At the University of Applied Sciences Rotterdam we had a course spanning a whole semester. That course we got a lot of time to develop ourselves in an area we wanted to know more about. It did not have to be design related. It was about both research and applying the new found information.
I focused on digital orchestration. The goal of the orchestra piece was to evoke emotion through music. My own goal was to learn more about orchestral music and how to compose it.
This is the end result of my project. Listen on good quality headphones or speakers to hear all the details!
I learned a lot this project. Writing orchestral music is very different from writing music in a band. With a band, the difference in 'sound' is easily made by the way an instrument is used. Like an electric guitar being plugged in, using overdrive or distortion to create a unique tone. With an orchestra this is done a lot more with the interplay of different instruments and the composition, because the instruments used in orchestras are mostly the same. Obviously you can change the amount of violins used, this will change the sound, but a violin will still sound like a violin.
I tried to create a piece that would make the listener feel 'tension' and 'adventure'. The reactions at the expo were very positive and I even received an award to acknowledge my unique project and hard work, how cool is that! So start listening! ;)
This is a playlist with some of the test tracks I wrote and recorded in Logic Pro X.
To quickly create new test tracks and start playing and recording, I chose to build a template. This template exists of all the instruments I need for a 90 man orchestra.
The project is now over, but I could quickly start again if I wanted to write a new orchestra piece. Just open the template and go!
