Piano Sketch to Strings
Why start with a Piano Sketch?
Get ideas down quickly
Piano Sketches enable you to compose quickly, getting ideas down fast, without
having to go searching for say a staccato Cello patch when you're thinking of
adding low strings.
Whole orchestral range at your fingers
You also have the whole range of the String Section (and Orchestra) at your
finger tips, from the lowest note of the Double Basses, up to the highest note of
the Violins.
Step 1 - Composing your Piano Sketch
If you have Piano/Keyboard skills, it can often be fun & useful to come up with an
idea by improvising or noodling around on your midi controller.
Try to have both a melodic element as well as chords/harmony in your Piano
sketch. Aim initially for around 8 bars in length.
As the end goal will be to arrange for the String Section, try to have 3 or 4 notes
per chord, with the melody as an additional layer on top. This will make it easier
to arrange for the 5 instrument families in a String section (Violins 1, Violins 2,
Violas, Cellos and Basses).
Step 2 - Loading your String samples
Now you have the Piano sketch, prepare your DAW
by loading up the String samples. Separate the
tracks into each instrument family - Violins 1, Violins
2, Violas, Cellos and Basses. I’ll be using the free
Spitfire BBC Discover library.
Step 3 - Assign your melody to the 1st Violins
In traditional Orchestral music, the 1st Violins are typically given the melody -
let’s do the same here. Copy the top line notes from your piano sketch, pasting
them into your Violins 1 track.
Step 4 - Assign your lowest notes in the Piano Sketch to the Basses
Next, copy the lowest notes of each chord from your Piano Sketch and copy
and paste them into the Basses track.
Step 5 - Adding the Cellos
As a general rule, you will want to make sure to keep the Cellos and Basses at
least a 5th, or an octave apart. Anything less, like 3rds (although unison is okay)
will result in a muddiness to the sound, due to the Overtone series.
Step 6 - Adding the 2nd Violins
Now we have the Melody, together with the lower end sorted, its time to fill in
the ‘middle’.
Starting with the 2nd Violins, select the notes from your Piano sketch which are
one layer below the main melody and paste them into the 2nd Violin track.
Step 7 - Adding the Violas
Finally, it’s time to copy the remaining voice/layer from your piano sketch, into
the Viola track.
Step 9 - Making Adjustments
Stringed Instruments obviously produce sound differently to that of a Piano. As
such, it is a lot easier to have a held sustained note played in one of the
Stringed instruments.
So to finish, go through your arrangement and see if there are any places where
a long held sustain note would further enhance your piece.
General Considerations
Here’s a summary of the main points to take into account when going from a
Piano Sketch to Strings:
Try to compose your piano sketch using 4 of 5 voices/layers
To help translate your Piano sketch to the String Section, try to write with 4 or 5
separate voices or layers. With the melody taking up one voice, aim to have 4
notes per chord for the harmony.
Try to maintain good Voice Leading
Voice leading refers to the way in which individual instrument parts move from
one bar to a next, to reflect the underlying chord/harmony. You want to try to
minimise any large jumps in any given instrument, aiming for smooth
movement between consecutive notes.
Make sure you have wider intervals in the low end
Due to the Overtone Series, you want to avoid small intervals between the
Basses and Cellos. Any interval less than a 5th has a high chance of sounding
muddy.
You can use smaller intervals such as 3rds near the upper end, particularly
between the 1st Violins, 2nd Violins and Violas.
For further information check out my YouTube video where you will see the piece I composed with Midi data and notation included.
