For this post I wanted to concentrate on articulation, dynamics, and tempo. And, how important it was to the overall feeling generated. As the underscore that I was creating for the Howl’s Moving Castle (Howl’s Moving Castle, 2004) clip was an orchestral piece, I needed to create something more realistic.
“If you’re not using articulations (a lot!), then your orchestral samples (not just your strings) are not going to sound anywhere near as realistic as they could.”
(Kruk, 2019)
I added staccato to the initial melody line for both the piccolo and the trumpets (Figure 1), until the last note, where I switched the articulation to legato so that the last note would be held.
For me the use of staccato at the beginning created a bouncier melody that I felt fitted better than using all legato.
Strings in Logic have a lot of articulations. These really breathe life into the score. From pizzicato just before Calcifer speaks, to whole note trills to build up a sense of tension at the end.
When Sophie crashes into castle, I used tremolo rather than trills as this sounded better. I also slowed down the tempo as we get to the crash (Figure 2). While it felt counterintuitive to slow down the score, it heightened the tension in the scene.
I used quite a lot of articulations across all the instruments. When combined with changes in tempo and dynamics you get a sense of realism. To get this a step closer to sounding realistic I’d probably record a real strings and horns to layer over the track.
The idea of generating a realistic orchestral performance is twofold. One, I want my work to sound as good as it can. Real players will add nuance to a performance that sampled instruments lack. Two, and this happens more with modelled instruments, is that without articulations, the computer-generated performance can sound sterile and flat.
References
Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) Directed by Hayao Miyazaki [Feature film]. Tokyo, Japan: Studio Ghibli.Lehman, F. (2018)
Kruk, M. (2019) ‘Chapter Eight: Articulations are a must’, in An introduction to writing music for television: The Art and Technique of TV music writing with contributions from Emmy Award winning composers. London, UK: Fundamental Changes, pp. 92–93.