You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - String Theory: Writing for a String Section - S3E41

Episode Date: February 25, 2019

Today, Peter and Adam give some advice on how to write arrangements for string sections.Check out Brian Owens at: http://brianowenssoul.com/home-1Shout out to Chris Stark: https://www.christopher-stark.com'Nother shout out to Matt Jones Orchestra: http://www.mattjonesorchestra.comAnd make sure to hit up imslp.orgLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam. What's up? Do you have cats? I have a cat. Does it like to play with strings? It loves to play with strings. As do I. I'm Adam Anas.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast. Daily Jazz advice coming at you. Oh, I'm in a good mood today. Yeah, you are. I'm exhausted, but I'm not a good mood. All of a sudden, you perked up when the red light of the microphone came on. It's because I'm a pro.

That's right. And you're cradling your coffee mug there, your hounds solo. Hans or hands solo? I never knew. Hans Solo? Is it Hans Solo? Buddy, we are going to get more emails from that one comment than anything else we've ever done. Even more than the Corey Henry episode.

We've done some crappy stuff. Okay, cool. Well, so we today are going to talk about string writing. That's why we had a little back and forth about strings because we were involved in a really fun project a couple days ago. That was great. Yeah, and I thought it would be fun to just sort of do a Q&A if you're up for it. Sure. And, you know, this is obviously daily jazz advice, but I think, you know, for, you know, for,

piano players, jazz players, really any musicians, it's nothing that you have to get into, but a lot of us do get into writing four strings, writing arrangements for larger orchestras. I think today we're going to really just concentrate on the strings. But maybe out there, and you'll hear it land, you've been thinking about it, you've done a little bit, you don't know where to start or whatever. So I thought it would be fun to kind of demystify it, first of all, and talk about some techniques and some ways to do it because we did, it wasn't necessarily a jazz session, although there was a little jazziness here and there.

There was a lot of jazziness. Oh, there was a lot of jazziness. That's true. I think for a pop session, it was leading heavily on the jazz. I mean, you were playing on it. John Coward was playing on it. I mean, there were cats playing on it. Yeah, right, right.

And I mean, it was the fun thing about this session was we already had the rhythm section and the vocals, Brian Owens, wonderful young vocals from St. Louis laid out and even a certain amount of kind of mixing, rough mixing, percussion added, great rhythm section and everything. Yeah, that's a luxury when you're writing strings to have it almost finished. Right.

And so you know where everything is going to be, especially when there was, you know, from what I understand from when you recorded the session down in Memphis with the rhythm section, it was a very loose session where, you know, you guys were kind of jamming, and these songs came out of the jams. Yep.

And so there's so much improvisation going on in the comping and in little solo things that are just beautiful that it's nice when you're writing the strings that you can hear all that and write around that or with that, you know, and that was something that we got to do. Well, and I was thinking about, that might even be, you know, kind of a technique that folks could use to start to learn how to do this. You could take something, you know, really, and it could be any style that was with vocals without instrumental, jazz, whatever.

Yeah. And just write some things and layer it on top of. I mean, it's really easy to do. Even like in garage band or something, you could write some string parts and then see how they fit over that. And it would sort of be similar to what we did on these arrangements anyway. That's right. You could start small with just one violin part and try to write. one line that would work, you know, that would be somewhere to start at the very, very basic level.

Yeah. And what you really want to be able to get to is the string quartet. You know, the string quartet is, I was just talking about this with our friend Chris Stark, who's a great composer, a classical, like new music composer. Yeah. And he... Award winning. Award winning. Very, very much so. And he talks about the string quartet in such fond terms because it just saves you. Like, you could do anything with it. Those instruments are so expressive. And everything sounds good almost. You know what I mean?

There's a built-in link between them and blend there. If you do it correctly, you don't try to force them out of their zone. As soon as you add an oboe, it becomes a lot more complicated. It just gets harder to match the timbers and to blend or whatever, but the string quartet just melts into itself. So, you know, you were saying that jazz pianists, especially, I think, we deal with harmony on the fly so much that I think we just naturally get tapped to write these things. I mean, that's how I got to have to write these things.

