Howard Who?

As the symphony orchestra has generally become the mouthpiece for museum music (i.e. music written by people who are dead) and film scores (i.e. music that plagarizes the people who are dead), it is satisfying to hear the orchestra used in pop music. Along with various rock acts playing at the Hollywood Bowl with a full backing orchestra, its use can occasionally be a cliche, sort of like “Look ma, I’m using an orchestra.” In other words, it is the prestige of the orchestra that they want but not necessarily the myriad sound possibilities.

Which is a genuine shame, especially if they have access to such an orchestra. But truth is unless someone involved in such a project has the musical mind to bend the classically trained players to his/her will, they will not budge and simply churn out the acoustic equivalent of Muzak.

No, it doesn’t require classical training, just a curiosity and a playfulness and intelligence. It’s a tradition that stretches back to when George Gershwin made the orchestra swing with Rhapsody in Blue (edit: in keeping with the spirit of this blog post I should mention that Ferde Grofe orchestrated Gershwin’s Rhapsody…though later on when Gershwin became more familiar with it he did his own orchestrations). Fortunately for the rock world, these people still exist.

And I’d like to honor the achievements in rock/orchestra hybrids with a few of the greatest moments in orchestral freak outs!

1. A Day in the Life (mp3) - The Beatles. These guys basically pioneered the orchestral rock sound with this and other songs (the Eleanor Rigby octet jumps to mind). In trying to figure out the transitions for this song, McCartney wanted them to just freak out. The music genius behind the actual freak out was of course George Martin who wrote out the score for the orchestra, which was a similar squiggly line glissandi pioneered by Xenakis in the 1950s. In my Beatles score book, the entire orchestra is boiled down into one part that starts on a B trill (just below middle C) and then ends on a high E. Pretty damn simple but hard to achieve without knowledge of how to write this experimental stuff for an orchestra (especially one in 1967).

2. The National Anthem (mp3) - Radiohead. Johnny Greenwood is the resident genius here. Not only is Greenwood’s ondes martenot (the theremin-sounding instrument) prominently on display, but also the incredible use of a brass section that eventually freaks out. It’s  no wonder that Greenwood became the BBC’s composer in residence in 2004.

3. Gone (mp3) - Kanye West. The genuis here is Jon Brion, who produced many of the tracks on Kanye’s second album. In his score for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Brion skillfully used improv orchestral freak outs to simulate the nightmarish nature of Jim Carrey’s memory loss…the guy had some practice. On Gone, Brion provides a string section that at first backs the Otis Redding track of the chorus. Soon however, everything falls away leaving the drum machine beat and a string section that turns increasingly opaque. By the time Kanye starts rapping again, Brion done gone mad with harmonies that are beautiful Brian Wilson soundscapes…it’s about as big of an orchestral freak out as hip hop has ever had.

4. Sao Paolo (mp3) - The Guillemots. Their album Through the Windowpane begins with lush strings and if I didn’t know I had put on a rock album, I would not have thought that’s what it was. The fitting end to such a beginning is the vibrant album closer that takes us down to cling clang samba of the streets of Brazil, perhaps the best album closer since A Day in the Life. This is the eccentric band’s first album after a string of EPs (the album also features some songs from their From the Cliffs EP also released this year), and their Trains to Brazil single is one of my favorite songs of this year (although it technically came out last year). I don’t know enough about this band to know who the genius is but I feel pretty comfortable calling this entire band genius.

5. Cosmia (mp3) - Joanna Newsom. Though there are no real freak outs, the use of the orchestra is damn near perfect. The genius is Van Dyke Parks who has been a rock eccentric for the past 40 years or so. Not only is Newsom’s harp already symphonic in and of itself, Parks layers a virtuosic string section that evokes the kind of folk nobility the song requires. It’s amazingly cinematic so it’s not surprise that Parks has scored films as well. Along with the Guillemots, Newsom and Parks have restored my faith that the orchestra is not dead yet.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 9th, 2006 at 5:30 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, Classical Music, Lists, Pop Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.