It is apropos that you posted this now. I'm currently reading Schoenberg's Theory of Harmony, and he practically starts with this. Thanks! I love your explanation, and application of it.
Excellent explanation and for MOST people who do this - much less involved at the beginning and not so convoluted is better and yet still useful for arranging. Getting into this to a much more an in-depth degree for beginners might only serve to confuse.....well me anyway. But this makes very easy sense and would be very useful and understandable until I'd be ready to consume more about it.
Composers in the past had to Mixer and no Plugins to make their sound correct, they had only rules like these. Good to remind them since it reduces the mixing stage when sound is correct in the first place :)
Nice. I'm trying to finish my very first piece(I started production as a hobby last year, but I went the beatmaking route until now), and although I understood a bit about harmonics because of the mixing sessions, this added more layers to my understanding. Take my like and the sub!
Thank you so much for this video! This will be really really useful from now on! I didnt realize that I just kept doing it due to intuition, and that there was actually a theory! Now I can use it even better! Thanks a lot.
Brilliant video. I definitely feel like more attention needs to be given to arranging and playing technique when it comes to the overall sound of a production. I'm curious though - have there been moments where you go "against the rules" with the harmonic series and clump notes together in the lower register to achieve a certain effect?
Thanks Nadav! Certainly, doing this could result in a more 'menacing' sound, perfect for an antagonist. For my writing style however, I tend to stick with the traditional rules.
minor thing, but heard one thing when you played the harmonic series. Probably just wrong in the picture you found, the a should be a flat (+41cents) :P
Really enjoyed this Chris ... Question though: I understand muddiness being a piano guy, but there would be cases of a I6. Am I correct in thinking back to choral part writing to double the root above and utilize a 5th ... Aka generally that I6 is moving up to IV or down to ii so avoid 3rd doubling double 5th sometimes, and the root preferably? Also it seems in choral part writing we avoid parallel 5rhs but this is not much of an issue in piano or choral? When you add choir parts to orchestrations, do you follow choral part writing or kind of mix and match? Pardon my questions, but if there are some you'd like to tackle in future videos or brief comments, that's a positive thing. Thanks again. I tend to devour and recommend your videos to other young musicians. Great video. Ty
Hi Joe, that's a great question. Actually, due to the first inversion nature placing more emphasis on the third, I would treat the bass note (3rd) more as how I would treat a root. So I would double the 3rd up an octave, then probably again an octave higher than that. I also think about which note I want to be on the top of the chord, because that influences how I voice the notes in the middle. In my mockups, I tend to like spacing my choirs farther apart in louder sections, and closer together in more intimate parts for a more delicate and rounder tone.
@@ChristopherSiu ok ... I would not have guessed the third would be doubled or tripled or about spacing for orchestral effect ... That's very interesting. I think I'm going to experiment with that idea ... Thank you ...
This is a fine video, and some excellent advice that many new composers could potentially overlook. I think that you might want to use the word "orchestration" in the title instead of the word "arranging," however. "Arranging" implies that you are going to discuss how to adapt an existing piece of music for a different ensemble than it was originally intended. This video was clearly about orchestration.
Hi, I have a question about harmonic series, may I know these order of harmonic series will automatically arranged once play a note? For example: if I play a C4 note on piano, the next harmonic note is C5 or should be E4? Thanks.
@@still451 I think it is C5. The harmonic series exists separately for each note you play. So if your lowest note is C1, the first overtone would be C2. If your lowest note is C4 then your first overtone would be C5. And so on. But, the higher your starting note, the fewer overtones you can hear, simply because human hearing can only hear in a particular range. The lower you start, the more overtones might be heard. It gets interesting when you play two or more notes together, especially in close harmony. Here's my limited understanding: If you play C1, you should "hear" C1, C2, G2, C3, E3, G3, Bb4... If you play E1, then you should hear E1, E2, B3, E3, G#3, B4, etc. (harmonic series for E1). If you play C1 and E1 together you should hear all of those. Some of the overtones will clash, but you may not hear them depending on how loud they are, which depends on the instruments used. I wish I knew which harmonics are loudest for each instrument. Also, you should hear lots of C harmonics and lots of E harmonics and so it should sound reasonably sweet but maybe a bit muddy because of that B2 clashing with all the Cs If instead you played C4 and E4 together, some of the higher overtones might not be heard at all and maybe you would only hear those that sounded well together. If you played C1 and E3 together it should sound good. Suppose I should try it out on my piano :) If you played G1, C2, E2 together (2nd inversion C chord) I think there are lots more G harmonics than C or E and that's why 2nd inversion tonic chords will sound more like a dominant chord than tonic. Anyway, that's just my imperfect understanding of it. Still working on that :)
Hey Chris, Nice short and to the point covering of this topic. I know you’ve mentioned previously about only using octaves or fifths in lower registers for clarity. What if you are doing a chord inversion like C/G or even C/E? Would you only use octaves in the lower register in that case? And what about pedal note? Also octaves? Thanks!
