Professional Orchestration 2-Semester Home Study Bundle

The Professional Orchestration.^™ 2-Semester Home Study Bundle combines the Professional Orchestration Vol. 1: Basic Home Study PDF/MP3 Bundle (the first semester) with the Writing For Strings Course (the second semester) in one value-priced learning package.

The Professional Orchestration.^™ Vol. 1: Basic Home Study Bundle is the equivalent of one semester's worth of orchestration, which you can study on your own schedule at your own pace. In your first semester studies, you'll learn the basics of instrumentation for all the main orchestral instruments. With score examples that demonstrate the instruments in their low, medium, high and very high ranges, you'll see where specific devices and combinations work best. Using the Spectrotone Instrumental Tone-Color Chart^™, you'll easily see which instruments will blend well together in which registers, or which combinations will give you a more contrasting sound. You'll also learn starting insights on orchestral balance.

Building on this foundation, your second semester studies move you beyond instrumentation into coloristic string writing techniques with the Writing For Strings Course. This is an entry-level course in string writing that makes use of Professional Orchestration Vol. 1 as its textbook, and gives you an additional 19 PDF scores to study. For more advanced string writing techniques, see Professional Orchestration Vol. 2A: Orchestrating the Melody Within the String Section. Volume 2A is a great next step after this course

Do you read music or play by ear? To get the most out of the Professional Orchestration 2-Semester Home Study Bundle, you need to read music. If you learn mostly by ear, please see the Visual Orchestration series of courses.

THE FIRST SEMESTER

Professional Orchestration Vol. 1: Basic Home Study PDF/MP3 Bundle

The Book: Professional Orchestration.^™ Volume 1

You'll study out of the PDF eBook Professional Orchestration Volume 1: Solo Instruments and Instrumentation Notes. At almost 800-pages, this first volume covers all the main orchestral instruments, and percussion, with electronic scoring notes.

The book was birthed on the scoring stages of Los Angeles with instrumentation notes checked and edited by the elite film studio musician community. Where available, nearly all the book’s examples, by instrument, are organized by demonstrating the instrument in its low, medium, high and very high ranges. Each book in the Professional Orchestration series is organized this way so that you’ll learn from common practice how and where specific devices and combinations work best. With its full page/full score examples, you’re able to see and hear what the instrument sounds like within the context of the full orchestral score. So you can see/hear how scoring techniques change depending on what register the melody or theme is placed in. No other orchestration method teaches you this way.

Click on the Contents tab above to see the Table of Contents for this book.

Audio Package for Professional Orchestration Volume 1

You get around 12 hours of music in Digital Rights Management (DRM) free MP3 Format licensed from eClassical.com! The Volume 1 Audio Package covers approx. 70% of the musical works used in the Volume 1 book (not all pieces are currently available from eClassical). To fulfill listening requirements that many schools have, you’re given the complete work or movement the majority of the book’s examples are found in. A PDF spreadsheet of timings for the examples is included. Since they’re MP3s, you can download them to your favorite MP3 player and listen wherever you want.

The Professional Mentor – much more than a workbook

With the Professional Mentor Workbook, you'll learn how to study a score and create a condensed score of the excerpt being studied in the Volume 1 book. You’re then encouraged to sequence the excerpt to understand orchestration techniques and compositional insights learned from the example, along with basic MIDI mock-up and recording skills. Next, you'll write your own original composition using techniques learned from Professional Orchestration Vol. 1 for each of these solo instruments: Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Bassoon, French horn, Trumpet, Trombone, Tuba, Violin, Viola, Cello, Bass, and Harp. With this approach, you create 13 publishable works (the equal of roughly a semester’s worth of work at college) and you can also write an optional “final” project – a full orchestral arrangement. It includes a Lesson Planner and seven (7) audio lectures explaining how to study on your own.

Bonus Gift from the Vienna Symphonic Library
Also included in your Professional Mentor files, the good folks at the Vienna Symphonic Library, and composer Jay Bacal, have allowed us to give you, at no extra charge, 13 solo compositions with MP3 and MIDI files mocked-up by Jay for the Vienna Instruments sample library. Just load the MP3 and MIDI file into your sequencer and see how Jay created the composition by studying velocity, expression, mod wheel data, etc., as you listen to the MP3 file play. You can load your own instrument patch into the track, but you'll need to have the same VSL patches Jay used for the MIDI playback to match the MP3 audio. It will give you an idea of how to approach your own MIDI mock-ups and it's a professional education you can apply to any sample library you have.

Learn Orchestral Color and Balance With The Spectrotone Instrumental Tone-Color Chart^™

Originally created by 4x Academy Award nominee for Best Film Score, Arthur Lange, this expanded and enhanced 70th Anniversary Editon of the Spectrotone Chart is unique to the study of orchestration. Using the Spectrotone Chart with both Professional Orchestration Volume 1 and the Writing For Strings Course, you'll learn how to create effective orchestral combinations by understanding which instruments will blend well together in which registers, or which instruments will provide a more contrasting tone-color when placed together. You'll also learn starting insights on orchestral balance within each section of strings, brass and winds.

Because the Spectrotone Chart is a must have for all arrangers, composers and recording engineers, it's now a part of the Professional Orchestration curriculum and incorporated into the Professional Mentor Workbook.

With Professional Orchestration you learn by doing. And you can learn at your own pace as your schedule allows.

