Why Orchestras arrange music
When a piece of music is being written, often one of the first questions that a composer must answer is that of instrumentation. Which instruments will he use to create the sound that he desires? All music has a purpose, and a key part of defining and fulfilling that purpose is instrumentation. Whether a piece’s job is to accompany a film, inspire strong feelings in its audience, provide background noise, or anything else, the choice of instruments will affect its success in achieving that goal. For instance, a string quartet might be suitable for the rather subdued nature of live music at a wedding, while a full big band jazz group might be inappropriate. In the same manner, a piece of music written to emulate traditional Asian sounds might be hindered by a large European-style brass section in its score. Therefore, proper instrumentation is vital to a piece’s success in realizing either its emotional or practical function.
Equally important regarding the functionality of music is its complexity. For example, film composers — in general — write simpler music when they are scoring a movie than when they are writing for the sake of performance. This is done in order to prevent the moviegoer from being distracted from the film by its score. The purpose of a score is to enhance a film’s visual storytelling rather than compete with it.
Why, then, do arrangements exist? Why purposefully re-orchestrate a composer’s deliberate choice of instrumentation? Why simplify or complicate a composer’s original melody and harmony? Well, circumstances often dictate the viability of a performance of any given piece of music. To use a personal anecdote, in the summer of 2018, I gave a solo recital at Lawson Academy. In that recital, I had one of my close friends perform with me as a special guest.
We performed a piece originally written for harp (Great Fairy Fountain by Koji Kondo) that I arranged for piano and flute. I could have easily adapted the harp version for piano almost note-for-note, but it was a special concert, and I knew that I wanted my friend to be able to perform with me. So I embellished the harp part and created a more complex version of it to use an accompaniment for the flute, which I gave the piece’s original melody. The result was a recognizable piece of music that was nostalgic for many of the audience members and had been renewed and infused with new meaning — meaning represented through musical re-contextualization. Reproducing the original work with more complex harmony and new instrumentation allowed for more emotional interpretation by the performers and the audience alike.
The Spartanburg Philharmonic performs during “The Snowman” at the Chapman Cultural Center
Similarly, your very own Philharmonic orchestra put on a concert last Christmas that featured several Christmas classics arranged as singalongs by Dr. Peter Kay. These repurposed tunes allowed for the audience to form a stronger connection with the performance by actually participating in it! In this case, the arrangement featured an introductory phrase to demonstrate the melody before inviting everyone to join in; it also modernized the harmony in order to subvert any musically traditional expectations that the audience might have (creating an effect comparable to my arrangement of “Great Fairy Fountain”). By allowing spectators to become performers, the music not only increased the entertainment and enjoyment value of the concert, but likewise created a bond between audience and artists that distinguished that particular experience from the countless other times those songs have been heard and will be heard throughout all of our lives.
The Spartanburg Philharmonic looks forward to creating a similar experience for our patrons during our November 28th online performance of ‘Burg Bound: A Stay-At-Home Holiday Concert. We hope you will join us online, and join in singing beloved carols with your family as we usher in the Christmas season.
Tristan Willcox is a senior at Spartanburg High School, a talented musician and composer, and intern for the Spartanburg Philharmonic. Tristan’s composition “Battle at Byrjun” premiered at the 2019 Homegrown concert