Good questions Mike! In the case of inversions, I would then give more priority to the bass note, so you might end up doubling more of the 3rd of 5th of the chord in these cases. Honestly, it all depends on the register of the chord. So if it's C/E starting on the E just below middle C, I would voice it like this (bottom to top): EGC EGCE But if it starts an octave lower, I would voice it like this (bottom to top): EEGCE (bottom 2 E's an octave apart). You could put in the C between the 2 E's, but the 6th is quite colourful, so it's entirely up to your taste. For pedal tones, I like more space in the lower register because I prefer to allow the pedal tone to ring out nicely, so I might even put it in octaves if it's a sustained chord, with the upper lines doing their thing. If it's more of an action cue, I might have more closed position chords near the bottom, but since they're playing staccato or more marcato, then the heavier nature of the chord only appears momentarily before subsiding. Does that make any sense?
As Pat Patterson of Berklee used to say.. 'there are no rules, only tools'. Yes knowing the rules are good.. It's ok to break them if you can create something interesting. Yes, arranging is VERY important to a song. You can make a mediocre song sound good with the right arrangement.
Funny that the harmonic series wasn't covered in formal classical studies because I was just reading about it last week in a very simple book called "Arranging Music for The Real World" by Vince Corozine specifically in chapter 2 " Harmonics and Overtones" :)
When I studied Harmony we used Piston Harmony, and it isn't even talked about till the end of the book. It's the first thing in Schoenberg's Theory of Harmony, which I'm working through currently.
![How to Write Music for Orchestra [with the FREE BBC SO Discover]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EPYnmtylUVM/mqdefault.jpg)
It is apropos that you posted this now. I'm currently reading Schoenberg's Theory of Harmony, and he practically starts with this. Thanks! I love your explanation, and application of it.
Interesting! Hope you enjoy it. Thanks for watching :)
Thank you very much 😀
Just keep up, you have helped me a lot with stuff that i was stumbling and figuring out on my own.
My pleasure Viktor. Thanks for watching!
So very helpful. Thank you for posting!
My pleasure!
Was just reading about this, thanks for the video!
My pleasure!
Thanks Chris, you really simplified what the harmonic series is trying to imply.
My pleasure!
Wonderful, thank you Christopher!
My pleasure!
Fantastic examples that clicked with me. Thank you Chris!
Thanks for watching man!
Thank you, that was very understandable.
Glad it was helpful!
Excellent presentation, Chris!
Thank you kindly!
Excellent explanation and for MOST people who do this - much less involved at the beginning and not so convoluted is better and yet still useful for arranging. Getting into this to a much more an in-depth degree for beginners might only serve to confuse.....well me anyway. But this makes very easy sense and would be very useful and understandable until I'd be ready to consume more about it.
Thanks for watching Don! Glad it was helpful.
Composers in the past had to Mixer and no Plugins to make their sound correct, they had only rules like these. Good to remind them since it reduces the mixing stage when sound is correct in the first place :)
Couldn't agree more!
Sooo good, dude. Going to apply this going forward.
Thanks my man. Appreciate you watching!
Nice. I'm trying to finish my very first piece(I started production as a hobby last year, but I went the beatmaking route until now), and although I understood a bit about harmonics because of the mixing sessions, this added more layers to my understanding. Take my like and the sub!
Thanks a lot Luke!
Thank you so much for this video! This will be really really useful from now on! I didnt realize that I just kept doing it due to intuition, and that there was actually a theory! Now I can use it even better! Thanks a lot.
You're so welcome!
Useful tip! Thx Christopher
Any time!
Brilliant video. I definitely feel like more attention needs to be given to arranging and playing technique when it comes to the overall sound of a production. I'm curious though - have there been moments where you go "against the rules" with the harmonic series and clump notes together in the lower register to achieve a certain effect?
Thanks Nadav! Certainly, doing this could result in a more 'menacing' sound, perfect for an antagonist. For my writing style however, I tend to stick with the traditional rules.
minor thing, but heard one thing when you played the harmonic series. Probably just wrong in the picture you found, the a should be a flat (+41cents) :P
Really enjoyed this Chris ... Question though: I understand muddiness being a piano guy, but there would be cases of a I6. Am I correct in thinking back to choral part writing to double the root above and utilize a 5th ... Aka generally that I6 is moving up to IV or down to ii so avoid 3rd doubling double 5th sometimes, and the root preferably? Also it seems in choral part writing we avoid parallel 5rhs but this is not much of an issue in piano or choral? When you add choir parts to orchestrations, do you follow choral part writing or kind of mix and match? Pardon my questions, but if there are some you'd like to tackle in future videos or brief comments, that's a positive thing. Thanks again. I tend to devour and recommend your videos to other young musicians. Great video. Ty
Hi Joe, that's a great question. Actually, due to the first inversion nature placing more emphasis on the third, I would treat the bass note (3rd) more as how I would treat a root. So I would double the 3rd up an octave, then probably again an octave higher than that. I also think about which note I want to be on the top of the chord, because that influences how I voice the notes in the middle.