And I think it's a great, I think no one should feel like, oh, I have to, you know, go to arranging school or whatever. Obviously, there's a lot you can learn from people, but, you know, in terms of composition, arranging. But there's a lot, this is like an area where you can really learn to do this on your own if you're disciplined. Yeah. If you know a little bit about harmony,

a little bit about voice leading and counterpoint, you can write good string arrangements as a piano player or a guitar player, like, straight away. Yeah. And I was just thinking, like, probably that the entry point is learning about the string instruments, kind of in general. I mean, the more you know specifically

about the cello, the bass, and this was fun because we had one bass, but it was a great basis, so we really had some flexibility, which is sort of a new thing for us. I'd never written for a solo classical. I mean, it wasn't solo, but the section was one. I've done it for sections before, but it was one.

You know, this is a new technique for me, too, but if anybody's going to record strings in the studio, I implore you to check out this guy in Chicago, Matt Jones Orchestra. Yeah. And, you know, I was kind of, studying his stuff, the way he records stuff. He did all the string arrangements for the latest PJ Morton

record, which are just, they're just great arrangements. Right. And match on the orchestra link to that, Andrew. Please. You listening? Okay, cool. And then what he did was had, you know, a full string section. I think he had 3-3-33, right? Yep. Violin 1, violin 2, viola, cello. And then had one bass player separated.

Was that where we stole the idea from? I think we might have, we might have copped that idea. But it gets you this really great sound. So if you're, you know, if you're going to do a session with strings, you know, get the string quartet but then add the base it gets you I mean we found it just gets you this nice robust sound isolate it from the rest of the quartet you know so that you have control over it because it can either be a lot softer than everything or it could overpower right if if you get a wolf you know down low

yeah and I think that you know especially if you write on the heavier side as as both not heavier texturally but just like I think we both have this idea of wanting to write a little bit more so that we can take things away or the producer or whatever can take which I don't know if you notice has already been done to those arrangements. Well, that's because we've worked with Brian before. We know that whatever we write, about 60% is going to make the cut, which is cool. That's fine. And no going in that that you can't be attached to everything.

Yeah, but I think this is very much, and we've talked about this before when we talk about composing, you know, doing something every day. If you want to learn to write for strings, you need to jump in there and do it. Don't wait by the phone. Like, is this thing on it? You're going to pick it up for somebody to call you to do a session because they're not going to do that until you know what you are doing. But you can learn.

I mean, you can buy a $60 keyboard and, you know, with your computer and with garage band and get this stuff plotted out. Just start very basic. I mean, you want to learn about, I think, for all of the one, what is that, three, four instruments that we're talking about. Violin, viola, cello, and bass. Learn the ranges.

You know, learn some basic things about it. You'll have a step ahead if you know how to play one a little bit or at least can hang out with somebody that plays just so you get the technique. That is what has helped me grow. as a string arranger is just befriending good string players and picking their brain. And they're, you know, especially if you're about

to write something for them, shoot them an email and ask them a bunch of questions. They want to sound good. And they want you to write something that's comfortable for them. And, you know, if you write pits like da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, they're going to be pretty pissed off. Right, right, right.

Because they're not going to be able to do it. Oh, my God. Butta-bing, but-a-bing. I edit that out. No, but you know what I'm saying? And like, so I'm lucky enough to be in the 442s, which is, you know, my main musical project is with some really great symphony players here in St. Louis, Sean and Bjorn. And I've just annoyed the hell out of them over the years with, how do you do this? Can you do this? Is this possible? What sounds good? This or this? You know what I mean? One thing I noticed that you did really well that I think folks, even at a basic level. I mean, it's a more advanced sound once you get it. But you can start learning this at a, you know, at that beginner level even. And I think that you're great at is. you have you use like specific techniques in a very musical way they could be corny or just kind of um you know just doing them because i don't know i don't even know what i'm trying to say okay so like

tremolo what you're trying to say oh i'm trying to okay oh you're like trims okay well but that's just that's what we call them in the biz trims yeah yeah tremolo like that can be such a schick kind of a thing and it has been but you use them as like you really understand what that's going to sound like and i have the feeling like how did you develop that did you just sit down with them and say, play this, what does it sound like? What are some ways to do this? Or did you cop that from arrangers that you liked? Yeah, both.

