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Orchestration question (horns)


Datameister

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One of the things I love about our community here is the variety of musical skill levels - a lot of different viewpoints and experience levels typically get to participate in most threads, bringing a lot of different things to the table.

This is probably not gonna be one of those threads. :P

I have a rather specific and perhaps even trivial question about the way Williams' horn parts are arranged, and I'm hoping someone here can help me understand it. So, I was taught that when you've got, say, four French horns, you typically want to have chordal passages be interlocking. In other words, if you're playing an F major chord, horn 1 might play F, horn 2 might play the A a sixth below that, horn 3 might play the C between them, and horn 4 might play the bottom F. Obviously, a lot of variations are possible, but the general principle is that chords are arranged so the parts interlock. 1 and 3 are higher than 2 and 4.

But in Williams' Signature Edition and...ahem...other scores, the horn parts are consistently written the same way you might see the parts for trumpets or any number of other instruments written: the higher the number, the higher the pitch. I'm trying to figure out why this is. Have conventions in contemporary orchestras simply changed?

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There did seem to be a change over the course of time.

Even concert band music in the first half of the century followed the traditions. They way that this started was that years and years and years ago a horn player would specialize in a specific range of the instrument, either high or low, because of the large playable range of the instrument. So what you would essentially have in the orchestra is a pair of horns, 1 high and 1 low.

When that needed to be expanded to 4 (or more) horns, 1st and 2nd horn were treated as a high/low horn pair and so 3rd and 4th were a high/low pair as well - usually playing pitches below or equal to those of the first pair. Very often you'll see parts with 1/3 and 2/4 paired together.

However, in the 20th century these high/low horn specializations started to fade away and one was expected to be proficient in the entire range of the instrument. This, over time, seeped into how music was written for horns. It was no longer necessary to write the instruments as pairs anymore because that's not how a horn section worked anymore. So composers would just write for horns the way that they felt the need to or felt comfortable to, even if that meant ignoring the old standards.

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Joey225 pretty much nailed it.

I'll add one other point: in Hollywood, the players are expected to be able to play anything - such that they're equally comfortable with both extremes of the instrument's range. Traditional voicings (where 1st and 3rd horns are high, while 2nd and 4th horns are low) are rarely used, simply because the players in LA can do it all. In particular, with most film orchestral setups, you'll have an average of 6-8 horns, so the traditional voicing really serves no purpose.

I believe that Williams himself uses the more 'modern' voicing on his concert works; and, both Herb Spencer and Conrad Pope do (did) that as well for his film scores.

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Trumpet sections (swiftly sidestepping Mr Roo's post! laugh.gif ) can have some real oddities too....I remember when I first played the Star Wars main title and realised that the 4th Trumpet is actually kinda part of the French Horn section, leaving the other 3 to get on with the big stuff. For this reason, I LOOOOOOOVE playing the 4th Tpt part to Star Wars!! JW has done other similar tricks with brass in other scores.....

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When such questions about orchestration are raised, the big question for me is always: does it matter?

Does it really produce a different sound when the horn parts are spread?

Because if it doesn't, then what's the point?

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Well, it can potentially produce a different sound if you're writing in a format that the players aren't used to. But as others have pointed out, that's not going to be a problem with the orchestras Williams can afford to use.

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Horn players aren't trained in the old style of high/low anymore. At this point the only place I could imagine these specializations still happening are at some old school conservatory -but that would only be a disadvantage to the students, who would then become less marketable. Already conservatory training is not so important anymore. Good liberal arts schools often have music programs on par with or even surpassing those of conservatories.

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The only thing that I have to add is that the level of ensemble may come into play. When I was in high school, the best player(s) took the first part, the second best player(s) took the second part, and on down the line.

When I was in college, I read that for orchestral pieces, that French Horns should be listed first in the brass section and broken down 1/3 and 2/4 in keeping with the 200+ years of traditional score layout. The same tome indicated that for band pieces, that trumpets should be listed first in the brass section and the parts should be broken down 1/2 and 3/4. No, that didn't confuse me a bit... In retrospect, it probably had to do with the author's view of orchestras having more skilled, professional musicians, while bands were primarily seen as amateur (high school) ensembles.

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Interesting! The score I have uses only three trumpets.

The "Symphonic Suite" orchestration has 3 trumpet parts, but the older (and, I think, original?) orchestration from the much older suite (the one with the handwritten score) has 4. Unless of course the part I had was wrongly marked - that is always a possibility! But I have played that part on at least 3 occasions.

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As previously mentioned, the horn idea of high/low horns is a bit antiquated. It's good to know about so you understand what is going on in a score (or if you're sending in audition materials to a university/conservatory).

I asked the horn players at a scoring session at Warner Brothers last year if they had a preference for the 'old school' or the 'Hollywood horns' layout and they told me that they didn't care. They shift the parts around as they see fit (except for horn 1 - the principal gets paid more and therefore has to deal with more of the high Fs).

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Horn players aren't trained in the old style of high/low anymore. At this point the only place I could imagine these specializations still happening are at some old school conservatory -but that would only be a disadvantage to the students, who would then become less marketable. Already conservatory training is not so important anymore. Good liberal arts schools often have music programs on par with or even surpassing those of conservatories.

Interesting to hear from some horn players about this, including your good self Joey225. Until recently I was not even aware that horn players 'divided' at all to play either the high or low parts, which is commonplace among string players; it was only when I went to one of the LSO's free concerts a year or two back (apologies for the shameless name-dropping!) featuring their fine horn section that I learned that, although they could each play pretty much anything, each member still 'specialised' in the high or low horn parts. I guess that large parts of the classical repertoire still require this division even if, as ETMusic and others have pointed out, the idea is now a bit antiquated among contemporary composers?

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I guess that large parts of the classical repertoire still require this division even if, as ETMusic and others have pointed out, the idea is now a bit antiquated among contemporary composers?

Correct, but it doesn't really apply to contemporary music (and particularly film music). Also, in major films scores you often have 2-3 horn players per part (which makes it sound REALLY big...and makes me happy beyond belief).

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