as you can play and get the gesture. The low note, the high note, and the pattern is given to you. It’s what I call controlled aleatoric music. That is aleatoric to a certain degree but not like in John Cage where “anything goes ” aleatoric. This is controlling chance so that you can get the gesture, which is more important than the pitches because the pitches are so fast you can’t hear the pitches.

JG: And that seems like a lot of the time, especially like the end of the Tarantella for instance, you’re de aling with large-scale gesture.

JC: Yes! Right. And that’s why. And the truth is that they sound identical when an orchestra plays it and another orchestra plays it because at that tempo you really don’t hear the difference.

JG: It’s more of the effect.

JC: Yeah

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

There's one thing I love that I've been thinking about today (might be less common in film music than concert music) but I'll have to come back later with more specific examples and details. It's basically soft chromatic chords in woodwinds and horns, voiced in such a way that there are two timbral groups that sort of... reflect off of each other, and cause a certain kind of "luminescence"... damn, hard to describe. Stand by.

Now that I'm trying to think of specific instances I can't.

Sort of like the stuff at 1:03 here.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Maybe you're referring to something that's more common in your own music?

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

It could be. Here's something of mine I found, but see if it seems familiar in principal or structure to something else:

3 flutes on D6, A5, G5

horn on B3

2 clarinets on E3 and F#3

bassoon on A2

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Two inverted quartal triads with a quintal bass. Nice. I think the key thing is the spacing, and the interaction of the harmonics of the bassoon and clarinets with the fundamentals of the flutes.

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

Yeah I was thinking it's the subtle beating that happens with a low clarinet dyad that ties it all together. In my mind there's something "luminous" about that. It's all over Ligeti now that I think about it.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Hmm. I wonder if it'd sound even better if you got the bassoon muted.

[RedBard 71]

Hmm. I wonder if it'd sound even better if you got the bassoon muted.

I don't know any bassoonist who uses a mute for practicing like some trumpet players use a practice mute (but that doesn't mean that nobody uses a bassoon mute).

What would a muted bassoon even sound like?

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

Like a bassoon, but... muted.

Not all that rare in modern orchestration.

Sharky, your avatar no longer matches your location/member title.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Sharky, your avatar no longer matches your location/member title.

I know. I like that when it happens.

[KK 3,307]

Great thread! And interesting bit about Corigliano's notation.

I've always been curious about how Newman notates some of more his atmospheric/eclectic passages. I'll post some examples when I get the chance.

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

I can't speak for him obviously, but when I do similar stuff with very faint synths etc., I use that aforementioned "box" notation of Corigliano, with a pattern or scale to be repeated at random (often with the sustain pedal down) resulting in that softly humming electronic blur. That's when it's not important for the texture to be very defined. Sometimes I want something specific.

[KK 3,307]

What kind of synths do you use? What do you think works best to create that lovely Newman drone in the background? Sometimes, I just use a humming choir VST , add a whole lot of reverb and distort it using different effects.

I know he has a couple of effects that he has used over many different scores.

Also, one thing I've been curious about are his clarinet parts. Does he notate them specifically to a rigid meter? Sometimes it sounds like he gives the player intervals with those grace note embellishments, but is preformed freely to give it an improvisational element that helps blend into the textures in the background.

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

Prominent solos could well be very "freely" composed considering how closely he works with his soloists.

Utilizing "acoustic" sounds in a distorted way is close to what he does from what I understand. I think he does that more than he uses actual synths.

But when it comes to software synths, I'm pretty sure he uses Omnisphere most prominently. I'm more of a Zebra man, but for Newman-esque sounds sometimes I just use a regular old FM synth.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

On p. 392 of Fred Karlin's On The Track (2nd Edition) there's a scan of a cue from Desperately Seeking Susan in Newman's handwriting . 

 

 

Four bars in, there's an autoharp playing C6, D6, F6 and G6 in brackets, with a line and arrow stretching across the following bars and the direction 'ad lib sparsely.' It also says 'w/DDL' (Digital Delay Line).

 

Opening string synth (F6) is an Oberheim OB8 (patch ABD1), high hats and tambourine are from the Oberheim DMX drum machine, and the sequenced synth on bar twelve is an Oberheim DSX (DDL = 427 ms) merged with an OB8 and Yamaha DX7 - plus there's a guitar playing power chords 8ths on the beginning of every bar (F3-C4) with the same delay time.

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

I don't remember seeing that. Maybe I have a different edition. I've always wanted to see one of his handwritten sketches.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

What kind of synths do you use? What do you think works best to create that lovely Newman drone in the background?

Could you post examples?

[KK 3,307]

Yeah will do. Not at home yet to look up the cues I'm thinking of, but will do asap.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Bump.

[KK 3,307]

Well it's hard to pinpoint just one thing.

I guess what first comes to mind is that classic Newman drone, that has that ghostly vibe to it. You can hear it at the beginning of this cue:

And then there are several nuances Newman likes to add to it, with layers of different sounds (very distorted woodwinds? or just other synths?) to create this deliciously ambience. Ex. 0:45 (and all those lovely layers drifting above the celestes and woodwinds)

I'm guessing those classic plucked harps of his are synths?

And then there are the more radical moments. What's playing at that Goldenthal-esque bit at 0:17?

All of that might seem rather elementary to some of you. But as someone who is not very familiar with synths at all, I definitely want to learn about emulating those kind of sounds.

