How to Choose Instruments
Questions to ask yourself first
- What is your budget?
- How many instruments CAN you write for?
- What is your final project going to look like? Will you record musicians or use samples?
- What range do you wish to cover?
- SOPRANO
- ALTO
- TENOR
- BASS
- What roles do yo wish to cover?
- MELODIC
- HARMONIC
- RHYTHMIC
Instrumentation Roles
Ideally, each instrument we chose should both have a specific role that they play, and cover for a specific voice range. It’s possible to write for a smaller amount of different voices, but the SOPRANO voice and the BASS should always minimally be there to have a sense of harmony going on.
Instruments can have more than one role, but more often than not, instruments have a roles they are most specifically designed to accomplish.
Examples:
- The drums are best suited to the rhythmic role
- The flute is best suited to play melodies
- The electric bass is best suited for playing bass lines and support the harmony
Though, instruments like the piano, guitar and harp are also very well suited to both play a melodic & harmonic rule in music. In very small ensembles or on a low budget, they are very well paired with a melodic instrument such as the voice. That’s why they are instruments of choice for songwriters.
Duo Example
Voice & Piano
- The voice will play the MELODIC ROLE and will sing the SOPRANO range.
- The piano will cover for the HARMONY and will play the 3 other missing voices
Trio Example
Flute, Guitar, Cello
- The flute will play the MELODIC role and play the SOPRANO voice
- The Guitar will have mainly an HARMONIC role in the ensemble and cover up for the inner missing harmony parts such as the ALTO and TENOR voice. As a second role, it can nicely add RHYTHMIC elements to the music.
- The Cello will play the HARMONIC role and the BASS voice.
Quartet Example
2 violins, alto & cello
Violin I MELODIC/SOPRANO
Violin II HARMONIC/ALTO
Alto HARMONIC/TENOR
Cello HARMONIC/BASS
Conclusion
So basically, with our instruments we try to cover as wide as a range as possible, and we try to AT LEAST cover the SOPRANO & BASS voices. They constitute the very core elements of music creation. The rhythms come right after, they add a very nice touch to any ensembles either it is added in the form of a guitar strumming pattern or a dedicated percussion section.