In this video I'll be giving an overview of the string section of the orchestra.
We'll learn about the four main instruments that make up the string family, including their
ranges and tuning, and go over the most common playing techniques that are essential to know.
This video will be more focused on the instruments and then the next video I do
about orchestration will be more about how to actually write for the strings.
I'm basing this video on chapters 2 and 3 from Samuel Adler's the Study of Orchestration,
which is probably the best orchestration book I've read when it comes to the construction
and different articulations and techniques of individual instruments.
The string section is made up of four different instruments.
Violin, which is split into violins 1 and violin 2, viola,
cello and contrabass, which is also called double bass or just bass.
We'll start at the top with the violin.
The violin has four strings which are tuned GDAE.
Just memorize that the bottom string is G and then it goes up by fifths.
Memorizing that the low string is G is important because you don't want
to accidentally write a note that does not physically exist on the instrument.
It happens to me a lot more often than you'd think that I'm writing a violin
line and I want to dip down to that low F#, and so I have to find a workaround.
If you didn't know that that G was a low limit and you handed a part to a player with an F#,
it would be an embarrassing and expensive mistake.
So the bottom of the violins range is G3, the top of the range is a bit debated.
Adler says E7.
George Frederick McKay says B6 which is a lot lower.
And Kennan and Grantham say G7 which is higher than the Adler.
I don't know their source but wikipedia agrees with Adler that
e7 is the practical limit for orchestral parts.
That's also nice and easy to memorize because it's just two octaves above the open E string.
By the way violin parts are always written in treble clef.
The violin is very nimble and versatile.
It can play melodies and sustained chords and arpeggios.
One thing that Adler points out to be wary of is very wide skips.
So like leaps so wide you'd have to skip over a string to play them.
At really quick tempos you probably want to give your players a moment
to find their spot instead of expecting them to just wildly leap back and forth over strings.
He uses this example from Wagner to show what he means by wide leaps and he points
out that even though the recording sounds good it's actually misleading.
They had to do multiple takes until they actually got it, which means they messed up a lot.
So if you have a tight budget or a tight schedule you need to be careful.
And of course if you're only ever writing for samples it's not a big deal.
Next is the viola.
The open strings are C G D A.
Again just memorize that that low string is a C and it goes up by fifths.
And that low C is the C an octave below middle C.
Adler puts the top of the range for the viola at A6.
McKay says A5 and Kennen and Grantham say E6.
I think again we'll go with Adler's range because that's
conveniently two octaves above the open A string.
Viola is written in the alto clef.
Although it's a bit bigger than the violin it can pretty much do everything that a violin can.
I think the biggest difference, just because it's a bit bigger and the strings are a bit thicker,
is that the viola has a mellower sound.
The viola is often given easier parts than the violins but it doesn't have to.
It may not be quite as nimble as the violin but that doesn't mean it can only do slow things.
Next is the cello.
Cello's range is from C2 up to C5.
Cello parts are usually written in the bass clef unless you're writing a really high line.
In that case you can use either the tenor or the treble clef.
I asked a cello player once which he preferred,
tenor or treble, and he said he really didn't care.
He could play both so whichever you felt like using was fine.
The open strings are C G D A.
Just like the viola but down an octave.
The cello is incredibly versatile.
It can be rich and warm in the low end or lyrical in the top end.
Adler doesn't go into a whole lot of detail about the cello in his chapter,
except to basically just say he thinks it's awesome.
Finally we have the double bass.
The bass's written range is from E2 up to Bb4, however it's a transposing
instrument which means that the note that's written actually sounds an octave lower.
Bass parts are written in bass clef, naturally.
The open strings are E A D and G, which unlike the other instruments is in fourths instead of fifths.
The instrument is so much bigger that tuning it in fifths would be difficult to play.
I don't have an upright bass anymore but you can even see on this electric
bass that trying to play a fifth across an open string is a bit impractical.
Some basses come with a C attachment which extends the low end down to C1.
It's one of those things that you want to know the players have
before you write it because not all instruments have it.
Because of its size and the thickness of the strings the basses are a bit more sluggish
than the other stringed instruments, so you're probably not going to write crazy fast passages.
It's common to simplify more complex parts, like Adler shows this example from Beethoven where
the cello part is down an octave in the bases but simplified so it's a little easier to play.
Also those low notes are nice and rich but they have a lot of upper harmonics,
so you really have to be careful about dragging out big low whole notes in the bases.
You're going to get a very big thick muddy sound in the rest of the orchestra.
Often the bass will be pizzicato because then you get that nice round low end
without it just dragging out and filling up all the harmonic space.
Other instruments that are considered part of the string family include the harp, guitar,
mandolin, zither, basically anything you can pluck.
I'm not going to go into those instruments here,
and writing for harp is a whole thing, so I'll save that for a different video.
Now let's talk about techniques and articulations.
I'm going to cover the basic string techniques,
like the ones you're going to find with pretty much any sample library.
There are plenty of interesting and important things the strings can do like jete, harmonics,
and snap pizzicato, but we're not really going to get into those here.
I don't want this video to get super long so
we'll save advanced techniques for a future video someday.
Today we're going to focus on the bread and butter things you'll use pretty much every day.
As you probably know, the strings are played with a bow.
Down bow is marked with this symbol, and it's when the player starts bowing near the frog,
which is where their hand is, and pulls down, or if they're on cello or bass pulls in.
Up bow is marked with this symbol.
It's when they start closer to the tip and bow up, or cello and bass bow away.
If you write music like this the players will change direction with their bow on every note.
Down up down up.
This is called detache.
But if you add a slur all notes under that slur will be played
in a single bow going in the same direction which we call legato.
