|
by Don Chapman
I don't know about you, but I go through
phases. I'll get fixated on something and
try to learn all I can about it. Right now
I'm in a big synth orchestration phase since
Chris Sligh asked me to orchestrate some
songs on his former band's CD that just came
out.
Read more about how I orchestrated
it on
my blog TheAdventuresOfDonChapman, and hear some soundclips. Here's a link to the CD at Amazon .
My friend George said the
other day that
strings are like a navy
suit - always appropriate.
I think they're in the
"getting-more-popular"
cycle of pop music - I'm
hearing orchestration
more and more in current
pop music. At Seacoast
we were going to do "Move
Along"
by the band The Great American
Rejects as
a special number. I really
liked the song
so I bought the CD. The
last track, "Can't
Take It," is driven
entirely by a cool
synth string orchestration.
Even heavy metal
group Metallica collaborated
with the San
Francisco Symphony Orchestra
a few years
ago and produced a live
recording.
If you have a rocking praise
band, why not
add a touch of class by
implementing a synth
string part? Most orchestrated
versions of
popular praise songs come
with a string reduction
that a non-improvising
keyboardist can play,
and that's also a great
way to include a
displaced organist. Try
using strings in
one of these settings:
1. Cutting edge praise band churches. Praise bands these days are loud and they're
getting louder. I can't imagine a violinist
or any orchestral instrument playing at Seacoast
- they simply would not be able to hear themselves,
or to be heard by the congregation for that
matter, no matter how they would be miked.
In this situation a keyboard string setting
is all that will work. Put some compression
on the string sound and pump it up in the
speakers and monitors. My praise band at
Horizon Church wasn't half as loud as the
Seacoast band and even then, whenever I'd
attempt to use live string players they'd
always complain that they couldn't hear themselves.
2. Blended worship churches. This type of church has a praise band, but
the sound is tightly controlled. They might
even have a few orchestra instruments playing
with the band. Beef up the orchestral sound
with a keyboard player or three - one keyboard
can double the strings, another can fill
in brass and woodwinds, and a third might
cover percussion and synthy pad sounds. One
church I worked at had an 18 piece orchestra
along with praise band and I had a fantastic
string sound with 3-6 violins on any given
Sunday, a cello and a keyboardist playing
the string reduction. I'll never forget an
offertory we did with just me at the piano
and the violins playing the simple, soaring
melody of a praise song. Beautiful!
Setting up string patches: Most keyboards allow you to set up your
own custom patches that can be quickly accessed.
Set up a slow attack string patch for slow
ballads, a faster attack for upbeat songs,
pizzicato and tremolo, all in a row. The
keyboard player can quickly call up the appropriate
sound when needed.
Which keyboard to buy? I'm often asked this question. There are
so many keyboards out there today [I just
saw about a million at the recent NAMM show
in LA!] that I can't give you a specific
answer. However, I can help you with these
guidelines. A general rule of thumb is Yamaha
has the best keyboard sounds like piano and
rhodes, and Roland has the better orchestral
and synth pad sounds.
Let your ear guide you.
Take a trip to the
nearest Guitar Center and
play the keyboards.
Which keyboard has the
synth string sound
that gives you goosebumps?
Buy that one!
DON'T let the salesperson
trick you into
buying what THEY want you
to buy [most likely
getting a better commission
from a company
that sells lousy synths.]
Buy the keyboard
that your keyboardist likes
best. Which brings
me to another point...
take your keyboardist
with you and let them help
with the decision.
One music director I worked
for proudly presented
me one day with the most
wretched sounding
keyboard. I'm talking tin-can.
If he had
only asked my opinion we
would all have been
happy and he wouldn't have
wasted all that
money.
Play idiomatically: If you're playing a flute synth patch, play
it like a flute player. Breathe with your
playing just as a flute player would, and
stop the sound when you take a breath. If
your string player can improvise, make sure
that they're not playing tightly clustered
chords, but instead play sparse voicings
of 4-5 notes so as to not muddy the sound.
>Bottom Line: A sparkling synth string part can add class
to the droning barrage
of electric guitars.
|
free music
