Turning a piano piece into orchestra

[Musicologo]

Hello everybody.

I just have a small piano piece, very basic, with lead voice (melody) in right hand and broken chords in left hand.

A friend of mine want me to turn it into an like-beethoven-simphony orchestral work to use it as an anthem for his organization.

Now... how in the world I do that? I mean, I have so little material... just a melodic line in 1 voice and broken chords...

Can you give me tips on how to work that? What kind of lines should go to what instruments, how can I "expand" my material... I don't know. All advices are welcome to enlighten me!

[tboulette]

The possibilities here are actually very broad, but you may need some scoring experience to take advantage of them. I recommend taking a look at Debussy's orchestral score for Erik Satie's Gymnopedies (Debussy orchestrated two of the three) and compare it with the original piano score for ideas.

Don't be limited to mimicking the sound of a piano. You can use this opportunity to really flesh out the piece -- some block chords in the french horns, perhaps. Pizzicato strings. There's all sorts of things you can do.

Have fun with it!

[Edited to correct reference to the orchestrator.]

[llatham]

Now... how in the world I do that? I mean, I have so little material... just a melodic line in 1 voice and broken chords...

Pick up Walter Piston's Orchestration, and Samuel Adler's book of the same title. The Adler is current, and has CD examples.

One of the issues in transcribing some music from one medium to another is that often, the music is written idiomatically for the original instrument, and that there are techinical things that won't sound right in the other instrument/ensemble.

Your melody should be no problem. You give to the melody instruments - Flute, Trumpet, Violins, or combinations thereof.

The broken chord accompaniment is a more difficult thing to deal with because it's often very "pianistic" and doesn't translate as well to orchestra.

For example, if your LH goes:

C - E - G - C - E - G then giving the Basses C on the downbeat, the Celli E on beat two, and the Violas G on beat three is likely going to come out sounding - well, not like you intend it.

One of the reasons we use broken chords in piano is to provide activity and rhythmic motion. But doing so by repeating block chords doesn't have the same effect. So when you orchestrate it, you may find block chords with a sustainged background gives you the sound you want, if not exactly like what the piano was doing. So sometimes it's helpful to understand that your accompaniment is an "effect" on one instrument, and you need to find what creates that same "effect" on a different instrument - even if you do it a different way.

I would also like to suggest that, when you write something with no intention of it being orchestrated, often, orchestrating it will be ineffective. In many cases, you need to "recompose" it with the orchestration in mind.

So I think you might be running before you can walk here. You might suggest that rather than doing an "orchestral" version, you might do something for a smaller group. For example, you might be able to make a Piano Trio, or duet for Flute and Harp (or Guitar), or even Vibraphone and Muted Trumpet that will give it a more "orchestral" sound, but not use an entire orchestra. Also, you can always use synths, and virtual instruments, so for example, you could have a Piano layered with strings playing your broken chords, choir sounds "singing" sustained chords, a brass section playing your melody (to be anthemic and heroic) and you can add cymbal crashes and Timpani pretty easily without recomposing anything. It will give you a "modern" virtual orcehstra-type sound, which may sound as "Beethoven" to your client as an actual Beethoven orchestration.

HTH,
Steve

[llatham]

A friend of mine want me to turn it into an like-beethoven-simphony orchestral work to use it as an anthem for his organization.

OH, by the way - how much is he paying you? Are you going to get royalties from it each time it is played, or are you going to sell it to him for a flat fee?

These are things to think about - suppose it becomes as well-known as the theme for "I'm a Pepper, he's a Pepper, wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too?" for Dr. Pepper. That was actually written by Barry Manilow but he never receives any money for it (it used to be used more years ago) because he sold it outright to Dr. Pepper (or did it as part of his jingle-writing job).

If your tune becomes very well known, I think you'd be upset to find it being used to sell all kinds of merchandise and you get nothing from it (though you didn't specify what kind of organization this is). So make sure you look to the future. You can do it for free if you want to, but you should probably think about a "fair use" agreement - for example, if they want to use it in a TV promo where it will reach a large audience, you may agree to get a certain percentage of the profits created by that ad. Or, you may simply agree that it's OK for them to use it as long as your name is prominently displayed as the composer.

You should check out ASCAP and BMI websites.

Peace,
Steve

[deastman]

If you have no experience with orchestral arrangement or classical composition, this may be an overwhelmingly daunting task. Asking you to sound like Beethoven is setting the bar rather high... Still, you have to start somewhere, so load up those orchestral sounds and have at it!

[Musicologo]

Thanks for all the answers, speacially Llatham extensive one. This has been very useful so far.

I have experience in composing pieces for solo instruments or small ensembles. But I have never done anything for orchestra. I had a first try on turning a rag for solo piano into a marching band piece. That was my best shot so far. Even though that marching band work was painfully hard to do, and very slow.

I finished reading all the orchestration course by Garritan (the one based in Rimsky-korsakov) and I really want to take the step by step of evolution. Being able to compose for large groups instead of only smaller groups.

