Introduction to Orchestration by Thomas Goss. See my “Orchestration” category here on my blog for more music orchestration study tips.

Thinking horizontal vs. vertical and the continuity of each instrument.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMVkeFh9Qto

Thank you Thomas so much for posting your videos. I found them very helpful in many ways. One of the ways it helped me was on my setup. I’m in Macau, China and don’t have all my gear, but I have a MacBook Pro, several sound libraries from East/West Quantum Leap (Strings, Piano, Goliath, RA, Fab Four, Ministry of Rock, etc,) and a Roland JV 2080 with several sound cards. It’s been killing me the amount of time I’ve been spending in setup and trying to get the “perfect” template for my current project setup with Sibelius music notation software. Between your videos and seeing the two piano reductions of Holst’s PLANETS – I was shown it doesn’t matter if the sound is perfect – I need to just hear it in my head the way it should be; and use the notation playback with a grain of salt knowing the playback is very rough. Now I’m back on track and working on my project (and waiting for the next Thomas Goss Youtube videos of course!)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydiKMUAPSGw

Texture, Balance and Function

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcyuESHHAIg

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58OUqhYYdMQ

About Thomas Goss:

Thomas Goss’s credits as a composer include music written for dance, film, television, and the concert stage. His works have been commissioned and premiered by such groups as Marin Symphony, Earplay, Onyx String Quartet, and the San Francisco Symphony Chamber Ensemble, and he has created concerto repertoire for soloists such as violist Linda Ghidossi-DeLuca and erhuist Xiaofeng Zhang.

Goss is involved in ongoing residencies with several artistic organizations. With the Santa Rosa Symphony Young People’s Chamber Orchestra, his 4-year residency has produced a body of new work for string orchestra.

As composer/orchestrator for the Punk Rock Orchestra, Goss has arranged punk rock for orchestra, transformed classics into punk anthems, and is helping to develop a punk opera. Recently retired from the position of resident composer for Moving Arts Dance Collective, his output included collaborations with choreographers Charles Anderson, Robert Moses, and Anandha Ray.

As an educator, Thomas Goss’s activites are international in scope, with appearances as mentor and guest lecturer at Brown University, San Francisco Conservatory’s preparatory program, and at the Composers’ Association of New Zealand’s Young Composers Workshop at the Nelson School of Music in New Zealand. He helped to create the successful Composer-in-the-Schools program at School of the Arts and Lowell High School in San Francisco, now in its seventh year.

“Tane and the Kiwi,” his tone poem for narrator and orchestra, was written in collaboration with noted children’s entertainer Jennifer Moss, and premiered by Moss with the Auckland Philharmonia in several performances of the “Kiwi Kapers” series, which teaches children about both music and ecology.

In promoting the cause and awareness of contemporary music, Goss has participated in the commissioning and presentation of hundreds of works by American composers, particularly in Northern California as a director of New Release Alliance and as a member of the steering committee of the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the American Composers Forum. Goss is a well-known and prolific commentator on new music and the West Coast classical music scene. His reviews, interviews and observations have appeared regularly in the journals Sounding Board, 20th/21st Century Music, and San Francisco Classical Voice.

The Thomas Goss Haircut

Now since Thomas has been posting videos for a while we’re able to compare different haircut styles. I think I prefer the shorter cut but I think Thomas should post a video and let his subscribers vote.