Lesson 5 Discussion

**JPGIII** · 06-08-2006, 04:10 PM

Wow, that's a lot of replies. Gald I'm not the only person who didn't quite understand. I'll look at some of the reference material mentioned in this thread.

**jazzobizz** · 06-09-2006, 08:42 AM

Originally Posted by belkina

I beg to disagree. I also have all four volumes of the Koechlin, have taught from it, and used it for more than 25 years, and it is only related to Rimsky in that it (inevitably) covers many of the same subjects. Koechlin's volume 2, for example is an exhaustive discussion of all kinds of orchestral combinations, in a style which has nothing to do with Rimsky. Volume 3 discusses orchestral textures and issues like part-writing in orchestration in unbelievably more detail than RK.

There *are* of course historical precedents for Koechlin's work: not just RK, but also, and very importantly, Gevaert, whose first book on orchestration was published (in French) in 1863. These works *all* have in common that they don't just deal with orchestration as the study of instruments, but also as the study of sound combinations.

None of this is to take away from RK's importance; it's just that calling Koechlin's gigantic and generous work a "revision" of RK is misleading. A revision implies starting from another person's work, maintaining some of it as is, adding comments, etc. - rather like what is happenng HERE. Richard Strauss' revision of the Berlioz treatise, for example, IS a revision and is named as such. Koechlin also wrote huge works on harmony, counterpoint, and various other musical subjects. While they also treat some of the same subjects as other books, they are clearly Koechlin's own work, not "revisions" of someone else's.

That's damn right.

**Crazykeys** · 06-09-2006, 09:31 AM

Hi Gary

Thank You for the GPO EXERCISES

**stevebryson** · 06-18-2006, 06:46 PM

Hi everyone - I'm having a little trouble with exercise 3 of lesson 3 (the cellos above violins exercise). If I do the simple thing and put the violins at a lower 6th they go below the range of the instrument. I tried lower 3rds in the problem area at the end but couldn't find anything that sounded good. The example solution is inspiring, but I couldn't
find a similarly nice approach without simply copying it. I'm rather dissatisfied with my end result, where I just punted in the last measure. Score:

http://homepage.mac.com/stevepur/GPO...teve-score.pdf

and mp3 file:

http://homepage.mac.com/stevepur/GPO...bove-steve.mp3

I think i'm running into my very poor understanding of theory, and don't really know what "lower 3rds" means. Can anyone give me any pointers?

BTW this is still in the sketch phase, so I haven't refined mix, articulation, etc.

Thanks
Steve

**stevebryson** · 06-20-2006, 12:48 AM

Hi again - Here's my improved solution to exercise 3 lesson 5 (not 3!). It's not as beautiful as I'd like and I welcome comments and suggestions for improvements.

score: http://homepage.mac.com/stevepur/GPO...e-v2-score.pdf
.mp3: http://homepage.mac.com/stevepur/GPO...e-steve-v2.mp3

This was greatly helped by some off-line discussion with Robert Davis. He initially suggested transposing the whole thing up and staying in low 6ths, but I already know how to do that so I tried to find a more interesting solution.

Enjoy
Steve

**belkina** · 06-20-2006, 05:50 AM

This kind of "varying" doubling - sometimes 3rds, sometimes 6ths - is good, particularly if it happens when the motive changes.

Originally Posted by stevebryson

Hi again - Here's my improved solution to exercise 3 lesson 5 (not 3!). It's not as beautiful as I'd like and I welcome comments and suggestions for improvements.

score: http://homepage.mac.com/stevepur/GPO...e-v2-score.pdf
.mp3: http://homepage.mac.com/stevepur/GPO...e-steve-v2.mp3

This was greatly helped by some off-line discussion with Robert Davis. He initially suggested transposing the whole thing up and staying in low 6ths, but I already know how to do that so I tried to find a more interesting solution.

Enjoy
Steve

**greatgreybeast** · 07-27-2006, 09:36 AM

Apart from the different background, I'm not sure I get the difference between summary exercises 1 and 2.

I do get that the idea is to experiment with a couple different approaches for each one, which I appreciate - but I'm not sure which direction to experiment in each case. There seems to be considerable, if not complete overlap in what I can do in each exercise, so why are there two of them? Is the first intended for single sections or unisons only? Something else?

-Robin

**yeah** · 05-30-2010, 11:10 AM

Could somebody copy-paste here the Russian text part about the "useless 6th doubling"? I'm Russian, I can translate it.

Thanks!

**yeah** · 05-31-2010, 01:54 AM

I've found a Russian text. I see the last post here was from year 2006 .. If you're still following this and are interested in the explanation of 3rds and 6ths I'll try to translate and explain.