So I guess this is a good opportunity. To grab my solo pieces and arranging them. For now, I might try the second solution of Lhatham. The syth strings + choir + brass + percussion, since my client wants more show-off than anything. Let's see if it works...

About money, since this is one of my first works, I asked none so far. I'm doing this to practice. The solo piece is registered in my name, so I guess I'll receive royalties for it for the rest of my life, as long as it is used for commercial means (ads, merchandising, etc.). I'm portuguese and our law has a table of money for that cases. I think, for example, that if your music shows on TV ad, each time you receive 0,7€.

In this case it's just a non-profit organization that studies UFO's, and I'm doing their official misterious anthem for them to play in the begining of lectures, meetings, radio interviews, etc, etc. I don't know exactly if those contexts are "commercial ones".

I just want to stand out as the composer so far, so I can start getting "a name". I'm on the beggining ya know?...

Like I was saying,
If that arrangement of synth+choir+brass+percussion doesn't work, then I'll start thinking bigger.

Maybe I can write a second theme to contrast with the lead voice to give it to a group of instruments...

maybe I can use the notes of the chords in the strings broke out in a completely different way, after all, they are just there to make a harmony support...

Perhaps I can broke the melody also, kind of a question - answer beteween two instruments/groups? Kind Question (fl+ob) Answer (cl+bs)?

I'll see... but keep posting suggestions.

[martian]

you could use the piano as your starting point and orchestrate around it. ie. leave the piano in. the hard, punchy timbre of a piano comes through sustained orchestral sound nicely.

or if you want to leave the piano out, then simply divide the piano composition into different orchestral groups, like:

bass: trombome/viola/cello play bass (if you want to add a bass line)
mid 1: violins/choir/brass play sustained chords
mid 2: violins/vibraphone/harp/celesta/etc could play arpegiated chords
high: violin/flute/brass/etc play high octave melody
misc: drums/percussion/fx.

then you can layer many more instruments on top of them and across wider octave ranges if you want a bigger sound. you also have huge scope in how you decide to voice/harmonise everything, like which parts of the harmony to emphasise with notes repeating across octaves, or by which notes to leave out, and the timing of each note. you can also consider the volume dynamics of every instrument, if you want the expressiveness of a real orch. this is what i find most tedious.

[imike24]

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Thank for the advise
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[jdtrbn]

I think orchestration is really hard. The orchestral arrangement of Pictures at an exhibition by Ravel (original piano works by Mussorgsky) is famous, and it was only the fourth orchestration made of it! The three earlier ones were made by professional conductors too and countless have been made later.

Well, maybe most of us are content with not being Ravel.

Different instruments have their idiomatic uses. For example, you wouldn't compose for the brass instruments the way you compose to violins, unless you're going for a very different effect. One thing to avoid is making a "pop song for an orchestra", which may sound very lacking and empty compared to classical symphonies. Often instruments have movement and patterns that don't really have a simple melodic or harmonic meaning, but they are there for texture and to support the orchestra as a whole (I think Brahms did a lot of this). This kind of things can happen in the background and are best noticed when you try to imitate the style (and fail). I think orchestrating a simple work is partly recomposing, unless you don't mind the orchestra sounding like a folk band.

I wish I could give better advice, but this stuff is really advanced. Too bad classical composers and conductors don't hang out in KVR a lot.

PS. Martian made a good point about dynamics. Piano music has dynamics too, but it's very characteristic for orchestral music.

[DocAtlas]

You might want to check out Garritan; they have a free online orchestration course. It's over here:

http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/for ... y.php?f=77

I haven't looked it over myself, but it's probably worth a look.

[jdtrbn]

You might want to check out Garritan; they have a free online orchestration course. It's over here:

http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/for ... y.php?f=77

I haven't looked it over myself, but it's probably worth a look.

He said he already finished it.

[DocAtlas]

You might want to check out Garritan; they have a free online orchestration course. It's over here:

http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/for ... y.php?f=77

I haven't looked it over myself, but it's probably worth a look.

He said he already finished it.

Oops. Somehow I missed that. Guess I should read the forum when I'm more awake...

[Hama3tv]

you can also take a look at Ravel's PAVANE POUR UNE INFANTE DEFUNTE (1899) . He Himself wrote the Orchestral Verion of his own piano piece 10 Years later . Thats a good example of turning a piano piece into and orchestral piece .

[brainzistor]

you can also take a look at Ravel's PAVANE POUR UNE INFANTE DEFUNTE (1899) . He Himself wrote the Orchestral Verion of his own piano piece 10 Years later . Thats a good example of turning a piano piece into and orchestral piece .

Thank you for digging out an 8 years old thread, bro.

[Niklashe]

I also think it is a good idea to study, and perhaps mimic, good examples of orchestration of piano pieces. Grieg wrote most of his orchestral music on the piano and later orchestrated this. You should check out his Holberg suite and you should be able to download both the piano and orchestral versions at IMSLP.

Also Bartok orchestrated a lot of his piano music, if you want a more "modern" sound.

Perhaps check out the opposite? Franz Liszt made piano transcriptions of all Beethovens Symphonies.

Best regards
Niklas