1. Download the file: ScoringProject1.zip from the Canvas Scoring Project #1 – String Excerpts assignment page.
2. Open the ScoringProject1.zip and work with these various files to complete your assignment.
3. First, listen carefully to the audio orchestral excerpts 1, 2 & 3 while following the piano reductions provided. Then, use the corresponding five-part string orchestra scores to complete the passages exactly as you hear them, including articulations, slurs and then add idiomatic bowing indications of downbows and upbows.
a. Excerpt 1: Hint – the violas play divisi and the double bass part is independent at times.
b. Excerpt 2: Hint – do you need to add octaves in the bass?
c. Excerpt 3: Hint – the second violins and violas play some non-divisi double stops.
4. Next, download the file ‘Pizzicato_Duo_Bartok_Observations.pdf’, then listen carefully to the audio of the #43 – Pizzicato duo by Bela Bartok. The original duo material is at the bottom of the corresponding ‘Excerpt4_BartokDuo43_Pizzicato’ score file. Orchestrate the duo into a five-part string orchestra version as instructed here:
d. Excerpt 4 – Bartok’s Duo #43 – Pizzicato:
- Highlight the ‘call & response’ elements in the music by rotating the register of the primary melodic material between different instrument types, their strings & register colors. Use ascending or descending direction for your register rotation technique. Dovetailing may be helpful and/or necessary.
- Consider carefully your use of the color of the individual strings in your instrument types.
- Score the chords by expanding them into different instrument types. Pizzicato chord strumming is also allowed but only in limited amounts.
- In addition to pizzicato performance technique, use other short articulations such as spiccato, staccato, martelé, col legno battuto, and of course Bartok’s snap pizzicato to express variety in articulation. You may also use harmonics. Use at least three different string performance techniques.
- Divisi scoring of dyads (two pitches) is allowed, but do not use multiple stops except for pizzicato chord strumming.
- Begin your version at the exact pitches and registers as the opening of the violin duo, but expand your scoring so that your melodic and harmonic material is at least doubled or tripled in octaves. Basically, vary the range and tessitura of the #43 – Pizzicato duo in your score.
- Listen to the violin duo recording and the use of expressive dynamics. Emulate the recording when you apply your dynamic markings, crescendos & decrescendos; OR, devise your own scheme for dynamics.
- On the Canvas submission page, click on the Excerpt 4, Bartok’s #43 Pizzicato Duo Discussion link and submit an essay describing how you met these requirements – why did you orchestrate the duo the way that you did? Follow the prompts carefully. Minimum word length: 400-word count.
5. Once you’ve finished all of your assignment, upload all of your completed project materials in a folder as a COMPRESSED zip file labeled something like this: ScoringProject1_YourName.zip