THE SECOND SEMESTER

Writing For Strings Course

Writing For Strings is an entry-level, one semester length course teaching you both coloristic string writing techniques for live concert performances, studio recording sessions, and of equal importance today, the application of this valuable professional information to your MIDI Mock-ups. You'll learn about the violin, viola, cello and double bass, bowings and stops, divisi, string seating plans and orchestra sizes, MIDI mockup tools, templates and considerations, and more. It's designed as the second semester following the standard one semester orchestration course, which is usually given in the senior year of college. It's ideally suited as the next step after studying through the Professional Orchestration Vol. 1: Basic Home Study Bundle.

Because this is a self study course you can work through the lessons at your own pace. You can use any string sample library you have, or whatever strings are included in your sequencing or notation software.

Writing For Strings comes with 28 PDF Lessons (approx. 140 pages) and approximately 6.98 hours of supporting Video Lectures (split into 30+ multi-part videos) supporting 19 key PDF lessons. Also included is the String Positions PDF Booklet, and 19 PDF Public Domain Study Scores of classical works (approx. 470 pages) for you to study the string parts. The Writing For Strings Course uses the book Professional Orchestration Volume 1 and draws from the same MP3 audio, but in your PDFs you'll also get links to YouTube video performances of most of the examples you'll be studying to hear and visualize string bowings (PDFs are updated roughly once a year to keep their contents up to date).

Note: The Writing For Strings Course included in this 2-Semester Bundle is the Lite Edition course. Don't worry! You're not missing out on anything! The Spectrotone Chart and Professional Orchestration Vol. 1 PDF book that are included in the Complete Edition course can both be found in your First Semester Professional Orchestration Vol. 1: Basic Home Study Bundle downloads.

In the USA, the typical college orchestra course is taught as a survey of orchestral instruments covered within only 1 quarter to 1 semester (depending on the school). This means a student gets on average one class lecture per orchestral instrument. Writing For Strings goes beyond that by taking the full semester to cover the string section, MIDI mock-up and recording issues, in depth score analysis using Professional Orchestration Volume 1's full page score excerpts, plus 19 bonus PDF scores of public domain classical works for self study, and much more. You’ll learn the professional’s top secret for writing success - score analysis and how to apply what you’ve learned to your own writing.

Because good string writing doesn’t just happen, you get the 4-color String Positions PDF Booklet so you can work out just how playable your parts are.

All these tools pull together to help you learn how to write for “live” string players and begin learning how to make sampled strings sound live. And finally, so you can put your new scoring skills to the test, you get a series of original 12-14 bar test scores for you to select the bowings, mark the legato bowings, and then do a MIDI mock-up that you record on your system based on the libraries you have.

Here's A List Of The 28 PDF Lessons With Supporting Video Lectures:

Lesson 0: Introduction - w/VIDEO
Lesson 1: Knowing What Size Orchestra to Write For - w/ VIDEO
Lesson 2: The Source of Coloristic Orchestration - w/ 2 VIDEOS
Lesson 3: How to Do Score Analysis and Use It In Your Writing - w/6 VIDEOS
Lesson 4: String Seating Plans - w/VIDEO
Lesson 5: Panning With String Sample Libraries w/VIDEO
Lesson 6: The Violin: A Coloristic Overview (Low to Very High Range) - w/5 VIDEOS
Lesson 7: The Viola: A Coloristic Overview (Low to Very High Range) - w/3 VIDEOS
Lesson 8: The Cello: A Coloristic Overview (Low to Very High Range) - w/VIDEO
Lesson 9: The Bass: A Coloristic Overview (Low to Very High Range) - w/VIDEO
Lesson 10: Bowing Considerations and Definitions - w/2 VIDEOS
Lesson 11: On The String Bowings
Lesson 12: Off The String Bowings
Lesson 13: Special Effects Bowings
Lesson 14: Tremolo Bowings
Lesson 15: Pizzicato Bowings - w/VIDEO
Lesson 16: Double Stops and Their Use - w/VIDEO Master Class on Stops
Lesson 17: Triple Stops and Their Use
Lesson 18: Quadruple Stops and Their Use
Lesson 19: Creating Arpeggios From Stops
Lesson 20: Trills and Fingered Tremolo
Lesson 21: Muted Strings
Lesson 22: Divisi Writing and Its Implementation - w/VIDEO
Lesson 23: Creating Your Strings Template For MIDI Mock-ups - w/VIDEO
Lesson 24: Recording Tools For Spatial Placement In Your MIDI Mock-ups - w/VIDEO
Lesson 25: Setting Sectional Levels In Your MIDI Mock-ups - w/VIDEO
Lesson 26: Advanced: Starting String Combinations - w/VIDEO
Lesson 27: Strings and Voices - w/VIDEO
Lesson 28: Final Self Assessment: The Dogs of Riga - Five Test Pieces For MIDI Mockups - w/VIDEO

How you learn.

With Professional Orchestration you learn by doing. One of the essential career skills you'll learn is how to study a score and create a condensed score of the excerpt being studied. You’re then encouraged to sequence the excerpt to learn orchestration techniques and compositional insights from the example, plus basic MIDI mock-up and recording skills. Be prepared to do a lot of practical work! And you can learn at your own pace as your schedule allows.

End Result - you learn how to write and produce your own music!

LOOKING FOR A PRINTED BOOK EDITION?

A paperback edition of Professional Orchestration, Vol. 1 is available to order from Amazon or through most major bookstores using the information below:

Title 01: Professional Orchestration Vol 1: Solo Instruments & Instrumentation Notes
Author: Peter Lawrence Alexander / ISBN: 978-0-939067-70-1