Carmina Burana Pocket Guide 6C: Orchestration Tip - Horns 1.3./2.4.

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[ariiii]

as someone who wants to study musicology your analysis give me life. Each time I see you posted little stars appear in my eyes.

[Qermaq]

Tom, what I like most about your videos is that you stress that arranging is more than putting notes on a page that sound good horizontally and vertically. A good arranger also needs to understand the sociology/politics of the orchestra, the traditions that we follow and why we follow them, and especially in this age of DAWs how turn over score and parts that will make the rehearsal and performance successful. You do that in a really sensible and common-sense way, which I really dig.

Question: I started as a score-paper arranger in the '80s and now use Finale. I used to program sequencers back in the '90s, and worked with Pro Tools a bit back in the '00s, so I have some small experience with that, and I think my learning curve for using a DAW would be pretty good. But I want to learn more about how they work, in particular, what the process of turning the file into notation is. Have you done videos on this? If not, do you know of any you might recommend to someone with my background?

[nategardner]

As a long-term 4th horn guy, I'm quite happy being the more chill part playing low notes and backup parts. Except Sousa. Offbeats are annoying.

[valkhorn]

"First and second" - not always. It was traditionally done that way as 3rd and 4th were different horns than 1st and 2nd, but it doesn't have to be that way. You could in theory score 1st and 2nd and 1st and 3rd close together in sections in order to give the parts rest when they need rest IF you instruct the 4 horns to sit 2x2. Which, I honestly think having a horn section sit 2x2 is ideal, where the back row is slightly to the right. Or 3x2 if you have 6 horns. Tradition is often the last bad performance, and I find the best rules for horn writing is plenty of variety, plenty of rest.

[Noblankit]

Can you release the first couple you have done, and maybe that will make more people want to sub once they see the quality of it. Especially along with these tips you’ve been posting

[tompw]

Why not just number them 1-2 and 3-4 in this case?

[thegoodgeneral]

I know these days players tend to be high or low specialists but this style of writing horns is outdated.