It all started in Italy when Mr. Baldassare Monteverdi and Mrs. Maddelena Zignani had a little baby in 1567, around 450 years ago, named Claudio Monteverdi. This little Monteverdi would become the first known modern orchestral composer and creator of Opera.
Digital Edit Source: Nolan Moore
When Claudio was a teen he began writing music. He published his first works at the age of 15. When he was 20 a variety of his work had already been published. When I was 15 years old I was learning how to drive and running around 5 miles a day. I sit hear and write this at age 21, and I still feel like I am not a master at anything. Claudio was encapsulated and surrounded by some of the best musical mentors at a young age. Imagine what you could do if you were to study under the greatest CEO's, Musicians, Actors/Actresses, Artists, and other greats of today? How prepared would you be to be the next great? That's for you to decide and write your own story.
Source: Christine Moore (Mom)
By the age of 40, Claudio's first opera L'Orfeo was performed in Mantua, Italy. One of the earliest large works for which the exact instrumentation of the premiere is still known is L'Orfeo, arguably the first instance of a composer designating particular instruments to parts in operas. Claudio's genius actions would lead to a long line of great composers of classical music. Which would lead us to our next stop in our journey through the history of mixing orchestral music. The best to ever do it...Johann Sebastian Bach.
Digital Edit Source: Nolan Moore
Johann Sebastian Bach, born in Germany in 1685, was a composer of the Baroque era. Many consider him the greatest composer of all time, rivaling Beethoven, Mozart, and many others. He is best known for his Brandenburg Concertos, “The Well-Tempered Clavier”. Now Bach wrote music that was considered “Old Fashioned” even for his own time. At the time, his music was not very popular, and it took about 50 years after his death for it to no longer be neglected. His music was not popular at the time due to two factors: technology wasn't available yet, and the times were changing. Half of his work was not accessible, and the other half he wrote was not popular because of religious differences. However, musicians of the late 18th century were not ignorant of Bach's music or insensitive to his influence as some modern authors have suggested. Musicians of the 18th century understood where he was coming from and Bach had a profound impact on composers like Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. After 1800 the revival of Bach’s music gained momentum. There were many writers helping publish all of Bach’s work throughout the century. It wasn’t till early 1900 all of his music and life’s work was published. Bach still remains the goat of composing music.
Now here is a timeline of the different eras, composers and their pieces, to help give you a mental picture of where we are at. Reminder, Claudio's lifetime was before this chart started.
Source: Timeline of Classical Music
Now each genre has gone through it's highest and lowest points. Orchestral pieces is not immune to popular culture and the direction the people order their favorite music in.
Source: Data is Beautiful
Classical music was the first genre of music and was the only genre for a long time. Now there is no such date as to when music first started, that’s like guessing when the first fire started in history. Most scholars believe around 1000 A.D. music spread across the West due to the church. The churches across the West had a lot to do with the development of music. Music for the longest of time only had to do with the church. It wasn't until the French priest, poet, and composer Guillaume de Machaut wrote both secular and non-secular music around 1364. It wasn’t till the 15th Century that church was no longer the single main influence on the course of music. Classical music would continue to rise until the birth of Folk and Country music in the early 1900s. Since then there has been a steady decline in Classical music. Today, movies, television, and video games give great reasons for composers to continue to write beautiful pieces of music. Recently, there has been an increase in classical music since 2020. A third of listeners of classical music were of ages 18 to 25 years old. In the same year classical streams were raised by 17% of those under 35 years of age. The lockdown had a major influence on people’s choice of music. A poll was taken for those under the ages of 35, more than a third mentioned that they began listening to classical music to give them a sense of calmness and relaxation. Personally, I don’t think classical music is going anywhere anytime soon.
Now as we walk forward in time, I want to inform you of parts of orchestral history nobody really thinks about. It is a mindless act we do every day, but we never really think about who came up with it to produce high quality music. I highly encourage you to watch this quick three minute video to get a greater grasp before I dive in.
