Welcome back to Scoring for films. We are Vito Lo Re and Fabrizio Campanelli. As you can see, our family is growing. Today we talk about groups of notes. Fabri, it's all too easy to talk about when groups of notes go well together and the result is pleasant. It's a bit more interesting when?

When they are dissonant, when they are annoying, when they create that chaos that only an orchestrator can solve. And we have in front of us Maestro Goldoni, who, besides being a conductor, composer, great pianist, yes, yes... is above all an orchestrator. This mythological figure... Many wonder: what does an orchestrator do? The purpose of the orchestrator is to make the composer's day miserable.

When a composer has finished his piece and comes home at 11 PM, happy to have finished his piece and then sends it to the orchestrator, the orchestrator listens to it and then around 1 AM sends a message saying: "I heard that the viola plays a C# in measure 88 and the third horn plays a natural C. Is it intentional? And I, in the most passive-aggressive way possible, see that he is writing. on WhatsApp. "Oh my God!..." This is the summary of the orchestrator's day. Actually Enrico has been making me sad for more than 20 years, many days, many evenings.

Listen, but before starting to talk about clusters, what do composers send you? A sketch or something already orchestrated that you then manage to refine? A voice note!... I have to be ready and prepared for anything. If I'm lucky, very lucky, the piece arrives already complete. So the orchestrator simply does a transcription and a general check of everything, that everything is ok that it is actually playable by the orchestra.

When the composer works in a hurry, it can happen. Or it can be that the composer is in a hurry, and tells you: "The piece is rough, you fill it in, finish it. Or maybe - in an extreme case - there's only a melody line and you have to do the entire arrangement. We understand that the orchestrator is generally the man who solves problems, the Mr. Wolf of the composer of the situation. And behind the scenes, because in the end who goes on stage, under the spotlight, is the composer, as we can see also in the image that Enrico made for us to clearly explain the relationship between orchestrator and composer.

But in solving problems, there is also the need to pay attention to the famous dissonances, that is: the orchestrator looks at the score, sees, plays it, listens to it and goes: "Did he really want this or not?..." Is this dissonance intentional or not? So the worst thing that can happen is the normalizing-orchestrator, the one who resolves all the dissonances in the score. Maybe they were intentional. So the question is: are these dissonances made randomly, just hitting the piano or not? Generally they should not be made randomly, I mean: handling clusters can be both simple and difficult. A cluster is when I start summing notes at the interval of a second, major second, minor second.

I can then build a kind of very close chord. The sounds summed together are called "clusters" which I can create in many different ways. For example, by hitting a hand on the piano, In certain cases, it is specifically requested. The composer wanted it that way. But if I write a piece made mafe only with clusters, I impoverish the whole musical discourse, right? In fact, the use often made of clusters in scores, in soundtracks, is to insert the cluster among other parts that sound more or less tonal, right?

Because the purpose of the cluster is to make the tonal color indefinite, right? So it's like creating a sort of fog. Sure, and through dissonance and the distribution of dissonances, to have a linguistic tool, to work on tension, on agitation, on many emotional patterns. So we can't think of a cluster, like, in a love scene: a love theme with a hard cluster underneath. If I make a color with the strings in the middle register and with the mute... That creates a veil of sound, indefinite like a mist...

And I put a theme over it made with the woodwinds, I could use the cluster differently because one always thinks... BAM! of horror movies, right? No, there can be a different, colorful use of the cluster that doesn't seem so dissonant. We'lle see it lately in this episode, speaking about Bernard Herrmann who I consider one of the masters of the cluster, with the most refined and elegant use, Think of when someone makes a drawing with chalk and smudges the color with their finger, the purpose can be to create a shading in the piece... Talking about what to show, to explain how clusters are constructed we decided to take a film, called The Thing, but not the original "The Thing".