In my mockups, I tend to like spacing my choirs farther apart in louder sections, and closer together in more intimate parts for a more delicate and rounder tone.
@@ChristopherSiu ok ... I would not have guessed the third would be doubled or tripled or about spacing for orchestral effect ... That's very interesting. I think I'm going to experiment with that idea ... Thank you ...
Absolutely!
Thx Chris! Great vid!
You bet!
This is a fine video, and some excellent advice that many new composers could potentially overlook. I think that you might want to use the word "orchestration" in the title instead of the word "arranging," however. "Arranging" implies that you are going to discuss how to adapt an existing piece of music for a different ensemble than it was originally intended. This video was clearly about orchestration.
Good point! Changed.
@@ChristopherSiu Glad to be of help!
Hi, I have a question about harmonic series, may I know these order of harmonic series will automatically arranged once play a note? For example: if I play a C4 note on piano, the next harmonic note is C5 or should be E4? Thanks.
Hi Helen, the higher the initial pitch, the less overtones it contains, so naturally you would just start higher on the chart itself I believe.
@@ChristopherSiu Hi, this is what I believe too...but I still can’t figure out whether the answer is C5 or E4...
@@still451 I think it is C5. The harmonic series exists separately for each note you play. So if your lowest note is C1, the first overtone would be C2. If your lowest note is C4 then your first overtone would be C5. And so on. But, the higher your starting note, the fewer overtones you can hear, simply because human hearing can only hear in a particular range. The lower you start, the more overtones might be heard.
It gets interesting when you play two or more notes together, especially in close harmony. Here's my limited understanding:
If you play C1, you should "hear" C1, C2, G2, C3, E3, G3, Bb4...
If you play E1, then you should hear E1, E2, B3, E3, G#3, B4, etc. (harmonic series for E1).
If you play C1 and E1 together you should hear all of those. Some of the overtones will clash, but you may not hear them depending on how loud they are, which depends on the instruments used. I wish I knew which harmonics are loudest for each instrument. Also, you should hear lots of C harmonics and lots of E harmonics and so it should sound reasonably sweet but maybe a bit muddy because of that B2 clashing with all the Cs
If instead you played C4 and E4 together, some of the higher overtones might not be heard at all and maybe you would only hear those that sounded well together.
If you played C1 and E3 together it should sound good. Suppose I should try it out on my piano :)
If you played G1, C2, E2 together (2nd inversion C chord) I think there are lots more G harmonics than C or E and that's why 2nd inversion tonic chords will sound more like a dominant chord than tonic.
Anyway, that's just my imperfect understanding of it. Still working on that :)
Hey Chris,
Nice short and to the point covering of this topic. I know you’ve mentioned previously about only using octaves or fifths in lower registers for clarity. What if you are doing a chord inversion like C/G or even C/E? Would you only use octaves in the lower register in that case? And what about pedal note? Also octaves?
Thanks!
Good questions Mike! In the case of inversions, I would then give more priority to the bass note, so you might end up doubling more of the 3rd of 5th of the chord in these cases. Honestly, it all depends on the register of the chord.
So if it's C/E starting on the E just below middle C, I would voice it like this (bottom to top): EGC EGCE
But if it starts an octave lower, I would voice it like this (bottom to top): EEGCE (bottom 2 E's an octave apart). You could put in the C between the 2 E's, but the 6th is quite colourful, so it's entirely up to your taste.
For pedal tones, I like more space in the lower register because I prefer to allow the pedal tone to ring out nicely, so I might even put it in octaves if it's a sustained chord, with the upper lines doing their thing. If it's more of an action cue, I might have more closed position chords near the bottom, but since they're playing staccato or more marcato, then the heavier nature of the chord only appears momentarily before subsiding. Does that make any sense?
@@ChristopherSiu Yup, thanks for the information. Very helpful.
great content ;)
Thanks!
As Pat Patterson of Berklee used to say.. 'there are no rules, only tools'. Yes knowing the rules are good.. It's ok to break them if you can create something interesting. Yes, arranging is VERY important to a song. You can make a mediocre song sound good with the right arrangement.
Indeed!
Funny that the harmonic series wasn't covered in formal classical studies because I was just reading about it last week in a very simple book called "Arranging Music for The Real World" by Vince Corozine specifically in chapter 2 " Harmonics and Overtones"
:)
Or maybe it was, I probably just didn't pay attention in class XD
When I studied Harmony we used Piston Harmony, and it isn't even talked about till the end of the book. It's the first thing in Schoenberg's Theory of Harmony, which I'm working through currently.
It helped me a lot. I forgot orchestration is not playing guitar.. haha
🙌🏾
Thanks man :)
Christopher Siu no problem. Thank you too!