So it's trial and error a little bit. And then it's also, you know, just like when we're listening to a jazz pianist play and I hear something that I want in my playing, I make a mental note or I might even make an actual note in my notebook, hey, work on this, this sound. Get that. You don't have that. And so if I hear something in, you know, a classical piece or a film score that I love that texture or performance that I go see here,

live in St. Louis, all the great chamber music we have, I'll make a note like, okay, get that texture in your bag. Figure out what that is. Find a score. Again, IMSLP, which is dot org, has a bunch of free scores for a lot of the hits of classical music and a lot of the greats.

And you could see exactly what Prophiev did to build chords. You know what I mean? Or how they used tremolo or how they voiced things. Super important. you know, just study up as much as you can. I never had an arranging class in college. I mean, I had one with Charles Tolliver,

great jazz arranger for sure, but we didn't get into strings. We got into like Blakey style arranging. But you can do it just by studying and making friends with players and just doing it. But the tremolo, you know, that is one of those things. I used it a lot on this record

because the arrangements that I did, a lot of them were very vibey. You know what I mean? Like very... Like what was all? already there. Smoky, space.

Exactly. It had a vibe. And so I knew, especially with the swells, like I think you're talking about, I would do these, like these little tremolo swells. I knew that that would create this texture

that would fit with everything just perfectly, you know? What I think it speaks to, and some other techniques that you use as well fit into this is you've really developed an ability to know what these things are going to sound like as you write them. And so it's kind of going backwards. What you just explained is,

far as you hear something you like and it might not even be about like oh they play that tremolo over this f minor chord it might be in some rock monon offer something yeah but it's a it's a sound that a group of instruments make together that can be controlled in a number of different ways and place somewhere else and and as you said it's no different than you know taking something that herbie plays or whatever you don't need to play it on that same tune right now you've got a sound but that process of learning is like your training for string writing but it's also the homework that we have to do a lot of times yeah arranging course that's it's almost like better when you go and get it. I mean, I think there's some great arrangers that I'm sure can teach it well in composition,

but I feel like that's an area where they're more going to be like, go do this, now go do your homework. Yeah. I mean, the cool thing with arranging and learning how to do this and studying it on your own is you can, you have, unlike an improvised solo, which I guess, you know, we say transcribe, transcribe. With arranging, you could actually look at the score while you're listening to something and really make notes and see exactly how to get the sound. Yes. There's no doubt about it. You know, another part of the gig, I think, and was the part of the gig on Sunday, is you'd also have to write for the project. You know, write, right with the players in mind, their ability level, right with the time that they have to work on it. You know what I mean?

We wrote a lot of, like, kind of technical stuff for them. And halfway through the session, I was like, I could have simplified some things for this. You know, you're always getting that kind of feedback but if you have if you're writing something for a group that's going to perform it for two years and put it in their repertoire yeah you can make it hard as you want but if you're writing for like you know we get it hired to do these one-off things right where it's like one rehearsal for the symphony and then they play it that night and that's it yeah so you got to keep it simple and you have to make it sound good and be simple right right so one little trick with that i'm thinking too is that after if you if you if you're lucky enough to have a situation where you can have it played by

live players at recording session or one off gig or whatever is go and like fix the things like i usually do this and i know we need to do this because we but we got such a stack of music sitting in there but it's like go and take the intel that you get from what the players write on the parts and then go fix the original parts or you or you can keep those make like that becomes the set one not only the bowings you know changes and like you know you were really good about communicating with the players and we had to go relatively quickly but you were able to kind of like optimize those arrangements, I'd say 10 to 20% in a really interesting way by getting feedback from the players. And also, you were giving some feedback and making some changes

in kind of in real time as far as what you heard back. Like we always have an idea of what we think it's going to sound like. And the better you get at it, the closer it is. But it's always the moment and the day and the headphones and the microphones or whatever. So being able to hear and then number one listen you know but but but but but but but but but but but then take like I see a lot of times people finish these projects and then they're just like oh I'm so tired I'm done but it's like take that little bit of time to incorporate that so that next time you go in the parts are already there and you can kind of relax and just let the players look at it and do their things so true man yeah another another another couple of things that I'll make notes of just thinking about this

