Well the title says it all really. It was prompted by finding this video on YouTube.

Personally, I think the electric guitar can certainly be used properly in an orchestra; Steve Vai shows us how here. I'm not a fan of the piece, to be honest, it sounds far too 20th century for my liking!

I'd just like to read your thoughts.

EDIT: This one's cool, far less intense and a real fusion piece.

Well if the Ondes Martenot is acceptable I think anything goes. Except I've never been keen on Steve Vai, even in his days with Zappa. Tippet used electric guitar in "Songs for Dov" and I have seen an opera featuring bass guitar in the pit band.

No I'm not keen on Mr Vai myself really. I'm much more a Satriani guy, but then again, he was Steve's teacher.

slightly off topic but there was a guy playing an electric trumpet in one of the orchestras I play in and it sounded awful. He had to hum down it to get the sound and sounded rediculous during the quiter phrases where humming was all you could hear!

Why not? There's noting sacred about a particular line up. After all, a vibraphone isn't that unusual in the perc section and that plugs in! For myself, I rather like the romantic orchestra, but that doesn't mean we can't have other combinations ...

There was an all-electric string orchestra in London in the late 1980s - bit of a gimmick, I think. Also, there's Glenn Branca's pieces for electric guitar orchestra (NOT advised for anyone who values their hearing - seriously) and of course Mike Oldfield's electric guitar quartet in Tubular Bells...if you can find the original video of this (c1972), it's well worth watching.

nick

OK - here's the Oldfield - they seem to have most of it up here. Dig the 1970s haircuts also!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=t9A60e16SvM

There's also a lot of Branca stuff on Youtube - a much safer way of encountering it.

nick

If it "works", as this seems to, even though not to my taste, then fine.

I found a lot of the symphony orchestra arrangements of well known rock songs that seemed popular a decade or so ago didn't work in any really musical sense. Transferring a vocal line from a rough and untrained (but equally raw & untamed) lead singer of a really dynamic and distinctive four-piece rock band to the cultured tones of a string, woodwind or brass section, within an orchestra, losing all the dynamics and the qualities that made the song great in the first place, just ruined a lot of good music. However, that is the fault of the concept behind the arrangement, not necessarily the juxtaposition of instruments.

Having said which there is no intrinsic reason I can think of why 'electric" i.e. electronic (both electronically amplified acoustically originated and fully electronically generated) instruments shouldn't mix with completely acoustic instruments, and at least one reason why they might work well: Amplification allows greater variation of volume so that the acoustic and the electronic can match. The most obvious example is the rock band, where acoustic guitars and basses (and voices) would be completely drowned out by the acoustic drums unless amplified.

You can use anything anywhere if it sounds right

Not sure that he does

For me that would be an understatement. The way it started I thought he must have skipped Harmony classes, then it went on and I realized it was Orchestration where he was paying no attention ... then that self indulgent whiney solo started over the repetitive drone of the Orchestra.

At three minutes I couldn't take any more. Did it improve?

He should listen to the graduation concerts of a set of average composition students. A zillion times better music and most of them will never be famous.

I think Beethoven's reputation is safe.

He's actually very well known for having a very thorough knowledge of musical theory. There're no mistakes in that piece harmony wise!

You're right, his tone is no Brian May.

Not really, but that's why I included the second piece in the edit. Have a look at that, far shorter and a lot better IMHO.

I once heard a string quintet where the 5th instrument was an overdriven guitar - it was actually really effective, I can't remember who it was by but it was called "after the requiem". you say "a bit too 20th century" - surely if an ensemble contains an electric/electronic instrument it has to be playing 20th or 21st century music?

They will do!

Yeah, I just meant harmony wise. Too dissonnant for my tastes!

I agree with pretty much all of this.

I was driving home a couple of months ago and heard on the radio a string quartet playing a medley of James Bond themes. It was excruciating. I ended up shouting at the radio then turning it off. There is so much beautiful music for string quartet why they had to choose that I don't know.

I am sure that electric/electronic instruments with an orchestra can be made to work and for the electronic instrument to add something special to the mix.

Add to that the astonishing range of tone colours available on an electric guitar compared to acoustic. I reckon a lot of our "old favourite" composers would have loved it.

I completely agree. There are so many variables that allow the player to express so much. Changing from a plastic to a metal pick, for example, or using a tube amp instead of a ghastly solid-state amp!

Pit orchestras almost always have electric guitars and keyboards.

The use of Electric Bass rather than String Bass in Pit Orchestras is commonplace.

It depends how they are used and how they are amplified. Electric and Acoustic instruments can work together very well if they guy (american usage, this is an inclusive term) on the sound desk knows what they are doing.

However you do need dynamic amplification and someone who really knows the kit operating the sound desk or it can sound awful.

This was the orchestra for an opera (Cornet Cristoph Rilke's Song of Love and Death) not a musical, so seemed a bit unusual to me. No sound desk or PA, just a Trace Elliot stack in the pit.

If memory serves me right, the entire band numbered 11. Wind, percussion and bass.

Yum! A Trace Elliot! That'd do me. I suppose that's really what I was asking. Let's forget sound engineers for the moment: a bass guitar with an amp? On its own? Surely....not? :s

I was recently on board Queen Mary 2 for a transatlantic crossing.
The "Royal Court Theatre" orchestra included a wonderful brass section, woodwind players, percussionist and pianist, but the string section was entirely represented by keyboards.
One show in particular featured a Viennese Ballroom scene with appropriate music. The effect of the electronic strings was VERY convincing.

Absolutely yes. After all an electric bass with a good stack can easily produce as much volume as several string basses and you don't put those through a PA.

Oh and I checked the instrumentation on Breitkopf's (publisher) website.
4 flutes, Horn, 2 Harps, Bass guitar, