TECHNIQUE

Arranging For Strings: Part 4

Soaring, anthemic descants and quicksilver runs are the meat and potatoes of old-school string arranging. But they may not be enough to save the day when disaster strikes
DAVE STEWART

n my last article, Ispoke about subtle string sonorities such as harmonics, dreamy cluster chords and div trems, the latter being string-player-speak for divisi tremolo (a technique where half the players in asection play tremolo and the rest use astraight bowing). These delicate timbres can sound beautiful in aquiet musical setting, but when pitted against arock band cranking out monster riffs, they fail to make any kind of impression. In order to cut through the sonic fog of

distorted guitars, dense keyboard pads, stentorian vocals and thrashing drums, we need something alittle less ethereal. The old standby for string arrangers struggling to make their creations audible in acrowded musical environment is the high, soaring violins line, often written as acounterpoint to the vocal melody. This is such an established fixture in arrangements that you might be forgiven for thinking it was obligatory Ihear it all the time in the string demos that bands send me. In choral music, this type of high-pitched, decorative tune is called adescant, sometimes heard in

church choirs when the sopranos sing ahigh counter-melody over the last verse of ahymn. Its avery satisfying musical device, and when applied to strings it can make good use of the violins extreme high register.

Grey Skies
The beauty of descant lines is that they can be extremely simple: if asong has aquick, rhythmic vocal line, you can write ahigh counter-melody that uses few notesand moves quite slowly, thus creating anice contrast. Such musical motifs can be ahook in their own right

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you could divide the first violins to play the upper and lower octaves of the high melody, write chord pads for the second violins and violas, and bring in cellos and basses to reinforce the bass line perhaps the kind of thing Ive sketched out in diagram 2.

Untouchable
The UK band Anathema (for whom Ive written afair number of string arrangements) are no strangers to counter-melodies many of their songs are constructed over repeated melodic motifs which play in counterpoint to the vocal lines. One such example is the song Untouchable. This is split into two parts: the first builds into an intense, rocky anthem with distorted guitars and aheavy backbeat, while the second is aquiet ballad featuring atouching male/female vocal duet sung by Vincent Cavanagh and Lee Douglas. The compositional basis for this song is asimple piano figure played by Danny Cavanagh, shown in diagram 3. The top notes of the chords (marked in red) pick out asimple, engaging melody. This is agood example of effective voice leading, avital skill every composer and arranger should strive to master. Iparticularly like the way the final melodicmovement from F to Eb transforms the harmonic make-up of the chord from aGm7 to an Eb over G (aka Eb first inversion). My string arrangement for Untouchable Part 2 features the piano motif played in various registers: it starts out low and subdued on violas, before moving up an octave into the violin register. In the second chorus, it ascends again and is played in octaves by violins. Diagram 4 shows how the lead vocal part works in tandem with the

Diagram 1: Extract from the arrangement of Grey Skies showing (from top down) the high countermelody (voiced in octaves), vocal line and keyboard chords.

you need to think melodically and try to compose simple, memorable phrases that enhance the song without stealing the lead vocals thunder. One of the simplest high string counter-melodies Iwrote was for asong of mine called Grey Skies. The backing track features alot of programmed 16th-note percussion, above which floats alyrical, balladic song. On the choruses, Iadded ahigh strings melody voiced in octaves, featuring long notes and minimal melodic movement its almost an exercise in how long you can get away with holding anote through the chord changes before moving to anew pitch! Ive reproduced the first few bars of the chorus of Grey Skies in diagram 1. As you can see, the chords move at the rate of one per bar and the vocal line has alargely quarter-note rhythm,
Diagram 2: Afleshed-out string arrangement of the Grey Skies excerpt designed to support the high violins counter-melody in diagram 1. The three-note chords are played by divisi second violins (marked in blue) and violas, while the bass line is played by cellos and basses in octaves. Some chords contain tone intervals, aharmonic coloration favoured by your author that is often considered de trop in conventional pop/rock arrangements.

against which the high string line moves very slowly. Coupled with the fast, bubbling percussion and ahalf-time drum feel, these different rates of change combine into an agreeably ambiguous rhythmic stew. The simple counter-melody also introduces the subtle harmonic colouringof an F note over aGbsus2 chord, anice way of playing a(kind of) major seventh that avoids the sleazy, lounge-jazz connotations of that particularchord name. To arrange this counter-melody for real players, you could simply assign the high octave to the first violins and the lower octave to the seconds, aclassic orchestral timbre. Alternatively, if you needed some chordal support from the strings,

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of desire the violins take off in asoaring upward run culminating in ahigh D it reduces me to tears every time. The power of music, eh?

Sprint Finish
Although it seems to have fallen out of favour in pop circles recently, the aforementioned fast ascending violins run is another staple of old-school string arranging. For that reason, virtually every strings sample library under the sun contains ascending and descending octave runs. Some, such as Peter Siedlaczeks Smart Violins and the more recent Orchestral Tools Orchestral String Runs, even specialise in the style. In the past, sample library manufacturers would record these runs in achoice of tempos in the hope that one might fit your track, butnowadays time-stretching can be used

Diagram 3: The piano part of Anathemas Untouchable Part 2 with its repeated melodic motif marked in red.

violins counter-melody; while the vocal is rhythmic and syncopated, the strings play straight, slow on-beat whole and half notes (or semibreves and minims, as we call them in the trade). Another example of counter-melody occurs in Anathemas song Kingdom, but this time the roles are reversed: as you can see in diagram 5, the high strings line is far more rhythmically active than the sparse vocal line. Note the div marking in bar 6, an instruction (as discussed previously) to the first violins to divide into two equal sections to handle the upper

and lower part respectively. Without this instruction, aplayer might think he or she should play both notes simultaneously. Notating the note stems in opposite directions (as in the last bar) also confirms the section division. As mentioned earlier, descant string writing is ubiquitous, and if nothing more adventurous is required, simply being able to write ahigh counter-melody might just be enough to get you hired as an arranger! Although Idont buy into the whole flag-waving bit, one of my favourite string descants happens in an arrangement of the hymn Jerusalem Ihave on aBBC Last Night of the Proms CD. After the line bring me my arrows

One of the double bass players said Er, Dave we havent got any parts. These are not the words you want to hear when poised to record...
to force the runs to your song tempo. An alternative to fiddling about trying to make these pre-recorded phrases fit your track is to play them yourself, although that naturally requires the ability to perform ascale on akeyboard. However, you dont have to play the run at aquick tempo; when sequencing arun, slowing the tempo down to half speed will take the strain out of the performance and ensure all the notes get played in the correct time span! Keep in mind that although aconventional octave run can conveniently be played as eight 16th notes over two beats, you dont have to use eight notes in arun; arecent string arrangement of mine contained afast ascending run of 15 notes, as shown in diagram 6. Ididnt have this particular number of notes in mind when Icomposed it. The idea was to ascend quickly from Middle C to ahigh C over three beats, and the maths just worked out that way. When confronted with such arun, string players dont perform complicated

Diagram 4: The four-part string arrangement for the chorus of Untouchable Part 2, written for an instrumentation of first and second violins, violas and cellos. The slow movement of the violins counter-melody (marked in red) contrasts with the faster, more rhythmic vocal line.

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Masterclass Tips: Adding Samples To Real Strings

If youre adding samples to areal string section, bear in mind that you may encounter tuning issues that go beyond the occasional out-of-tune note from the real players. Smaller ensembles, by their nature, expose tuning issues that would tend to go unnoticed in alarger group. European orchestras generally tune up to adifferent reference pitch (A=443Hz is quite normal, as opposed to the A=440Hz used here in the UK, and in the US). Ive also occasionallycome across real strings that were recorded without any kind of backing track, and were therefore globally flat or sharp of concert pitch. Depending on the situation, you may find it preferable to retune the samples rather than trying to pitch-shift the real recordings, as the latter process can noticeably degrade the sound. Adding big strings to small strings is generally not agreat idea. If you have aquartet or octet and then add 60 sampled strings behind them, youre going to end up with aslightly odd sound; this isnt how people listen to strings in the real world! Ive found that adding solo instrument or smaller-section samples to larger real sections works well, as the smaller sound often features more musical detail. Plan your overdubs. Its quite common in smaller film sessions or recording sessions to save time and expense by working out which bits the samples can handle better. For example, if youve written apiece that calls for alot of artificial harmonics, these work best in the real world when theres asubstantial number of players. If you have asmaller sectionand want alot of exposed clean harmonics, use samples instead youre likely to get abetter result. If you have apassage that you know will be tricky for example, relentless, tiring ostinati parts played to atight, quick click that need to be bang on the grid you might want the samples to take over at that point. If thats the case, remember to grab atake from the players with that particular part tacet, so as to leave aspace for the samples in the mix. Layering sampled and real performances is not as straightforward as you might think. Ive been asked afew times to layer sampled strings over the real thing and it can work pretty well, although theres adanger of it ending up sounding too massive and lacking in detail. Isuppose its the musical equivalent of trying to fix aphoto by doing tons of Photoshop work it can actually end up looking worse! Iusually think of this kind of layering as alast resort, and have never needed to do it on my own sessions. If Im planning asampled/real hybrid, Igenerally try and get to the point on the live date where the samples and the live recordings complement each other, rather than doubling the same parts. David William Hearn

mental arithmetic to work out the precise length of each individual note; they simply treat the phrase as awhole and make sure it fits the allotted space in the bar. The result is an exciting whoosh, abit like afast harp glissando; small discrepancies within the section help to blur the rhythm and create the flowing quality thats unique to strings. In film music, fast, 16th-note, classical-style string phrases are often employed to create excitement and propel the action. Such phrases tend to be simple and modular in construction: diagram 7 shows some examples, but its more fun to invent your own! Iwent slightly bonkers with this approach in the Anathema song Sunset of Age. Having been asked to give the piece an epic feel

and further encouraged by its composer to go apeshit, Iwrote the intense 16th-note passage you see in diagram 8. Its played in unison octaves, with the last ascending run harmonised by the cellos asixth down.

The Missing Parts

Enough of such musical triumphs. Disaster can strike when youre least expecting it, and no treatise of this type would be complete without afew string-arranging horror stories. Ive been lucky enough to avoid the worst of these, although Idid have anasty moment when recording strings on afilm score (sadly, the cinematic opus in question remains unreleased, hopefully not as aresult of mycontribution).

Diagram 5: The repeated chorus of Anathemas Kingdom the sparse vocal moves at aslower rate than the insistent quarter-note violins part.

As is often the case in the film world, it was arush job there was barely time to write the cues, let alone check the copyists parts before the session. On the day, Isat chewing my nails in the control room as players began to arrive and tune up. Then came the fateful moment: OK guys, quiet please. Everyone ready? Were starting with the first cue, Pre-titles. After some paper-rustling and muttering, one of the double-bass players said Er, Dave we havent got any parts. These are not the words you want to hear when poised to record the first cue of your film soundtrack, and Ihad horrible visions of having to teach the bass players their parts by whistling them. Fortunately, it turned out that only one part was missing, and of course Sods Law decreed it was for the cue we recorded first. Thankfully, the bassists were able to read their part from my score, after which we were back on track. Not agreat way to start asession, though! As disasters go, this pales into insignificance compared to the story of the arranger who set off for astrings session without realising atrain strike was scheduled that day. The players showed up at the studio to find there were no parts, so amused themselves for the next two hours by doing the worlds longest soundcheck and whipping out classical pieces they knew by heart. When the poor arranger finally showed up with the parts, two hours late, the string players saved the day by playing his scores absolutely brilliantly on the first take, thereby

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Diagram 6: Afast two-octave violins run played over the fourth, fifth and sixth beat of a6/4 bar. Dont worry about the maths the players will figure out how to squeeze all the notes in!

cramming three hours work into the remaining hour left on the session clock.

What Key Are We In?

