Orchestration Tip: Celesta Dynamic Limitations
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 17 июн 2023
- 100 MORE Orchestration Tips is available at:
orchestrationonline.com/produ...
100 Orchestration Tips, 2nd edition is available at:
orchestrationonline.com/produ...
Bundled purchase of both books:
orchestrationonline.com/produ...
Villa-Lobos, Quarteto Simbólico with Roger Wagner/Concert Arts Ensemble:
• Quatuor (Quarteto Simb...
Bartók, Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta with the Philharmonia Orchestra, von Karajan cond.:
• Bartok - Music for Str...
For the most up-to-date orchestration analysis and additional resources and perspectives, please join me on Patreon.
/ orchestrationonline
Visit the official Orchestration Online website and subscribe to our newsletter. orchestrationonline.com
Join the orchestration online community by subscribing to this channel, checking in on Twitter @OrchestrationOL, and being part of the conversation on Facebook.
/ 278568792265515 
Видеоклипы
Roasting the orchestration of famous pieces (like with Sugarplum here) could be a fantastically educational video series!
I was always blown away by how powerful the celesta was on Hedwig’s Theme. Then I heard an interview with Randy Kerber (the session player on the recording) and he revealed that it was a synth celesta supported by a sine wave. Thanks for another great tip, Thomas!
That was more to create an original sound. Celestes in "Hook" and in "Home Alone" are real, just miced properly. Expect this in all recordings that aren't classical recordings. Thankfully as time goes on more and more concert orchestras are starting to mic and mix things a little more carefully.
A contemporary piece was played at my university recently and it utilized celesta pretty extensively. I didn't hear it once.
Love the Celesta and The Sugar plumb Fairy is a favourite so it was quite surprising to hear how low it actually sounds - it's obvious that on all the recording that I've heard it's obviously boosted in the mix.
Great video! I got to play Celesta and percussion on Holst’s planets suite. He had a very fine understanding of the Celesta’s capabilities, only scoring it in about half of the movements. Even though Holst mostly wrote it in more exposed sections, I remember struggling to project over the orchestra. It didn’t help that our Celesta was pushed way back into the percussion’s set up…
I love that live recording of Nutcracker! It's more mysterious and evocative, even though it's less Christmasy.
It might be impossible to be as good an orchestrator as one could centuries ago, or even decades ago, largely because the recording replaced the performance as the primary means of interacting with music. As such the producer is really the orchestrator, and the concert stage is the mixing console (or the DAW these days).
When I was learning to arrange and orchestrate back last century, I sure wish I had the foresight to also learn to mix sound and produce recordings.
I still have a box of unused score paper floating around. Anyone remember that? Writing parts on 9x12 2-up thick folded sheets of parts paper? And do you remember the glee you felt when you found liquid paper in a color that exactly matched your parts paper? Ah, the '80s.... I did miss the era of nib pen and that thin paper that you had to use to duplicate. I got to use a Flair pen and Xerox.
It's important for people to know that possibly the most well known example of celeste in this generation, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, actually used a synthesizer for all but one cue, including Hedwig's Theme.
I think it was a celeste layered with a sine wave. The virtual instrument can be bought (Randy Karber Celeste)
@@darthmase Yes. There is a video here on youtube somewhere where he talks about how he came up with the sound.
I so needed this video !
GLOCKESTA After this video i am going to create the best instrument on Logic Pro
See, this is an inspiring video!
Hey Thomas! Always clear and concise! Thank you for posting it! Cheers!
Thanks so much, Roque!
Thank you. Great video.
Fantastic! 🏆 🎹 🎼🎶🎵
Your Nutcracker example is, in my opinion, both good and bad. Good because I think it demonstrates the point you're making about the limits of dynamics of the instrument, but a bad example because you're still using a recording but reversing the misconception. The recording sounds like a standard overhead mics setup (it could be decca but it's not setup well, the sound overall isn't very engaging) where the proximity to bassoons is giving off that same blown out effect that close-micing the celeste has-meanwhile the celeste sounds far off to the left, behind the last of the 2nd fids, with absolutely no proximity, and it easily gets drowned out by the instruments with more proximity.
The assumption about DAW volumes/mixes is also kind of off, where it's not a question of turning up or down the fader but rather adjusting the faders on which microphone setups in a well-miced orchestral recording. (By this I mean good decca, mids, outriggers, sections, and spots. You're using decca about 70-90%, then some outriggers for space, mids if you need more density, and sections/spots for clarity of soli/solo sections.) In good orchestral film scores they do this kind of recording, to varying degrees of "purity." Choosing to ignore what good can come of this skillset limits the understanding of a composer/orchestrator.
