It’s July 4th and I got up late today. We fixed an easy meal on the grill and settled in to watch the concerts. Which of course reminded me I hadn’t spent any time with the Spectratone chart in the past few days.

I decided to start out with Professional Orchestration 2A - Orchestrating the Melody Within the String Section. I started out on page 5 with Elgar’s Enigma Variations example for Violins 1 + Violins 2 in unison. Caroline bequeathed me her colored pencils. So I’m set up in the den with a bright light behind me.

I’m using for my table, a mini-server table thingey that’s wide enough for a plate, a glass, and the ultimate power tool in the universe - the TV remote. On the floor next to me - a chilled Diet Coke. I’m stylin’.

I plow forward working out the coloration of the string section. Lange’s principles come roaring through as I work out this first section. However, I have to admit that with my own book, I prefer the PDF version for analysis since all I have to do is print what pages I need. And if I screw up looking worse than I did as kid in Romper Room, I can print out another clean page!

Why do I say this? Because I have these dysfunctional little colorized Rorschach-like blobs in my orchestration book, that’s why.

OK, so I orchestrate better than I color. Shoot me!

Because the Violins are sul G, Lange’s insights come alive as you see through colors how the intensity builds as you go higher up the overtone series on the G-string.

Coloring the violas, cellos and basses brings up another observation - fingerings. Since the Spectratone chart colorizes the intensity on each string, you now observe the different fingering options open to the string player.

Good stuff.

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