Some disasters are just plain funny. Afriend of mine recounts an incident involving an internationally famous singer, known as much for his terminal indecision and brutal whimsicality (not to mention his unfeasibly tight trousers) as his vocal prowess. Shortly after an orchestral session, the artiste tells his long-suffering MD that he actually wants the song asemitone higher. Obviously it would have been better to decide that before recording the orchestra, but were talking major-league superstar, I-can-have-whatever-I-want mentality here. The MD spends ages pitch-shifting the orchestra to match the newly requested key. The album is finally completed about ayear later. The artiste has an idea for its launch: invite ahandful of important journalists to the studio it was recorded in,and have them sit in the live room wearing headphones, listening to avocal-less mix of the album while the artiste sings alive vocal in front of the original orchestra (who are effectively miming). The whole event is being filmedfor DVD at the same time. Regrettably, when they come to play the key-changed piece, nobody has remembered to rewrite all the orchestra charts asemitone higher. The artiste and journalists can clearly hear the live orchestra playing asemitone lower than the recorded and pitch-shifted orchestra on tape. The unfortunate artiste tries to sing along to both. (Thankfully, no recordings exist.) Moral for would-be arrangers: make sure the singer is comfortable with the key before you finalise ascore.

artiste. Jakko takes up the story: Being new to recording live strings, Dave and Ineeded help fixing the players. Afriend of mine was from aclassical music background, and his father (a respected section leaderof one of the UKs larger orchestras) kindly offered to get together some of his colleagues and create asmall section for us. Ihave to admit to being nervous on the day of the session. Here were half adozen very experienced players with expensive vintage instruments and along CV of recordings, concerts and TV appearances. People who were used to playing the most demanding music
Diagram 7: Some typical examples of 16th-note classical phrases, often used in arrangements to stoke up the excitement.

at his watch at regular intervals. Thats when he wasnt scanning his broadsheet newspaper between takes. Prior to another attempt at an error-free take, this guy piped up with According to union rules, we really should have had atea break by now. We took one. It certainly didnt improve anyones timing or tuning. Some hours in, and we were frantically making notes in the control room about which sections sounded OK and which we still hadnt covered. Meanwhile, in the cramped live area, the atmosphere of undisguised contempt from acouple of the players hadnt eased. We were just about to launch into yet another take when the same grey-haired player stopped us during the count-in.

The Bad Attitude

Although the modern breed of string session player combines musical excellence with apositive outlook, it wasnt always thus. In the late 80s, Iwas asked by my pal Jakko Jakszyk to write astring arrangement for an album track he was producing for awell-known

of the 20th century. And here we were mere rock musicians making pop music. It was therefore confusing and somewhat alarming when the first couple of takes appeared to be riddled with mistakes. The timing wasnt great, and some of the tuning just plain unacceptable. We could hear that the cellists low C string was aquarter-tone flat. When Dave asked the players to re-tune their instruments to an A=440 tuning tone, the cellist refused: No you see, we dont tune up like that. Well, how do you tune up? Dave asked. It would take too long to explain. But basically, Itune my open strings flat and then play them into pitch on the neck. Then what happens when it comes to the open bottom C in bar 88? This stumped him. Er yes, you have apoint there. What made this worse was that one of the older musicians kept looking

Ive just noticed he said, tapping his watch, that this piece lasts six or seven minutes, so by the time this take is finished, well be into overtime. I resisted the temptation to inform him that had they played the f***ing thing right in the first place theyd all have been on their way home some time ago, and we somehow managed to negotiate adegree of goodwill from the majority to finish afinal take. We spent the next day or so editing takes, trying to tune bits and cover up errors with fake strings. As aresult of this experience, Iavoided using live strings until 13 years later, when Ihooked up with agroup of young players fixed by the cellist/vocalist Caroline Lavelle. Theysat down and played my printed sheets with agreat, helpful attitude, and were complimentary about what Id written. Where my inexperience as an untrained,

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Diagram 8: Excerpt from the Sunset of Age string arrangement. The upper line was played by first and second violins, supported an octave down by cellos. When the low part moves into the higher register (as in the second half of bar two and the first half of bar four), the violas take over from the cellos.

novice arranger made itself evident with awrong note or lack of dynamic marking, they all just took apencil to their part withabroad smile. It sounded fantastic. Itleft me with achanged view, alove for the new guard and adesire to do nothingelse again, other than writing forreal strings.

In Conclusion
Although most pro orchestral sample-users will tell you otherwise, its not absolutely essential to use alarge

template containing all the separate components of astring section (first violins, second violins, violas, and so on), unless, of course, you happen to specialise in creating orchestral scores. Asimpler way to get started is to use thefull strings patches supplied in manyorchestral string libraries: these contain the entire string family mapped across the keyboard according to range, with adjacent instruments blended so theres no obvious timbral break as you move from (say) the high cellos to the

Technical Note: Creating ASplit Point

Its actually quite easy to set asplit point between two patches, but some sample player programs make abit of ameal of it. The procedure is simply amatter of adjusting the patches key ranges. To do this in Kontakt, click on the small spanner icon (or cog icon, if you use Kontakt Player) in the top-left corner of the instrument window, select Instrument Options, and adjust the lower and upper notes in the Key Range boxes. In EastWests Play sample player, this function is buried under Main Menu/ Current Instrument/Advanced Properties, but the up side is that coloured keys on Plays GUI keyboard will show the new playing zone youve created. Best Services Engine player and the Vienna Ensemble host (free when you purchase aVSL library) both conveniently display key-range settings on the instrument GUI, but the Vienna Instrument and GarritanAria players appear to lack the facilityaltogether. Adjusting key ranges is not the same thing as remapping the samples, since all youre doing is limiting the playable keyboard zone of an instrument, in order to squeeze another one in beside it. The only difficulty Ioccasionally experience is precisely identifying the crossover point: instrument makers have created confusion by failing to agree on whether Middle C should be called C3 or C4, but whatever the system, the note number always increments by one when you move up asemitone from B to C!

lowviolins register. Ive found this type of instantly playable patch to be incredibly useful for composing and sketching. In fact, Ive often used them to develop string arrangements to the point of near-completion. If your strings library has no full strings patches, you can create aworkable facsimile using violins and cellos: if you set the two patches to the same MIDI channel and adjust their key ranges (as explained in the Creating ASplit Point box) to create asplit point at Middle C (see diagram 9), you can use the setup as avirtual full-strings patch and think about violas and double basses later. When considering the basses, bear in mind that they often work best in their traditional role of doubling the cellos part an octave down. The beauty of the string family is that its instruments are designed to blend together into aunified whole, so if you use your ears and abit of common sense when it comes to working out your instrumentation, you shouldnt go too far wrong! If youre unsure of the numbers of players required to create abalanced ensemble sound, my first string arranging article in SOS June 2012 contained some pointers. Amore exhaustive study appears in Lesson 1 of Gary Garritans Principles of Orchestration by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov thread at the Northern Sounds forum www.northernsounds.com. OK, thats it. Thanks for following my thoughts on the big topic of string arranging over the last four issues of SOS, and thanks also to my colleagues for their valuable input. Ihope some of the musical and technical ideas we introduced will spur you on to create your own arrangements, whether they be sampled or the real thing! Either way, its nice to reflect that in this brash electronic era, were still enjoying the fabulous, rich, expressive and moving sound of strings, abeautiful timbre that has been with us for over 300 years. Grey Skies (D. Stewart) is from the album The Big Idea (Special Edition) by Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin www.davebarb. demon.co.uk. Untouchable Part 2 (Daniel Cavanagh) is from the album Weather Systems by Anathema. Kingdom and Sunset of Age (both composed by Daniel Cavanagh) are from the album Falling Deeper by Anathema www.anathema.ws. Thanks to the composers for permission to use extracts.

Diagram 9: Aquick way of faking afull orchestral string section is to use just two patches (violins and cellos), set them to the same MIDI channel and create asplit point between them. Splitting these particular instruments at Middle C often works well.

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September 2012 edition

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