I'd love to study Newman's scores. The way he puts so many different sounds together is what makes him leagues more interesting than his "contemporaries" trying their hand at it today (a la Reznor). Although it's clear Newman is no longer in his experimentation phase; he just knows what works and plays around with his same old sounds to produce neat cues (1:42 onwards) like the one below. But his sound continues to far more relevant than his peers from a decade or so ago.

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

Starting at 2:04, specifically at 2:12, the jazzy brass harmonized descant type thing... where have I heard something very similar before?

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Stan Kenton?

[RedBard 71]

First, apologies in advance for bumping this thread.

Now for the heart of the matter:

Can anyone tell me what string technique is being utilized here at the beginning of this video?

It starts between 0:06 and ends at 0:09. I have always assumed that it was a type of harmonic, but I could very well be wrong and I need clarification.

Also, how would such a technique be notated?

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

No need to apologise. This thread weren't meant to die.

Sounds like two effects, both involving violins playing harmonics. The first is a glissando with stopped harmonics (normal notehead with diamond glyph a fourth or fifth above, plus a gliss line up to an indeterminate pitch - marked x), and the other is a harmonic glissando with a fixed thumb position (the old way a la Stravinsky/Ravel is to write out the pitches of the harmonic series as an arpeggio with circles above).

[KK 3,307]

I know this may have been discussed before (with Seven I think...), but what is it that we hear here at 1:54 (the wailing effect):

I think last time you guys mentioned some kind of bowed waterphone effect tied in with something else?

And other examples of this technique being used?

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

Well you've got a solo soprano doing that eerie portamento. Behind that sounds more like a bowed cymbal or tamtam than waterphone.

[KK 3,307]

Cool. Any way some other metal device is making that portamento sound? I assumed it was a soprano too, but from what I remember, Seven had a similar effect somewhere and it obviously involved no choral effect.

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

Well Doug's book says it's a soprano I believe.

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

There's also glissandoing violins too.

[KK 3,307]

Ahh thanks!

[Sharkissimo 1,973]

Anyone know who was the first composer to ask trombone or brass to blow air through their instruments and/or reverse mouthpieces? It's something you see a lot with Goldsmith and Goldenthal, and occasionally Williams and Davis.

[Gnome in Plaid 219]

Anyone know who was the first composer to ask trombone or brass to blow air through their instruments and/or reverse mouthpieces? It's something you see a lot with Goldsmith and Goldenthal, and occasionally Williams and Davis.

Could you give an example?

[karelm 2,902]

Anyone know who was the first composer to ask trombone or brass to blow air through their instruments and/or reverse mouthpieces? It's something you see a lot with Goldsmith and Goldenthal, and occasionally Williams and Davis.

Since it is an extended technique, I would look to this being big in the mid 20th century. Look to berio as a hunch and Stockhausen.

Edit: check this berio from mid 1960's with multphonics, screaming into instrument, breath tones etc;

http://youtu.be/lR-Yz1nPSsk

I think this is the time and a good candidate for earliest example of this technique.

[Gnome in Plaid 219]

Who first used the aleatoric horn rips that Shore uses for his most chaotic moments?

 

1:31-1:44 in "FBI Pathologist"

 

Less audible, but 0:22-0:44 in the Goblintown clip.  It's the rips in the background, not the "rising chords of doom"-style aleatory I'm interested in.

 

2:30-2:40 in "Night Camp"

 

I went back to the scores for Penderecki's "De Natura Sonoris" 1 & 2, and while those are obviously major influences for Shore, the aleatoric elements are more in line with the results Corigliano achieves with his box notation or less frenetic aleatoric moments in Shore scores.  There are pretty obvious connections to "De Natura Sonoris" in The Cell, LOTR, Edge of Darkness, and others, but most of those moments can be "reverse-engineered" from Shore's "manifesto."  The wild rips in these two pieces are more interesting to me, and I was wondering who may have used a similar technique (and how they chose to notate it).

[karelm 2,902]

7 hours ago, Gnome in Plaid said:

Who first used the aleatoric horn rips that Shore uses for his most chaotic moments?

 

1:31-1:44 in "FBI Pathologist"

 

Less audible, but 0:22-0:44 in the Goblintown clip.  It's the rips in the background, not the "rising chords of doom"-style aleatory I'm interested in.

 

2:30-2:40 in "Night Camp"

 

I went back to the scores for Penderecki's "De Natura Sonoris" 1 & 2, and while those are obviously major influences for Shore, the aleatoric elements are more in line with the results Corigliano achieves with his box notation or less frenetic aleatoric moments in Shore scores.  There are pretty obvious connections to "De Natura Sonoris" in The Cell, LOTR, Edge of Darkness, and others, but most of those moments can be "reverse-engineered" from Shore's "manifesto."  The wild rips in these two pieces are more interesting to me, and I was wondering who may have used a similar technique (and how they chose to notate it).

 

Witold Lutoslawski has some prominent examples of these aleatoric risers such as in this excerpt from Jeux Venitiens (1961) for a few seconds of that excerpt where strings rise, then horns follow then clarinets descend:

 

...but he was heavily influenced by John Cage's Piano Concerto (1958) so you are invariably bringing in the controlled but random chaos from Stockhausen.  The Lutoslawski was significant because it mixed conducted moments with chance moments in tableaux.

 

[Gnome in Plaid 219]

I recently came across this piece that gets close to what I'm looking for about 1:14.