Conrad Pope, MCB and brass

In this second video about orchestration I’ll be sharing with you a recap from a masterclass Orchestration given by Conrad Pope recently in Vienna. One of my composer friends attended this masterclass and he shared his summary with me. Now it’s time for me to pay it forward 🙂

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But wait … there is more to tell!

It’s about books. About great composers from which you can learn a lot. About big orchestral scores which you want to study and analyse. And how you can get them! And last, but not least … about five elements that determine the why (your choices) of orchestration.

Next I’ll give you my structure that helps me to orchestrate my music tracks. It’s all about melody, chords and bass (MCB). But you can also use the melody, harmony, rhythm and textures structure. With an orchestral score pad I explain the easy steps to follow. Hopefully to give you some more comfort feeling with orchestration.

At the end I’ll spend some time on brass. Sharing with you my favorite ranges of the trumpets, horns, trombones and tuba. And for what purposes I use the brass instruments: melody, chords and or rhythmic.

Must have book about orchestration according to Conrad Pope

Buy the book Principles of Orchestration from Rimsky Korsakov on Amazon.

Tips to get better in orchestration

• listen to a lot of orchestral film music (preferably John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith or Alexandre Desplat …)
• listen and study work from Pjotr Iljitsj Tsjajkovski, Ravel and Stravinsky
• let your composition be played by real instruments (maybe you know some people)
• transcribe, transcribe, transcribe!

Download scores for free on: https://imslp.org