The 2011 remake; we will not show many scenes, because it is really a bit splatter... But there are interesting things that Enrico and I have seen in Marco Beltrami's soundtrack. Who is one of the great specialists of horror films, thrillers... And inside we have two pieces, that we now see on the sequencer... in this apparent disorder in arranging the notes, there is actually a very particular elegance and a refinement in the choices, very particular. Let's start with Beltrami's score: a piece called "Hendrix Gets Impaled"...

Let's look at this particular movement of the piano, which he marks as "shrill" and "piercing" in the score. Here is our piano. Enrico, why did you choose this fragment in particular? We can see that the cluster is not composed only as a block, but can be inserted in the middle. I see intervals of seconds, that I have: C, B natural, A#. Then it develops above, the chord.

It's not just a cluster, I have thirds, I have a group of seconds above, so it's not always a compact and amorphous block. So you're telling us that by increasing the distance between dissonant groups, the overall cluster feels more natural. If I leave room, I give the opportunity to other voices to fit in between. Especially in this case where we have a single timbre. And where instead we have different timbres, then the game can be to fill each other up to distribute the sounds. In fact, when making a cluster, it's not necessary to always put all the voices together at once.

You can start from a single note, adding one, two, three, four, five, you can expand, you can contract. You can use many strategies to make the use of the cluster more interesting. You can start with a chord and then make another chord that adds up. So a kind of polychord that will end up as a cluster. We read "Shrill and piercing". Do you think this indication is from the composer or from the orchestrator?

That, I would say, is more likely an indication from the orchestrator because the orchestrator must make sure that the orchestra achieves the result of what he heard that the composer proposed to him. Then obviously, if the composer is not completely stupid, he indicates it as well. Look, here I want a very sharp, very penetrating sound and writes it in the score, because the more things you write in the score, the less you have to stop during the session, to explain, and so the less time you lose, right? The orchestrator does not stay at home with the doors closed, he talks daily with the composer at any time. Listen, if I put this indication, does it work for you? And he says yes or no, or it is the composer himself who says "look, write this.." The clusters can also be distributed in movement.

Sure. For example, let's look again at the same score: there is a descending alternating pattern that makes a totally and completely dissonant system almost pleasant and natural. Measure 33: let's hear how it sounds on the sequencer. Isn't there a risk that this kind of effect becomes a bit parodistic? Or that it becomes even Mickey Mousing?... It must always be used with care, because I can't insert this kind of figuration everywhere; it must always be used with a dramatic intent.

And I don't have to necessarily imitate what happens on the screen. When you orchestrate, do you also see the film or not? Or do you orchestrate blindly? Generally, I also see the film. Let's look at the movement of the flutes: for example, this is the first flute that descends chromatically. The second flute, however, has a completely independent movement.

The third flute descends, and the clarinet repeats the pattern, starting from another note, of the second flute. Yet it sounds... like this. It creates a really particular effect. If he had made a chord descent, it would have been a bit too nineteenth-century. In this way, he creates a halo of tonal uncertainty and creates an effect.

And as we can see in the score, this passage actually which we have deliberately omitted the lower part that gives a solidity that removes that Mickey Mousing effect we could have only in this isolated fragment. Obviously the effect is functional to what is before and what comes after. Another track from the same film. Let's keep in mind that "The Thing" is an alien thing that in the ice is released. The peculiarity is that the cells of this thing are capable of devouring human cells. There is a scene where the protagonist looks through a microscope and realizes precisely this dynamic Beltrami recreates this movement that we see visually in the scene in our imagination with patterns like this.

These are exactly the cells that are working. Beautiful, very beautiful. We are in the realm of dissonance while maintaining a tonal anchor. So this disorder, this confusion tells us about the cellular tissue of the thing. which assault the organic tissue of the human. They rest on a foundation that we perceive as tonal.

I must provide a reference point for the listener. I can't just throw in notes randomly... I still need a reference to anchor myself to mentally. Then I give the general color. It's also very important how I space out the individual parts. Otherwise, it all becomes too compact and unintelligible.