session is a is the arrangement needs to also if you're especially if you're doing something with a rhythm section it needs to reflect how much sound is coming out of that rhythm You can't always just lay over thick chords over a rhythm section because you're really only going to hear the top voice. Everything else is going to just be clutter in the mix. So we did this quite a bit where we just do single note lines with the entire section, or just maybe the viola

and violins and create, or maybe two notes as part of the chord. That could be incredibly effective if you have a thick arrangement with keys and drums and guitar and bass. You know what I mean? But if you have space, then you can use, that was nice to then use the whole section, use big, thick chords and clusters and all this stuff,

and they come through really, really well. Well, and I think that that just, I mean, that speaks to what we talked about at the beginning. It's like when you have the tracks already there and you're adding strings, let it come to you, don't chase around and try to force it because you already know, I mean, it's a lot more difficult to write

for like strings or even full orchestra and a rhythm section and a singer when you're going live and like the rhythm section has kind of chord chart, because you don't really know what they're gonna play. You don't know what they're going to play. You don't know what they're going to play. You almost have to write. write them down or hope that they're listening.

And then it's more up to the players to do that, to listen to what's happening in the arrangement. I think I told you that I did one session. I wrote a whole album, and all it was was the guy was singing into the phone and playing some stuff on the piano for the form and the court changes, basically. And I had to write these string quartet parts.

And then like, you know, get on the session and there's like a full soul band playing. And I'm like, oh. One more thing that I'll say that I learned from you when we started, because we've done some writing together on some arrangements, and one thing that I was kind of doing, but you really hammered home for me was give the players some meat. Don't just give them footballs.

Even if you want a long sound, little turns that really are almost imperceivable to the listener. But they keep the player engaged and they keep them from sort of zoning out on just like long, you know, Unless it's super quiet and you just have to have long. Like if you're doing whole notes per bar and you're changing chords every time and someone has a step-up movement,

give them a little turn or give them some kind of little figure in the middle for the viola or the violin too, they will appreciate that and they will stay engaged and also just creates some nice little tensions that can happen in your longer notes. Yeah, and I think, I mean, it's not about look. It really comes out of that mentality of we're doing so much at the computer,

or at the piano, whatever, you start to think that these are machines that are going to play the music perfectly. And look, we had great players in, and they'll play anything you put in front them. So true. So it's not like, oh, this isn't hard enough, I'm going to play it bad. No, they're still going to play good. But for sure, like, and I've found seeing this, especially in live situations over and over again, I mean, it's just like us. I mean, it's just human nature. If you're playing in a big man, a piano part, and you've got nothing fun to play, yeah, you're going to play okay. But, I mean, if you give a string section because the arrangement calls for footballs all the way, but like the last two bars, you give them something kind of tricky.

And it doesn't even need to be fast, technical, just be like a high note or something. Something. Like, because they're so good at glancing ahead. They'll play this stuff a little bit better. They'll be more engaged because they're like, oh, when I get there or a little solo or whatever. It's such great advice, man. I've noticed better results in my sessions. Because they're humans.

I mean, we're all humans and we want to be a part of the process. Well, and that can be another challenge with this is, like you said, you're either doing this pen to paper or on a computer, which is almost like a quill you were using there. A very fancy pen. Very flary. But it becomes a thing of a challenge to bring the humanity out, right? So if you write these parts like their actual voices doing individual things,

it can be very, very helpful. As opposed to just like, I've just put my cords down on the keyboard and then the footballs come up. But especially as pianists, it's hard for us because we, first of all, we are almost always in a situation where we can be creative on the game. Even if our part is all written out. We don't pay attention to that. No, no, yeah. And we always have a, I mean, even like in a big minute,

I always look at that as the most restricted kind of piano. There's always some time for us to solo or play along or to change. You've got to be pretty in the cut. Right, right. But when you're a string player, like, you really have to play what's on the page. You don't have much of a chance to do something. So we want to have compassion and empathy, and then they'll give it even a little bit more, I think.

Cool. You know, maybe we'll once this album is out, which shouldn't be too long, we'll add a link here for it. Absolutely. Come back to it. I'm listening to some of this stuff. But, man, thanks. Good stuff.

Well, until tomorrow, you'll hear it.