Every composer is different when it comes to how much I can put it. I am working on a movie right now and as the composer has assigned each woodwind instrument to a character, he does not want me adding to or changing anything. Others like to show up and be surprised by what I have done. I have worked for Alan Menken and he just gave me piano and the temp score so I decided who was playing what and he did not change a thing. Being able to know when to add and flesh out and when to leave it alone is an important skill. We often add cues to fill in things, that way we can put it back to what it was easily by not playing them. I work for some people who know as much about the orchestra as I do and some that do not, that is why they hire me. I do often get something in the mockup that is impossible to play as it is programmed. My job is to make it happen or tell the composer and come up with something close. The most common issues are brass chords or phrases that have no places for breaths and string parts that jump from high melody or tremolo to playing a riff in the lower register. Somethings can be orchestrated around, for others we just have to stop and restart. Sometimes there are impossible tempo changes so we have to stop and start. I will make note of these and mark it in the score so we are ready for it.

A more general question, not directly related to this blog or any other blog. When you are the orchestrator, in general it is up to you to decide which lines to give to which groups / instruments, etc. I assume there are obviously budgetary restrictions as to how many people the contractor can hire, but aside from that, do you get to decide what instruments are to be used and where (eg bars 15-24 to an English Horn player plus two clarinet players rather than two oboes, etc)? What if the composer has laid it out in his midi score, do you generally try to respect that or do you sometimes make alternative suggestions like this would work better if you’d do it such and such, etc.? I imagine some composers are more experienced than others when it comes to writing for orchestra, and what comes out of a computer isn’t going to sound the same as what comes out of a live orchestra. Have you had situations where you recorded different version, eg one as suggested by the composer and one as you suggested (and then just let everyone listen to the result and the best version would obviously stand out), or is there not enough time for that generally?

Thanks!

Thanks