Chapter 15
Composing for the Nonstandard
Orchestra
In This Chapter
Getting to the bottom of basses
Strumming along with guitars
Squeezing out information on free reed instruments
U
nless you’ve got great philharmonic connections, there’s a really good
chance that you won’t be writing music for oboes and gigantic golden
harps anytime soon. Even if you do have great philharmonic connections,
you may still be more interested in writing pop music, or even jazz. The
slower seeming, more somber-sounding instruments in an orchestra won’t
make many appearances in your music.In that case, the instruments for which you’ll want to know the ranges and
qualities are the ones in the “nonstandard orchestra.” This group includes
basses (upright, acoustic, and electric), guitars (acoustic and electric), and
the free reed family (accordions, concertinas, and harmonicas).To your advantage as a composer, though, all of the following instruments
used in the nonstandard orchestra are incredibly “quick” and expressive. A
good solo line on a guitar can carry as much weight as a violin, while a bass
guitar works as well as a bottom to your music as an upright bass or an oboe,
but also has the ability to deliver complicated, quick musical lines that nei-
ther classical instrument can carry. Plus, all of the following instruments,
with the exception of the harmonica and the concertina, have a huge range,
so that you can play just about any piece of music written for the orchestra
on just a couple of guitars and basses.Therefore, when composing music for any of the instruments discussed in
this chapter, you don’t have to take nearly as much into consideration as
you do with instruments in the standard orchestra. You don’t have to worry
about whether the line of music you’re writing is too “quick” for a bass,