If you want to drop in before then to the public Facebook Event page to comment and chat, here's the link:
www.facebook.com/events/15655...

What are the most workable scores in the opinion of the professional players? We'll find out this weekend. Hope to see you there!

What are best practices for assigning percussion parts in a score, not to mention changing between instruments? We'll take a look at Danyal's work-in-progress, discuss the practicality of concert percussion stage layouts, & compare how the repertoire makes certain demands on percussionists.

Percussion Scoring - Instrument Distribution/Changes YouTube video by OrchestrationOnline

PERCUSSION SCORING: PLAYER DISTRIBUTION/CHANGES
Please join me for a discussion between percussionist/composer/conductor Jamie Whitmarsh and film/concert composer Danyal Dhondy.
youtube.com/live/qlR831q...

...as various modes and keys circle around its centre. It's a great warmup to the final act of this mini-opera-within-an-oratorio, In Taberna Quando Sumus (coming next month).

...which leads to an overview of the key relationships of all four songs in this In Taberna section. Despite the somewhat random-sounding string of solos topped by an choral patter-song, there IS a definite harmonic scheme holding all the songs together around the pitch of A...

This standout baritone solo provides a lesson in scoring the upper vocal register with effective, over-the-top dramatic excess - and also illustrates some juicy teamups with brass and percussion. Orff's use of polytonality helps the choir feel more like a soul-shout than precisely-pitched harmony...

Carmina Burana XIII. Ego sum Abbas Cucaniensis YouTube video by OrchestrationOnline

CARMINA BURANA XIII. EGO SUM ABBAS CUCANIENSIS
After the dedicated hedonist & the roasted swan comes the comedic supervillain! In this case, a gambling monk who literally wins the pants off his unwary fellow taverngoers, and leaves them crying out against the cruelties of fate.
youtu.be/JfFkyrq6lDU

And there are more on the way - I plan to drop at least 1 video preview per month until the book comes out. Watch for the next one in a couple weeks, and in the meantime dive into this playlist if you haven't watched some or all of these tips yet!

Some of these date back to the very early days of the channel, when I was releasing a text tip every day (and a video every week). But it's interesting that more than 1/3rd of the videos are previews from my next book 100 LAST Orchestration Tips, to be released later this year.

ORCHESTRATION TIPS PLAYLIST UPDATED!
The Orchestration Tips YouTube Playlist (linked below) has now been updated to reflect all video tips I've released over the past decade+.

www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

From here, the preparation for my book 100 Last Orchestration Tips' release is going to ramp up a bit, with more preview tips coming soon for the community, and more focus on my side as my book nears completion. Stand by, lots of new content coming to the channel and website this month!

The band literature may provide even more compelling and varied combinations - but I'll leave it to our concert band arrangers and composers to explicate and explore. And with this, I feel like my orchestration tips have turned a bit of a corner.

Though I go into pretty thorough detail here in this video, with excerpts from Stravinsky, Respighi, and Shostakovich, I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of potential combinations - and so to a degree have orchestral concert composers.

In other words, how do clarinet family members combine playing parallel tones and melodies two octaves apart? What are the best registers for dual instruments, and the timbral implications? And how does this apply to the clarinet combined with flute and bassoon?

2 Octave Wind Duos, Part 3: Single Reed Combinations YouTube video by OrchestrationOnline

2-OCTAVE WIND DUOS, PART 3: SINGLE-REED COMBINATIONS
Begun back in July of last year, then put on hold during the wrap-up of evaluations for the 2023 Orchestration Challenge, my series on 2-Octave Woodwind Unison Duos is now made complete with this third and last chapter.
youtu.be/I2R4EtygZ1Q

I also take a look at the context of this song's appearance in the original medieval codex, around which poems of being a lonely scribe, and asking one's superiors for warmer clothing inform this introspective dirge.

I explore both the vocal technique of the Orff-approved tenor Gerhard Stoltze, and the ethereal orchestration that flutters, throbs, and keens along to his performance.

...with a reduced orchestra distilled to the shallowest, most brittle timbres in accompaniment to a piercing countertenor line designed to start in head voice and slowly float down to a weepy, self-pitying lament.

Carmina Burana XII: Olim lacus colueram YouTube video by OrchestrationOnline

CARMINA BURANA XII: OLIM LACUS COLUERAM
This intense kernel of dramatic agony comes right at the halfway point in Carl Orff's sprawling song cycle; with the tenor solo's only appearance. But what an appearance it is...
youtu.be/rjh6CF_QN84

Happy to get to the end of the month and be a little bit ahead instead of behind as happened so much over the past couple years. Great stuff is on the way, stand by...

Thanks to all my supporters for making this possible! I've been happily scripting, shooting, and editing videos for the past month, with a new momentum since the New Year started and the Orchestration Challenge evaluations are all complete.

...with score/audio excerpts by Bruch, Schumann, Mahler, and Bruckner - plus a look back to see how my Carmina Burana score analysis videos might be relevant.

...including strengthening and darkening harmonies, balanced integration of elements from the subtle to the massive, and all-out onslaughts of octaves and unisons. I previewed one of the images from this tip during the live Q&A earlier this month. Now here's the full tip...

Orchestration Tip: Trombone/Horn Combinations YouTube video by OrchestrationOnline

ORCHESTRATION TIP: TROMBONE/HORN COMBINATIONS
A chapter-in-progress from 100 LAST Orchestration Tips, taking a deeper look into the possible teamups between trombones and horns...
youtu.be/yHeiL8Uq77s

2026 is starting on a strong footing, at least with this series of videos on Orff's masterpiece. Thanks so much everyone for standing by, now we're back on track with fresh content for training & study. Another tip to come for this month, then a whole variety of different video releases coming Feb.

There are some fantastic songs in this vein throughout the In Taberna section of Carmina Burana - and I'm really looking forward to sharing my analysis of them over the next few months, before we get into the final Cours d'amour run of songs.

After a long break tending to the 2023 Orchestration Challenge, it was great to jump back into some solid score analysis, & I feel this is some of my best work yet. I highly recommend this video in particular for developing orchestrators, as I scripted/produced it on a universal level of discourse.

The music is dark and forceful, pulsing to a driving beat that has a lot in common to today's hard rock - and stacked textures that seem quite simple in structure but are nonetheless carefully crafted and devastatingly effective.

Carmina Burana XI. Estuans Interius YouTube video by OrchestrationOnline

CARMINA BURANA XI: ESTUANS INTERIUS
Orff at his most operatic, heroic, chivalric, and even metallic: a blasting, scorching ode to the Goliard lifestyle: gambling, drinking, partying, and companionship; with a dedication to Venus and a desire to float on the winds of fate. youtu.be/gkm0iajns6Q