Here, thanks to the sequencer, we can divide the different sections and listen to them. We have distributed on our fantastic Swam from Audio Modeling, which are not samples, but acoustic models that reproduce the dynamics of the instrument and the generation of the timbre. If we select, for example, the violins, we start to see the famous pattern. This is the first pattern that is already telling us confusion, excitement, but also activity. So it is a disorder, but a disorder that communicates progressing toward a goal. If you sum the notes vertically of this movement they become like a cluster.

So this is also a way of making it more interesting, rather than always having the fixed block, what we called "the pan" in the conservatory: the whole note. Let's say that scores in these cases look sometimes like vignettes, if you will. Colored with expressions, particular indications, for example here, did the composer write it? We have a "frenetically" There, surely the orchestrator wrote it because if you want to achieve a certain effect, you have to communicate it to the conductor and it's not always the same person, it can be someone else. Here I want them not to be just some 16th well appoggiate, I want them with nervousness. So it is written "frenetically".

But without taking anything away from the orchestrator, Beltrami often writes these parts of aleatoric music where he sets a pattern to repeat but each musician performs it in complete freedom. Otherwise, it would be too defined; and the effect is that of a moving cluster. and the end point is not even that defined because he writes "one by one" converging towards those two notes. Here the general sensation is of a buzzing and then he writes "continue the same pattern and vary ad libitum"; each stand changes the speed independently. Let's meet here! The mechanics that we inevitably had to attribute to the various movements in the sequencer actually in the performance is much more random and therefore also more fascinating.

Not only that: there are many things that on the sequencer with samples will sound bad but in the orchestra will sound wonderful. Here we are hearing underneath how it sounds in reality what we are seeing on our sequencer. After this movement of cells that assimilate human cells, underneath we have that tonal stability we were talking about being entrusted to the low zone, which is assigned to give the "floor" but here too we see an interesting cluster: there is a continuous clash of seconds between the G# and the A natural that repeats among the horns, trumpets and trombones. Let's hear it alone. It's not that ugly on its own! We don't have only the brass but also the woodwinds that replicate in a slightly different way that instability that we find in the first part entrusted to the violins.

Let's isolate only the woodwinds. The movement of the Thing's cells has gone to a new dimension and the timbre has become more clear... In fact, the Thing is extremely clear because it has a goal to achieve! This time Beltrami and his orchestrators added also piano and harp, adding a slightly more piercing timbre element. The Thing also acts mechanically, with that piercing sound... Is it a prepared piano?

No, it's just the harp added to the piano. Let's see that mechanical sound in the score. Ypu just heard a very defined sound, but if you imagine a group of people playing freely and also at different speeds, the effect is much less precise than what we heard here on the sequencer, right? Sure. So this is one of the limits... Let's hear now our beautiful page, I find a page to study anyway, I have studied this page a lot and it gave me many points of inspiration.

Let's hear it all together on the SWAM orchestra. I wanted to point out some things... At the bottom, violas, cellos, and double basses, you see a cluster, then with the snap-pizzicato The Bartok pizzicato... is extremely aggressive and the sound is really undefined. The same thing happens with the trombones. Enrico, tell us what this strange symbol is...

It means to play the lowest note possible. for that instrument. Almost a growl. So low, the brass emission is slower and the biting is helped, the "biting" of the note with the strings pizzicatos. Reflecting on what to show on the elegant use of clusters and dissonances with the brass, how not to talk about Bernard Herrmann and that absolute masterpiece that is "Taxi Driver," right? I wanted to point out here in the first piece of "Taxi Driver" a non-obvious use of the cluster, because it is very masked among the brass.