For example this would be down bow for the first four eighth notes
then up down for the two quarters.
And this would mean you want the entire bar to be played with a single stroke of the bow.
If you're arranging piano music for the strings you have to be careful about the slurs.
A lot of times in piano music a slur will cover the entire phrase,
but a violinist would interpret that to mean the whole thing was supposed to be done
in a single bow, which might not be practical.
McKay says "In general there will be two bows to a measure with down bow and up bow alternating."
It's usually best to let the players decide if a down bow or up bow is appropriate,
but there are times where you might want to be specific.
This part of the bow near the player's hand,
the frog, is where you're going to have a lot more power and control.
So a down bow is going to have a stronger start than an up bow at this light tip.
If you're playing sustained notes and you want some control over crescendo or decrescendo,
think about how you're going to have more power
near the frog and as you pull down it's going to get weaker.
But if you start at the tip and you push up, you're going to be going
towards your hand and you're going to be able to give it a stronger force.
But like I said, most of the time let your players make the call.
The two most common short bowings you're gonna run into are staccato and spiccato.
With staccato the player will stop the bow on the string.
With spiccato they will stop the bow by lifting off of the string.
In this article from String Ovation they actually call spiccato a "bouncing stroke."
They're both marked with a little dot over the note head and in that
same article they say "the composer often leaves the choice whether to
use spiccato or staccato to the interpreter of the performance."
In other words, the player will know what to do.
It will usually come down to tempo,
speed of the passage, and even just what feels right in the moment.
But don't underestimate how just one little dot
can do so much to change the expressiveness of a phrase.
The last two bowed techniques I'll talk about are trills and tremolos.
Trills are when a player holds down a pitch and then quickly
plays and releases the pitch a half step or whole step above.
Any interval higher than a second, for example a major third,
is considered a fingered tremolo but you get basically the same effect.
Bowed tremolo is when the player plays the same pitch repeatedly as quickly as possible.
When an entire section plays tremolo you don't actually hear the individual strokes.
You just get this nervous shaking sound.
Alain Mayrand calls this technique "blur",
and it's really useful for cinematic effects and background textures.
The most common technique that doesn't use a bow is called pizzicato.
This is when the player plucks the string with their fingers.
You get a nice round percussive sound.
Pizzicato can't be played as quickly as using a bow, but is still pretty nimble.
Check out the 3rd movement from Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony.
It takes a second to be able to move your hand from bowing to pizzicato,
so be sure you write a little space in your parts.
Pizzicato is great not just because it has a cool
sound but is really useful for accents and can be used almost like a percussion instrument.
Because of the way the instruments are constructed
it's actually possible to play more than one note at a time.
Two notes at once is called a double stop.
Three is a triple stop.
Four is a quadruple stop.
And five... there's something wrong with your violin.
This is another topic I'm not going to get too deep into.
I suggest you find a good chart of playable double stops, quadruple stops ,and so on, and you
should refer to these charts when you want to know what's actually reasonable to expect to be played.
Double stops are often used for sustained chords or for accents,
but using really complicated multi-note parts is usually reserved for soloists.
The number of players in the string orchestra can vary, but Adler puts the numbers at 16 to
18 first violins, 14 to 16 second violins, 10 to 12 violas, 10 to 12 cellos, and 8 to 10 basses.
There's no rule that says you have to give all 18 first violins the same thing to play.
So for example if you want a nice big chord with more than five pitches,
you can actually divide the string sections into smaller groups.
This is called divisi and it's very frequently done.
You can divide into as many groups as you want.
You could technically divide the violas into 12 different parts if you really wanted to,
but usually you'll divisi into two or three.
Now of course if you're going to have less instruments on a
note it's going to be a bit of a quieter sound.
But the way we perceive sound, eight instruments on a note is not going to
be literally half as quiet as 16 instruments on that note.
So yeah you'll get a slight reduction in volume, and it's something you should be aware of when
you're orchestrating, but it's not something so drastic that you should be afraid to use divisi.
To wrap this up I'll tell you the six reasons the
strings are the most used section in the orchestra, according to Samuel Adler.
1. The instruments cover a huge range in pitch.
From the bottom of the basses to the top of the violins, we get this huge range of seven octaves.
2. The iinstruments have a homogeneous sound across the entire range.
You're not likely going to confuse a bassoon with a flute, but there are times where you might
think a viola is a cello or a violin because the instruments are so similar in timbre.
3. They have a wide dynamic range.
The strings are capable of being whisper quiet to ferociously loud.
4. The strings have a warm and rich tone quality that we don't really get tired of hearing.
At some point flutes can sound shrill or trumpets can just feel too loud,
but the strings have such a pleasant sound that you can get away with much
longer passages before people feel like they need a break.
Tied into that is number 5, versatility.
We touched on a few of the sounds that strings can make, like legato, spiccato, pizzicato,
and there are a ton of other interesting color choices that we didn't get into.
And they can move effortlessly between rapid quick passages and long sustained chords.
6. They can play continuously without needing to breathe.
Within a few phrases a wind player is going to have to take a breath.
And at some point in a much longer work if you just keep them going
and going and going you're going to exhaust them.
The strings don't have this issue,
so when your winds need to take a break the strings can keep on playing.
It's kind of crazy we went through all of that information and we still
haven't actually talked about how to write for the string.
My next orchestration video will be about how to actually use the strings for melodies,
chords, accompaniment parts, and so on.
Be sure to subscribe so you know when that one's ready to go.
If you're watching this in the future then check out that video here, if it's not ready yet then
check out one of my older videos where I talk about 31 tips writing for strings.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one!