What a busy month it has been indeed! In reading my newest additions to my music library, I've discovered, just from study my jazz arranging books, that I wasn't all that far off arranging for concert band. Orchestra is still waaay beyond me at this point. I can get away with a lot of things with orchestration, however, mostly because I write for specific sounds and consistency. I may throw instruments together that aren't necessarily paired. To me, it is about the effect of the piece, not necessarily meeting a certain criteria or rule. I read somewhere to the effect of: "when it comes to composition, forget what you learned in music theory and just write. Write until you are satisfied with your composition, not when someone else is." I can't remember where I read it, but anywho, I've taken that to heart for years. Anywho, so I'm basically re-orchestrating all of my concert band compositions. Not necessarily because I need to change the instrument pairings, but rather to thin out the arrangements so there is more space, basically. I need to utilize space and instrument change as part of the effect. Rather than always putting the melody with the flute/clarinet/oboe and trumpet...and use more trombone, bassoon, and surprisingly, saxophone (and not using the baritone sax as a bass instrument when it is a baritone!). So yeah. It's fun because I feel it is bringing more life to the compositions because the color of the orchestration in regards to instruments does not get as boring or stale (at least not as quickly, ha). I've re-orchestrated 3 of my pieces so far, but I've yet to upload them to my site. Very soon this will happen. Keep checking back!
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