Microphone and mixing are just technology and skills, much in the same way as the instruments, the players, and the space they're playing in are technology and skills. Choosing where you seat a soloist (be it celeste, violin, bassoon, flute) alone influences how it manages to project into a space-but other factors are which instrument the player is playing on, the space they're playing in, where the listener is seated, etc. You can listen to one "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" live in one hall and the celeste comes through, and in another hall the reflections of the reeds bloom considerably and overpower the celeste. In writing you never nail dense textures perfectly, and good conductors play with dynamics considerably (and, if they're smart, mics and speakers) and balance things suited for the performers, their instruments, and the space much like engineers choose microphones and adjust faders.
Anyway, yeah, the celeste isn't very loud. If you want it to come through easily in dense material try writing for synth celeste or amped/miced celeste.
And then there are celeste on certain sample libraries I won't name that won't shut up and be quiet like they're supposed to, no matter how low I make the dynamic. It's like they stuck the mic inside the thing 😖
Trivial question but what was the typical procedure when learning to orchestrate and score read in the 18th -19th centuries before the convenient use of playback and replay. My mentor hates the use of playback as he claims it never allows you to develop your musical memory to its fullest
Same as the 20th century, before playback-hearing live ensembles in concert, playing in ensembles yourself, getting them to play your arrangements, getting them to play your compositions, etc.
I feel like I just won the orchestration tip lotto.
I sure won something when such awesome composers and viewers joined my community. 🙂
Demasiado tarde, me hubiera venido bien saber esto cuando apenas había comenzado a componer mi obra.
De todos modos gracias por el vídeo.
Incredibly helpful video, what program is seen at 1:32? Love the look of the faders and predetermined pan amounts. Orchestral templates are great
Thanks, Jesus! It's just the mixer in Sibelius. I wish I had a more convincing professional software audio mix or actual session board fader layout to use there, but it was really more of a general image so I guess it also works.
Well, now I need a video on crotales, lol.
I always assumed them to be louder than - or at least to cut through more than - glockenspiel.
But you marked them as having much less dynamic strength than glock in your graphic.
To get a distinct tone that plays along with an orchestra in a clear melodic line, they may not have the same projection as when they're clashed together. I do acknowledge some variation in the image, depending on the beater.
Hi. Can you please talk about vibraphone orchestration. It's such an useful instrument and I can't find anything online. Thank you!
That’s an intriguing analogy: about the same dynamic range as a harp. I’m thinking it’s not even that wide, and more like that of a classical guitar?
Sounding range of Middle C to top C on a piano - but of course reading an octave lower, with C5 as Middle C.
@@OrchestrationOnline, I think your analogy in this video was about dynamic range, rather than pitch range (maybe I misheard)?
This is the most creepy music I've ever seen
Celesta is cool
Authentic Stravinsky quotation: "Why is it that whenever I hear a piece I don't like, it's by Villa-Lobos?"
@@fansofst.maximustheconfess8226 apparently he was envious of Villa-Lobos' Rudepoema
A few months back I got to hear the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra (great orchestra) performing Holst's The Planets, and was taken aback by how loud the celesta was in it! It was my first time hearing a real celesta in person. And now I realize it gave me a bit of the wrong impression - watching this video I am now fairly certain it must have been amplified, which I find really interesting. I thought it sounded great, it was clearly a very deliberate choice on the part of the orchestra/conductor, but I'm guessing also quite unorthodox. I personally try to avoid amplify instruments unless absolutely necessary, but do you have any thoughts on amplifying the celesta?
Do it. We live in an age of adventurous writing and composers can include whatever electronic setup they want. Just be aware that some concert orchestras/groups have aversions to electronic stuff. (And usually because the music that comes with it is often "unclassical" sounding.)
Let me tell how i learned to write for celesta: i went to one celesta and played it.
Then i was one day composing for harpsichord. My teacher toke me from the class, interrupted the lesson of another teacher (!) and showed me the difference between french and italian harpsichord…
I've always pronounced it "selesta". Is that wrong?
yes, “ce” and “ci” in italian always makes a soft ch sound.
"se-LEST" if you're pronouncing it in French, 'celeste;' "che-LEST-ah" if you're pronouncing the Italian word 'celesta.' "se-LEST-ah" is an English-speaking hybrid. Don't worry about it, just go with the flow. It's not hurting anything to pronounce it that way. You may work on a project where all the film music folks say "selesta" - in which case, do the same so they understand you. But I'd say if you're going to make a video or give a talk, try one of the other pronunciations.
For the record, Wiktionary says the word comes from the French célesta. It's not Italian. The name was coined by the French inventor Auguste Mustel. The English just dropped the acute accent when they borrowed it.
@@brendanward2991 Well there you are, you didn't need to ask! 🙂 Say it however you like.
@@brendanward2991 In French and it's called an Accent aigu.
Added a celesta to my score before watching this. OOPS.