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Richard Gibbs on John Williams' orchestrators


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Shore is doing sketches (mostly complete), but his music is also pre-orchestrated by Tom Sizemore on a computer (mock-ups pretty much). And both these things go to Conrad Pope. Apparently, Shore also plays piano in order to articulate his intentions to Pope.

Karol

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All one needs to do is look at John's, or any conposer's, sketches, in order to understand what they present to their orchestrator and thus what the orchestrator(s) contribute.

Even this guy's explanation is not really right.

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Shore uses a 4-line sketch, and it seems to be more about broad-strokes. There's a recent interview with him on ClassicFM where he talks about how he doesn't think of the instruments as he's putting down the notes- meaning that for him his sketch is purely about notes and their relationship to one another. In his own words, he doesn't think 'orchestrally' when he's composing.

So even though he's still sketching with pencil and paper, it seems to be quite different from JW's very specific way of sketching and orchestrating.

http://www.classicfm.com/composers/shore/news/interview-hobbit-lord-of-the-rings/

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I would think that now Shore sketches in a more complete way, maybe as his second pass at sketching after the basic musical content, since he's not the one orchestrating anymore. Before, he could elaborate on those basic foundations on his own.

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Conrad Pope talks about working with Shore here. The approach is being discussed at about 37-minute mark. And he talks about Williams too, at different points.

Karol

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Shore is doing sketches (mostly complete), but his music is also pre-orchestrated by Tom Sizemore on a computer (mock-ups pretty much). And both these things go to Conrad Pope. Apparently, Shore also plays piano in order to articulate his intentions to Pope.

Karol

Tom Sizemore!?

tom-sizemore.jpg

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I must admit I'm sorta fascinated by how Howard describes his initial working process. Just focusing on the relationships of the notes (counterpoint, harmony, melody) and not thinking instrumentally, orchestrally, or anything of the 'sound world'. I might have to try it sometime just to see what it's like. For me the orchestration is always conceived simultaneously with the composition.

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There are a few successful hummers in the scoring world, known to all inside. Often times said hummers create very interesting scores - the only shame is that the people working under them are not usually credited properly.

Okay, I'll bite. Anybody have any idea who the successful "hummers" of today are?

Besides John Wiliams obviously.

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