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January 4, 1923	MUSICAL COURIER
PRACTICAL INSTRUMENTATION
For School, Popular and Symphony Orchestras
By FRANK PATTERSON
Author of The Perfect Modernist
Copyrighted, 1923, by The Musical Courier Company.
from the top to the bottom, or are they to be written in “open” position? Are the notes to be omitted when they would make sharp dissonances with the solo voice? Are they to be contrapuntally altered in this case? Or are they to move along in unison with the melody?
Evidently the chords here (Fig. 1) could be written with several notes omitted; evidently, too, these notes might be omitted at 1 and 2, the beginning of the second and third measures, where the melody seems to clash with the harmony note, first the tonic note, C, then the fifth, G. Then again, at 1, the harmony note, C, might be momentarily changed to B with the melody, and at 2 it might be changed to A flat with the melody.
The question is not which of these is the best, but how are we to know which of these is the best, and how are we to know exactly how each one of the three writings here proposed would sound, without having an orchestra at our disposal to try it over?
Introduction
Many years ago• Berlioz conceived the original idea of making a mechanical or mathematical tabulation of all of the possible instrumental combinations, a sort of statistical outline of orchestral effects, and carried out this plan in his famous instruction book. Since his time many another book has been written, generally with the object of amplifying the French master’s work, among them the modernized Berlioz, by Richard Strauss, and the splendidly complete work by Cecil Forsythe, to mention only two of many.
To write another book along the same lines and with the same object in view would be without reason and without excuse, and in the pages which follow the author has not that in mind. His intention has been rather to prepare a work suited to American students and suited to our American point of view, a work outlining a few basic principles in so simple a way that the student may try his hand at real orchestra arranging after glancing carelessly over the first part of it, which is just what the American student will do, in spite of all that his elders may urge to the contrary.
The book, therefore, deals not with a tabulation of particular effects, but with means of attaining general orchestral solidity, and particularly with the relationship between the familiar piano score and the orchestra score. Talking machine records may be had of some of the examples used by way of illustration, and the student will do well to provide himself with them and to listen to them, not with the object of becoming familiar with the use of particular instruments, but with the object of getting an idea of mass-effects and hearing what effects come through and are successful, or fail to come through and are buried and lost in a mass of counter-melodies, or accompaniment, or whatever else may be.
First of all, let it be perfectly clear that the piano is of no use at all as a subsitute for the orchestra upon which to try over these perplexing passages, and the organ is little better. The pianist-composer, like Schumann, almost always reflects his pianistic feeling in his orchestration, and the composer who depends upon the organ for aid generally loses something of the orchestral'feeling in his finished scores.
And here it is very necessary that this point should be thoroughly gone over, for there is no point about which there is• greater divergence of opinion, and no point upon which it is less possible to give authoritative advice. To say, “you must never use the piano” is almost as .bad as to say, “you must always use the piano,” and to say, “you may use the piano when you like” (which most composers will do, whether you say it or not), is the worst of the lot.
The composer, whether student or not, must thoroughly understand the relationship between the piano and the orchestra, and must be able to know just where and when and how it may be useful. The fact that nearly all successful modern composers have been pianists, or have been able to play the piano, is certainly significant. It is a great pity that so much misleading matter has been written by thoroughly responsible musicians about this important point. Through all of his youth the author heard it said over and over that Wagner could not play the piano; that he regretted not having learned the piano; that he conceived his stupendous scores without. the aid of the piano. Most of us have heard the same story. We have also in mind pictures of Beethoven walking in the woods or lying in the shade of the trees with his manuscript in hand; of Schubert writing his wonderful songs on the back of restaurant bills of fare, or on an old envelope or any scrap of paper that happened to come to hand.
That is very pretty, and some of it is fact. But it is not all fact. And the part of it that is left upsaid is far more important than the part that is told.