In measure 3, the trumpets play B-flat, C, and D: that's already a small cluster. It's not always necessary to be grandiloquent, just create a small sensation of uncertainty. The same thing is then done in the horns. Underneath, instead, I have a more defined harmony because I have a seventh chord, built on G that resolves on C. Let's see it on the sequencer. And already this distribution is so elegant...

and look how they are distributed, they are very close yet it sounds incredible because the timbral choice with which we assign these dissonances is crucial. Gradually as you go down in the construction of the chord, the intervals between the various notes tend to space out because if I make them too close, the intelligibility decreases. And in the central zone of measure 3 I can bring many sounds close to give that kind of less precide definitio, in this case a night halo. And it's an important moment because it creates this background sensation, this color that then also acts on a subconscious level. It's our obsession, he knows that I have a psychologist's couch, so behind you. And in this case, you talked about the nocturnal, there is also a sort of multiple personality that emerges in this cluster, right?

De Niro is driving. We all know his particularly complex personality. We know how this is a sum, a collection of voices that coexist, even dissonant, but coexist in an organic unity. That's the greatness of Herrmann for me: to make a collection that sounds tremendously beautiful and natural and such a heterogeneous, varied, and dissonant multiplicity coexist. You also told us that we have a wrong example of how to distribute this cluster. Entrusting it to the wrong musical families; there is an order in the score: woodwinds on top, then brass, percussions, and strings at the bottom.

Why is there this order? It is an order that is very important when you orchestrate. I can't use as a foundational base a family that is on top for what is underneath. I can't invert roles because it would sound bad. It doesn't mean I can't do it at all but if I want to create a proper mix I must respect the score's order. So, I can have the brass serve as a base for the woodwinds, but it's very difficult for me to have for example, bassoons serving as a base for the trumpets.

Or bassoons serving as a base for the horns. But I can have horns serving as a base for clarinets. And you brought us a... wrong example. Yet they are the same notes... Listen to how the horn "sticks out".

And then I used the flute too low. Even within the same family, I can't use the flute as a base for the bassoons. The effect would be unbalanced. Then there's also another problem: music on paper or the sequencer more or less always works; then you have to see if it works when played live. I can have a flute play a C3 and it cannot serve as a foundation for the trombones! We were saying this about John Williams: his sound engineer always finds a score that he claims is perfectly balanced.

So the different timbres are used in a way that they have a homogeneous, complementary, and correct output. One of my concerns when I was studying was understanding: how is it possible that a composer writes such an incredible piece for the orchestra without hearing it? How can he imagine such a thing? Just follow those certain rules, have a minimum knowledge of the instruments. And following those simple rules, the result was guaranteed in most cases. Then what happened?

You went to hear the first rehearsal, and there were adjustments, corrections... Give us two suggestions to set up an orchestration. The first - I understand - is that each instrument does its job and everything is well distributed. There are many rules you can follow that help significantly. They can be violated but they should be violated with knowledge. This ensures that the piece, once it is well distributed, with the instruments playing in a defined, comfortable, correct range, then the piece works..

When I want to achieve a particular dramatic effect, then I can start to go beyond, knowing the technique of the instruments and - being very careful that what I write is playable - achieve very particular colors and effects, as in this case. And give us a second suggestion to apply when transitioning from a theme - that we have thought of, for example, for piano - to orchestral transcription. The first thing I would consider is the piece's dynamics. What does that mean? If I have a piece that needs to play softly, I won't use the trombones, I will try to consider a family or instruments that can produce a very delicate sound. Clarinets, flutes, strings with mutes.

Dynamics are one of the main aspects, that is, how many instruments I will use, but as the dynamics increase, I'll add more instruments. It is clear that an oboe and a double-reed instrument are difficult to have a soft attack. I have to try not to go against the characteristics of the instrument. I would say today we have squeezed him enough... Meanwhile, we thank Enrico, who, however, is not leaving. He won't leave easily.

You will find him in the next episode. In the meantime, if you haven't already, subscribe to the channel, activate the bell so you will always be updated on all our videos and stay tuned because we will see Enrico again in the next episode. Bye.