Source: Bristol Beacon
You probably picture an orchestra as a huge room with brass instruments, unusual instruments, and string instruments when you first think of it. At least that's what I think of when I hear the word "orchestra". In that room full of people there is a certain order in which people sit to create different sounds. The person who came up with musician arrangements was Leopold Stokowski. In the early to mid 20th century, Leopold changed the game for musicians all over the world. With the seating arrangement of strings from high to low, left to right, musicians were able to better hear each other when playing. 'Stokowski Shift' became the name of the new arrangement. Might be something you need to know before playing Jeopardy. Having realized that orchestras have now been set up properly, we ask: what was the first big orchestra movie score this new era of orchestra produced?
Source: IMDb
The first use of music in a film occurred in 1895, when a French family was testing the value of their films. There was a live piano that accompanied the film. In 1908, a French company Le Film d'Art offered to provide each film with its own music. The Concerto Opus 128 for strings, piano and harmonium was the first piece ever written for film. In 1932, American composer Max Steiner who was known as the father of film music, scored original music for the film “Symphony of Six Million”. The “Symphony of Six Million” is considered to be the birth of film scores. It was the first film to be used driving the mood, narrative off-screen, and created an immersive experience for the audience. The next year, Max Steiner composed the score for “King King” and film music was never the same. The “King Kong” score pioneered the tradition of having classical composers produce iconic scores. Ennio Morricone, was one of the first composers to score more than 500 films before passing away in 2020 at 91 years old. Today, composers like John Williams, Hans Zimmer, and Michael Giacchino produce the most electric scores for film. Now that we have found ourselves in the 1900s, lets talk about the first remix ever.
Source: Professor Chill
Kool DJ Herc was the first DJ to use the ‘Merry-Go-Round’ technique. The introduction of this technique at a Bronx house party in 1973 marked the beginning of remixing in America. Although he wasn't the first to remix songs, Kool DJ Herc first heard remixing of music in Jamaica. Jamaican dance halls used EQ mixer effects like reverb and echo to modify songs. At the time Ska, Reggae, and rocksteady, and dub were already popular genres. Many Jamaican producers would own multitrack masters of their recordings and would be able to produce any new mix with their songs. Lee "Scratch" Perry remixed tracks by dropping in and out different elements, removing vocal parts, repeating vocal refrains, and adding effects. Due to the number of remixes and re-engineered songs coming out of Jamaica, it can be difficult to pinpoint when the first remix was released. However, the tradition dates back to at least the 1960s, if not earlier. Now that we know around when remixing started we can take out last visit to the machines we use today to remix songs.
Source: Nolan Moore
Today artists use Cubase or FL Studio. Most of the world's top DJs and producers use both programs as well as today's beginners. These programs help easily create and produce your musical thoughts in your head into reality. Samuel Kim and L 'Orchestra Cinematique uses Cubase for all of their projects. Most YouTube Epic Orchestra producers show you their work in these apps. Pictured above is Samuel Kim’s piece “One Day & The Force Theme” that he mashed together. Technology has advanced so much that artists no longer need to use a recording studio to make their albums. Amateur composers don’t even need to hire and schedule a recording performance and use a live orchestra anymore. Now music can be whatever you want using these two programs. Since we started using these programs, the era of "perfect" music has begun. In the documentary Sound City, you can hear the opinions of popular musicians who weren't using these programs say that music from the recording studios era is different from editing all of the errors out. They miss the recording studio days for the experience and sound quality. Personally, I am here for the days of everyone creating music every day. Today’s artists can now produce quicker than ever before and create amazing music from anywhere. We are truly blessed to have these programs in our lives.
Now to finish off my first blog, I wanted to talk about how cool all of this information is.
Source: Nolan Moore
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References
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Staff Writer. (2020, November 9). Orchestra Seating Chart. Redlands Symphony. Retrieved
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