Overview
Patrick de Caumette
www.decamusic.com
Berklee Alumnus
Writing for Strings, 4th Edition, offers a comprehensive resource to the orchestration student, rich with detailed string techniques, QuickTime examples, some of the best scores from the classical repertoire and the opportunity to hear a recording of the examples played in context by a real orchestra. A must have!
Paul Thomson
www.synesthesia.net
Bournemouth University, UK
The huge amount of study scores and recordings that are included at this price and the very clear and detailed explanations make this a no brainer in my opinion for anyone looking to acquire this knowledge.
Overview
Why a Separate Writing For Strings Course?
String writing, whether for live or electronic strings, is the backbone of the orchestra and many recording sessions for "pop" dates. The string section has many shades and colors. It can be broken down into a string quartet, string quintet, smaller ensembles within the larger string ensemble, and with more complex divisi writing. Because of the amount of material to be covered, more time and focused attention is needed.
With this thinking, you go through the First Movement of Ravel's String Quartet, three string quartets and one string quintet by Mozart. Ravel's string writing is impeccable because he asked lots of questions and brought in concert violinists to review his parts to make sure they were playable and to mark the bowings. Mozart played the violin so his part writing fits well "under the hand."
There are other works by Ravel, plus Resphigi (who studied privately with Ravel) and Stravinsky (who studied privately for several years with Rimsky-Korsakov). For pizzicato you study an entire movement by Tchaikovsky that's pizz only.
What You'll Accomplish
Lessons 1-4: You'll learn to analyze scores and string positions for solo violin, viola, cello and bass.
Lessons 5-13: You'll learn about the different bowings using the provided QuickTime videos, analyze and mock-up the full page/full score examples from Professional Orchestration, then analyze and optionally mock-up 15 different scores that complement the lessons.
Lesson 14: You'll learn techniques for recording sampled strings.
Lesson 15: You'll learn further insights for testing sampled string libraries.