The hard, solid, cold fact of the matter is that Wagner and Beethoven, and most of the other great composers, played and played and played. They were always at the piano. They became perfect burdens to their landlords, their hosts, the people with whom they lived, with their hammering, their pounding, their experiments in advanced harmonies, dissonances׳, discords. Wagner (who could not play the piano!) was put out of one lodging because of his noise, and pretty nearly went to an asylum, for the people thought him mad; and he played so much at Triebchen when at work on the “Ring” music that his children sang the melodies at their play.
So Wagner, who really invented modern orchestration, used the piano at his work. That is sure. But it is also sure that he did not play his full scdres, for the simple reason that his full scores cannot be played on the piano; in fact, the effect of them cannot be properly given even by two players on two pianos, or three players on three pianos, or a dozen players at a dozen pianos, for that matter, though they might very well play all the notes.
It is evident, therefore, that, though Wagner, and the other great composers, used the piano at their work, they also possessed the power of presenting to themselves, mentally, the exact effect of their1 completed scores. This is essential.
That is the whole crux of the matter, and the natural deduction is that the composer, when writing for orchestra, may use the piano as much as he likes, but :must not write for the piano, and expect afterwards to make orchestra music of it without almost complete revision—must not write with the piano tone in mind, but must always “hear” the orchestral effects, and always realize that the piano is a mere makeshift, not to be abused.
(To he continued)
The author begs to acknowledge his■ indebtedness to the following publishers for permission to use excerpts from their copyrighted works by way of illustration: Universal Edition, Leo Feist, Inc,; Carl Fischer, M. Witmark & Sons, and J. H. Remick & Co., and to the arrangers, George J. Trinkaus, Frank E. Barry and J. Bodewalt Lampe, who very kindly aided with their large experience in the orchestration of popular music.
I. How to Hear the Orchestra
“But,” you will exclaim, “that is not what I want at all! I do not want to know how to hear the orchestra, but how to write for it!”
That is exactly the point. You want to write for the orchestra, as most students do, without hearing what you write.
You have no hesitation whatever about going to a concert, to an opera, to presentations even of the most complex of modern works, and criticising all that you hear, not kindly and with deference, but with an absolutely appalling certainty, without the least doubt in your own mind as to the perfect correctness of your judgment.
And often enough you are right. Which means, simply, •that you know how things ought to sound—you know good balance when you hear it; you know sonority and quickly recognize its absence; your taste in such matters has become, by frequent hearings, trained to feel differences.
Yet you will go straight home and write an orchestration that has all of the faults you so harshly criticise in the works of others. You will take it proudly to your teacher, fully expecting his enthusiastic praise; you will take it without hesitation to your favorite conductor, sure that he will fall on your neck and proclaim you a genius.
If you are really ambitious you will realize that you need more study.
Of course, but what sort of study?
That is exactly what the author proposes to place before you, in a way that will be not only helpful but convincing.
You will be one of those, one of the many, many American composers, who will say to himself, if only conditions were different, if only I could hear my work!
But conditions are not different, and probably never will be. They are not very different in Europe, for, even over there, conductors will not play works which show a pronounced lack of technic; will not even try over at rehearsal any work of which it is evident that the composer himself does not know how it sounds.
It is true that accomplished and experienced composers sometimes ask to hear their works before they are printed. But the reason for that is not ignorance, not lack of mental ear, but simply because they have tried to put down on paper something so complex that they cannot be sure that they are noting it correctly or hearing it correctly.
Those are two separate, opposed ideas:	(1) Noting correctly what you
hear in your mind; (2) Hearing correctly what you write.
Theoretically speaking, one should always hear every note that one writes, and the ensemble of all the notes that one writes, before they are put on paper.
Practically, and actually, the composer often builds up his complete, 'finished, picture in sections. The composer hears very plainly, for instance, let us say, his melody played by an oboe accompanied by full chords in the strings.
That is very simple. But how are those string chords to be written? Are they to be “thick” or “thin?” Are they to include every note of every chord
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