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About MusicTreks.org
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When I’m composing, most of my ideas come from jazz improvisation.
Composing
Working at the piano, I usually begin by jotting down a line of melody and harmony. If a four-measure phrase works, I develop the idea and grad-ually expand it. I'm always guided by improvisation and the principles of Baroque and Classical harmony.
When I write “neo-classical” music, I try to emulate a past era, though not always successfully! I usually want to suggest Romantic musical forms, but depending on the video I’m scoring, I also resort to Renaissance and Baroque styles and harmonies. (Music like mine is sometimes called "neo-classical." Strictly speaking, Neo-Classical refers to the unique 20th-century trend – at its height in the 1920s and 30s – which rejected the structure and style of 19th-century romanticism in music. My music is really a throw-back to earlier eras, particularly the Romantic.)
And because nearly all my music is written to accompany, underscore and amplify specific film images, it leans toward the cinematic in tonality and structure.
When I’m developing a piece, the most difficult and time-consuming task isn’t writing the music. The hardest part is the orchestration.
Orchestration
When the piece is almost finished, several questions need to be answered. What size orchestra or ensemble does the piece require? If I want strings, which violins/violinists do I use, and how many? How many cellos? Where should I use brass or woodwinds? And then there are decisions about instru-mental articu-lation and expression.
If the piece requires vocals, should I use a chorus? Boys? Men? Sopra-nos? Altos? How many? Does the piece require soloists? And what about the sung text? If it’s a choral piece, do I need to write the words from scratch? If it’s a religious piece, should I use texts from the Latin Mass or scripture?
Writing for voices is particularly com-plicated, as every consonant, vowel and diphthong has to be shaped and articulated for each word and part.
Knowledge of standard orchestration is important, but one of the best ways to understand orchestration choices is to look at scores by major classical and film composers, and listen carefully to their music. What choices did Bach make in the Brandenburg Concertos? How did Ralph Vaughn Williams’ choices in scoring the 1941 film “49th Parallel” result in such a spectacular ensem-ble string sound?
When composing and orchestrating, it’s important to understand the range and articulation possibilities of each instrument in the orchestra. Modern MIDI technology (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) makes this easier than ever before. Experimentation with orchestration is invaluable, and MIDI makes it possible to audition instruments, all their possible articulations, and also ensemble combinations, so you can make choices at every stage of the work.
Performance
For contemporary film and classical composers, perhaps the greatest boon has been the development of MIDI. The ability to enter musical notation from a keyboard makes composing far less arduous than in the days of the pencil.
Equally important, the composer has access to thousands of individual instruments and vocalists. The building block of any orchestral performance is individual musicians playing single notes in dozens of possible ways. It’s the same with MIDI. Each instrumentalist and vocalist has been recorded playing or singing hundreds of individual notes with every possible articu-lation. That’s hundreds of thousands of separate, single-note recordings (requiring, in my set-up, more the 15 terabytes of data storage)..
MIDI technology puts each of these expertly-played notes at the finger-tips of the composer and orches-trator. That’s why nearly all classical composers and every major film composer today uses MIDI to write and orchestrate their compositions. Never before have they had the luxury of answering the key question -- "How will it sound with an orchestra?" -- instantly.
MusicTreks features the vocalists and instrumentalists of EastWest (Los Angeles), the Vienna Sym-phonic Library (Vienna), and Chris Hein Strings (Munich). The individual organ pipes and stops were recor-ded for Garritan Classic Pipe Organs, and include organs of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Smečno, Czech Republic (organ built circa 1583), and Riverside First Baptist Church, Riverside, California (organ built 1966).
What's next? New projects are underway, including several filmed in French Polynesia and along Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way. We’re also planning programs on China, Mongolia, Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia. Each will feature video tours along with new cinematic compositions for orchestra.
And remember, all of my music can be downloaded (MP3) on PC or Android for personal enjoyment. We hope you like MusicTreks.org!
M.M. Ray and D. Ellicott Ray
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