Hello. My name is George Marshall and I am the founder of Any Old Music. I am a composer with over 10-years of experience, having completed work on 50+ projects for video-games, films and the concert hall. In 2020, I completed my doctorate in Music Composition. My PhD was on constraint and how it emerges in creative projects. For example, team discussions in video-game projects. If a video-game team presented a mood-board and certain briefs, these constrain and challenge the composer to compose in a particular way or style. Less quantifiable than, say, the application of serialism, but probably just as (if not more) constraining and creatively directing. It was during my PhD that I realised that there would only be two outcomes for me as a composer: I became a professional composer who needed to compose lots of music in not enough time. I became an amateur/hobbyist or semi-professional composer who needed to compose less music but still with not enough time. With this in mind I eventually opted for something more along the lines of semi-professional, but with an ambition of setting up Any Old Music as a means of helping similarly time strapped music makers. Particularly those in the second group, the hobbyists and semi-professionals, whose composing competes much more for time against other aspects of life. Composition is incredibly rewarding. You never stop learning and developing as a composer. Furthermore, many of us boast renegade autodidactic personalities to a certain extent. My hope is that Any Old Music’s self-paced composition courses can help composers to continue growing, by learning through creating and doing so in their own time.
How to orchestrate a melody
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I have just published a new article on orchestration that distills a question I hear (and feel) a lot: When you have a good melody, how do you actually decide how to orchestrate it? 👉 How to Orchestrate a Melody – There Are Only Six Ways The main idea is simple: instead of thinking in endless instrumental combinations, it’s often more helpful to think in a small number of perceptual categories: solo, unison, octave, intervallic doubling, and so on. The article walks through those six categories, with examples from Dvořák’s The Golden Spinning Wheel, and shows how the same melody can feel noble, intimate, weighty, or synthetic simply through orchestration choices. If you’d like a quick reference, I’ve also made a short public summary PDF of the article here: Next week I am planning to update and discuss my progress on Winnie the Pooh for concert band. Hope to see you there, have a great week! In the meantime, as always, any questions or thoughts: please get in touch. Regards, P.S. If you haven’t read it yet, the full article is here again: https://anyoldmusic.com/how-to-orchestrate-a-melody/ |
Any Old Music
Hello. My name is George Marshall and I am the founder of Any Old Music. I am a composer with over 10-years of experience, having completed work on 50+ projects for video-games, films and the concert hall. In 2020, I completed my doctorate in Music Composition. My PhD was on constraint and how it emerges in creative projects. For example, team discussions in video-game projects. If a video-game team presented a mood-board and certain briefs, these constrain and challenge the composer to compose in a particular way or style. Less quantifiable than, say, the application of serialism, but probably just as (if not more) constraining and creatively directing. It was during my PhD that I realised that there would only be two outcomes for me as a composer: I became a professional composer who needed to compose lots of music in not enough time. I became an amateur/hobbyist or semi-professional composer who needed to compose less music but still with not enough time. With this in mind I eventually opted for something more along the lines of semi-professional, but with an ambition of setting up Any Old Music as a means of helping similarly time strapped music makers. Particularly those in the second group, the hobbyists and semi-professionals, whose composing competes much more for time against other aspects of life. Composition is incredibly rewarding. You never stop learning and developing as a composer. Furthermore, many of us boast renegade autodidactic personalities to a certain extent. My hope is that Any Old Music’s self-paced composition courses can help composers to continue growing, by learning through creating and doing so in their own time.
A simple but significant change has happened in my Winnie the Pooh arrangement. The whole piece has been transposed down a tone (major 2nd) and the arrangement is now beginning to take shape in full concert band score, having reached a level of detail in the condensed sketch that felt solid enough to build from. So today, I thought I would share how that move is going: what seems to be working well, what seems less convincing, and why. Down a tone First, the decision to transpose the score...
After a steady run of Winnie the Pooh updates over the past few weeks, I thought it might be a good moment to give the Hundred Acre Wood a brief rest. In the background, I have been quietly working on something many of you will recognise. Over the years I have shared various videos, notes, and course materials analysing Grieg’s Morning Mood. Several readers have asked for something a little more concise and easier to revisit without digging through full lessons. I have finally turned that...
Perhaps it is the sickness bug talking, and I am delirious!? But, I think I may have nudged my Winnie the Pooh introduction a little further forward simply by sitting down to write to you. I had intended to report that I was stuck. Instead, what has emerged is a clearer picture of three developing versions of the opening, each revealing something useful about the direction of travel. I think they also each get closer to the introduction I would like. Below you will see extracts from each...