Orchestration Question!

[TimCox 0]

I was listening to The Last Crusade score the other day and I noticed a peculiar effect.

It was on The Canyon of the Crescent Moon at around 2:54 or so and it's like a whispering swirling sound.

My first thought was brass or woodwinds blown through (i.e. all breath no tone).

Anyone know for sure on this?

[Delorean90 42]

Could be. At first I was going to say it could be wind machine, but on revisiting the cue I don't think so. Is this one of the cues we have in score form?

[PIANOMUSICIAN1991 0]

It could indeed be the effect you mentioned, blowing through wind instruments without making a pitch. This would be quite effective if the orchestral texture is thin. It is a very quiet effect. It could also be a wind machine but it could also be a written instruction to certain orchestra members to simply 'make whispers', this would then be sorted out with the conductor of the piece.

the thing you have to understand about this type of orchestration and effect is that each composer has a different way of putting them in the score. As I said you could simply write, for instance, 'quiet whispers' above the stave of the first violins, with an indicated time span and the conductor would then interpret that. If you have a choir in the orchestra then usually this type of effect would be down to them, depending on the texture of the music. If the music is louder, then use the choir, if the texture is very thin then use the wind section blowing through their instruments. Its a matter of taste and imagination I guess.

I would look into the vocal works of Berio, he uses a lot of effects. If you can track down some of the scores, he usually has a page at the begging with his own versions of performance instruction and notation. These have been adopted by many composers. Some sort of explanation is a huge help to the conductor/musicians.

Hope this helped your question without rambling too much.

Lewis

[jw_researcher 0]

According to the the score, there are women's voices and a synthesizer which start on a "C" and slowly build a cluster across several measures. Against these helds notes, the score indicates another snyth part with a "wind" effect (probably the sound you are referring to). There are also string tremolos against the held notes as well.

[TimCox 0]

Where have you guys been all my life? :')

Also, where can I find copies of scores? I would love them for study purposes!