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MUSICAL COURIER
May 31, 19 2 3
PRACTICAL INSTRUMENTATION
For School, Popular and Symphony Orchestras
By FRANK PATTERSON
Author of The Perfect Modernist
[Twenty-second Installment]
(This series of articles was begun in the issue of January 4)
Copyrighted, 1923, by The Musical Courier Company.
The student should bear that in mind. Nearly all successful music is built along those lines. Jazz, which is a general mix-up of a dozen mostly meaningless improvised parts is dying for that very reason. Modernism is not taking the world by storm for the same reason. As soon as the melody is destroyed by embellishment, harmonic or contrapuntal, the common-sense, music-loving world turns its back on it. Wagner instinctively knew that, so did Beethoven and Brahms and Tschaikowsky, and even in their most advanced stages never allowed themselves to be enticed away from honesty, sincerity and simplicity.
It is well to notice how the counterpoint and the melody clash in the last bar of Ex. 60. This is perfectly ordinary counterpoint and counterpoint such as any arranger, if he has not absorbed too much learning, will write without hesitation. But many students of harmony get into their heads notions of part writing that will make a thing like this look wrong to them. The general rule is, if the harmony and melody are correct, and the counterpoint flows naturally and fits the basic harmony, clashes will not matter. But the counterpoint must flow and must fit the basic harmony. An awkward sounding counterpoint is far worse than none at all.
Examples 61 and 62, also from Tannhäuser, illustrate two forms of broken-chord accompaniments. These are both very common, and there are dozens of similar forms that the student may find for himself when he comes to need them.
It is to be noted that these open or broken chords may be used at any time, at any speed, in any register, either high or low, above, below or within the harmony, and at any rhythm. Wagner, in the ride of the Walkiire, uses downward sweeping broken chords with five, six or seven notes to the beat. Ordinarily in writing such things the composer has some feeling for the top and bottom notes that is not easy to explain, just as it is not easy to explain why, in ordinary waltz tempo, the top note of the accompanying chord is most frequently the third of the tonic, the seventh of the dominant. The only way to determine what is best is to hear it mentally.
(To be continued next week)
Motion
Here the trumpets play one of the leading motives of the symphony in strong octaves accompanied only by the kettle drum. Then they suddenly leave off and the rhythm is taken up by the horns supported by clarinets and bassoons. The effect is a horn effect. Neither the clarinets nor the bassoons are heard, though their absence would be felt if they were omitted. The passage is particularly instructive because of its simplicity, the most common faults of attempts at orchestration being thinness on the one hand and thickness on the other, and this latter is particularly true of jazz.
This does not mean that there is lack of balance. There may be perfect balance and the music yet be too thin or too thick. This passage in Ex. 57 for instance might be played by the whole orchestra, trombones, strings, wood, everything.. The balance might be perfect, but the effect would be lost.
Is it possible to teach the student when and where and why to do this or that or the other thing? No! All that one can do is to point out the good and bad that others have done—a few basic principles. It is quite impossible to lay down any rules for anything.
Here, for instance, is a passage from Tristan, page 416 of the score, which, at first glance, appears to have somewhat the same character as the last Tschaikowsky example. A closer examination shows that they have a different feeling, and the suitable treatment is altogether different.
No Flutes
Ex, 58
Wood
Brass and Homs')
Strings
The passage, treated in groups as it is, with the strongly doubled melody in three octaves, looks like Tschaikowsky, in whose work, however, will be found scarcely a single place with harmony so clearly sustained in the wood. There are no flutes in these wood chords. Reading from the top down the instruments are: oboe, clarinet, English horn, three basseons. All reeds, and all except the clarinets double-reeds. In the brass the trumpet has the top note, the trombone the bottom note, and on the middle notes the horns and trombones alternate. In the strings• the violins have the top note, the violas and cellos the middle note, the basses the lowest note.
Examples might be given without end and one hardly knows where to stop. There is always danger in tabulation, danger of giving the impression that the ground has been covered. The ground cannot be covered. No matter how long a book might be there would still be hundreds of possible effects that were not in it. It would seem, however, a good plan to give a few short passages from Tannhäuser to show Wagner’s early style, because this style is so eminently applicable to all sorts of popular music and semi-popular music. The first are taken from page 12 and page 19 of the orchestra score. ( Exs. 59 and 60.)
Ex. 59
Horns
Bassoons
Strings
These passages are very much alike. It is to be noted that in both cases the sustained harmony note is so placed that it will not interfere with the melody, and in both cases the cellos have the chromatic counterpoint. In both cases there are only three elements: one melody, one counterpoint, one sustained harmony.