J. Anthony Allen breaks orchestration into three layers: foreground (the melody), middleground (supporting harmonies and counter-melodies), and background (accompaniment like arpeggios and bass lines). Any string instrument can occupy any layer. Violins don't have to carry the melody, and cellos or basses can lead instead.
Okay, so when we think about orchestration, and this isn't just a string thing, this is true of the whole orchestra. But I really want to dive into it here on the strings, because it's kind of easiest to deal with in this smaller category of just the strings. One of the big things we focus on are these three layers, okay? Foreground, middle ground and background. The idea here is that foreground is basically your melody. Your melody or melodic stuff, your main. Your main thing, the thing that you want. People walking away whistling. The thing that you really want them to focus on, right? It's the focus of the piece. The middle ground is any kind of like counter melody or any material that just really supports the melody. So it could be accompanimental material, but it's mostly things that are supporting the main melody. Like a counter melody, like a harmony. Anything that is like a counterpoint to the melody, that's going to be middle ground. Basically, things that are in important to help bring the melody forward, but not the things that you want people to really latch onto. Like, if there's a counter melody, you don't want people walking away singing the counter melody, right? You want them singing the melody. And then the background material is the accompaniment. So anything that's like arpeggios or rhythmic things, or just chords, just harmonies, bass lines are often in the background thing, although they can be in the other two, depending on what kind of bass line you're doing. And we'll look at that later. But anything that can be considered just accompaniment. Now, all three layers are important. It's not that one is more important than the other. And they also, common misconception, do not align with register. It is not true that your melody is always in the violins. And your violins are the foreground, and your cellos and basses are always the background, and your violas and violin twos are the middle ground. That's not true. One thing I want to get in your head, probably the most important thing about this entire section, that any of those five parts of the string section can be the foreground, middle ground, or background. It is not true that the violins always get the melody. Give the melody to the cellos sometimes. It's amazing. Give the melody to the bass sometimes and let the violins be the accompaniment. You can do that, and we'll look at ways of doing that. So to see this idea, foreground, middle ground, background. We always want to be thinking about that when we're working with orchestration in terms of these layers, okay? So. So keep that in mind. So first our first big topic is I want to focus on the foreground. How can we get something really to shine in the foreground? Okay, so that's our next big chunk stuff, so let's dive in.
