#string ensembles

[thalialunacy]

In the category of Strong Opinions Nobody Asked For.... Can we talk about how the orchestrations of almost all* the pop songs in Bridgerton et al are an injustice to both the source materials and the string players?

And ayyy I'm not a string player. But I am the child of two classical musicians, and am a thoroughly trained classical vocalist with 2 degrees in performance and 20 years of high-level choral singing.

And I love me a string ensemble! There's something magical in there, full stop.

HOWEVER COMMA

Strings =/= voice.

Voice =/= strings.

Each have their own beauty, strengths, and limitations. And both do melody very well. But they are so different.

I have some experience of this on the vocalist side: I am a soprano who has yelled a lot abt dead white dude composers frequently treating singers like instruments, when we 1) have words, and 2) have to, idk, BREATHE, MOTHERFUCKERS. (Bach, I hate thee like Eliot hates people stealing his sandwiches, I am not a god damn violin okay. And don't get me started on Brahms telling me to sing pppp above the staff, what a cunt.)

As far as I can tell, the decision on Bridgerton seems to be 'let's try our best to be both singers and drum tracks, which obviously means sawing everything and being as percussive as possible.' Which just, like hurts. Emotionally and physically.

Eg: (from 'Queen Charlotte') 'Halo' is one of the most beautiful, smoothest melodies of all time, and I KNOW string players could play it beautifully. But somebody told them they need to fuckin bite every damn note as marcato, which, why?! It's jarring af.

Now, would the lines sound way less familiar without the demarcations where sung syllables would be? Of fucking course they would. As they should. Beyonce is not a violin and a violin is not Beyonce.

And tbh? As long as we're converting pop music this poorly, it's not going to be respected in the classical world.

* the exception: 'Confident' was p good; the sawing was appropriate in that case

[duodamore]

String Quartet Wedding Ensembles Vaughan

String Quartet Wedding Ensembles Vaughan. Duo d’Amore is an award winning string ensemble, made up of professional violinists, violists and cellists. Together we have versatile string ensembles such a s solo violinists and cellists, string duos, string trios and quartets. We perform a wide variety of music including pop, Top40 and classical for weddings, special and corporate events. Whatever…

[hlseydaily]

June 21, 2023 | Halsey performing ‘Young God’ at the Live String Ensemble Concert in NJ!

[cannedbluesblog]

Jon Lord with ARP Synths

[garadinervi]

La Monte Young, Trio For Strings, (Cardboard box set containing 4xVinyl), DIA21TFS, Dia Art Foundation, New York, NY, 2021 [Fondazione Bonotto, Colceresa (VI). Art: © La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, Jung Hee Choi]

Composition by La Monte Young Performance by The Theatre of Eternal Music String Ensemble led by Charles Curtis

Charles Curtis, Reynard Rott: cello Christopher Otto, Erik Carlson: viola, violin

Liner Notes: Jung Hee Choi, La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela Design: Jung Hee Choi Calligraphy: Marian Zazeela

«This vinyl box set is the first-ever official release of La Monte Young's 'Trio for Strings' (1958), recorded live from the Dream House, a legendary sound-and-light installation by Young, Marian Zazeela, and Jung Hee Choi, and performed by The Theatre of Eternal Music String Ensemble led by Charles Curtis and featuring Curtis, cello; Reynard Rott, cello; Erik Carlson, violin, viola; and Christopher Otto, violin, viola, at Dia:Chelsea in 2015. Featuring a box cover designed by Choi with calligraphy by Zazeela, the collection includes four discs and a 32-page set of liner notes with essays by Young, Zazeela, and Choi.» ― Dia:

[halseygray]

Halsey performing during Night 2 of the Live String Ensemble Shows by itssammismith via Twitter

[rainecloud22]

Yes I made enstars merch for my art class, what about it

[marsharmonicorchestra]

I gave in :)

mercy by duffy — bridgerton style (so far)

[gouinisme]

thinking you're being joke racist with a #fellow african in a #majority white space and turns out he's just actual racist...

[zinziinziiin]

isotopes on a string

[hlseydaily]

June 22, 2023 | Halsey performing ‘Hurricane’ at the Live String Ensemble Concert in NJ!

[rachaelmayo]

This is a Jazzdragon jam session, done in 2007. That's vaguely Kansas City in the background. Most of my focus was on the dragons, naturally.

I used markers, watercolor, and Polychromos pencils on the dragons. The red dragon's raised wing is cut out from clear mylar. The blue dragon's bass is strung with silver mylar thread. The background is painted with acrylic. I used a flat piece of matboard to do most of the painting.

[colorsdescribeme]

Halsey singing 100 Letters with the string ensemble is killing me

[halseygray]

Halsey performing during Night 2 of the Live String Ensemble Shows by itssammismith via Twitter

[rabid-dog-steve-horn]

The Devil Went Down to Georgia - Berklee Electric Strings - Charlie Dani...

[maglarks]

In primary school there was this guy in the string ensemble who pronounced spaghetti as ‘bisgetti’ so the entire ensemble called him ‘Bid’ for about a year i miss that era of bullying