playing, check out the opening to What A I think the root of this issue is sample libraries Beautiful Name - Orchestral Selah, track 4 on that have been recorded by professional What the clef?!
the Hillsong What A Beautiful Name EP. players in pristine conditions, and have violins As you can see from our instrument ranges, the
playing far beyond what is practical for your viola nicely straddles both bass and treble clefs.
CELLO average, or even strong, church musician. Rather than constantly changing clef, the viola
The bass singer in the string quartet… unless My advice to arrangers working with good yet gets a clef pretty much all to itself: the alto clef.
you have a double bass player. A cello is amateur musicians is not to go higher than an (Figure 2)
pitched a full octave below a viola, and as well octave above the highest pitched string. To put as just taking the bass part, can also be used this in guitar parlance, don’t make them player The alto clef makes the middle line of the
melodically. Just bear in mind that due to its higher than the 12 fret on the E string! Beyond stave middle C. So, in Figure 3, we have three
physical size, it’s a bit less agile than the violins that point, intonation becomes increasingly different ways of writing the same note, middle
and violas. difficult, and your section has a higher chance C. Fortunately with notation programs such
of sounding, well, bad. as Finale, Sibelius, Dorico or MuseScore, it’s
DOUBLE BASS
easy to write for viola in whichever clef you are
Double basses are pitched exactly the same Here’s a handy reference tool with the range of comfortable reading, and then change the clef
as their modern offspring, the electric bass. If each instrument in the string family. (Figure 1) to alto before printing. Giving a violist a chart
you are writing string parts to be played with
with treble clef, or worse, bass, is not going to
a modern worship band, this is something I can’t play all those notes at the same time! to be aware of as it’s very easy for the two When a string player is playing more than instruments to clash. Double basses tend to one note at once, we call it a double, triple or In coming issues, we’ll pull apart some reader-
be rather rare, and due to this there’s a good quadruple stop. While they are not uncommon submitted arrangements and look at how we
chance that this is a problem you won’t need to (and can be quite effective) in solo writing can improve them to get the most out of a
deal with in a local church setting. for strings, there are a few challenges if you church string section. If you’d like me to have a
include them in sectional writing, particularly if look at your arrangement, email it to me at the
it’s intended as a pad or background writing. address below.
COMMON PITFALLS
make you any friends in your string section!
Here’s a few reasons to avoid them:
I can’t play all those notes!
1.
Tuning! Orchestral strings don’t have frets
One of the most common problems I come like a guitar (said Captain Obvious), but the
across with inexperienced arrangers is simply more stops, or fingers on strings, that you
writing music that is outside of an instrument’s introduce, the harder it is to get pitches to
range. It might seem obvious, but asking a sit exactly right.
violin player to play notes that are lower than
2.
Happy arranging!
Due to the curved bridge on orchestral
their lowest string is just impossible! Less strings, playing more than two notes at
obvious is the fact that the higher you go on a once is impossible at low volumes as you
string instrument, the more difficult it becomes need to really press into the middle string
to play in tune. in order to simultaneously play the strings
either side.
Jared Haschek
Jared has arranged strings and horns for albums
such as Hillsong Worship’s There Is More and The
Peace Project, Hillsong United’s Wonder, Highlands
Worship’s Jesus You Alone and River Valley
Worship’s A Million Lifetimes.
www.JaredHaschek.com
[email protected]
(Figure 1)
(Figure 2)
(Figure 3)
March 2020
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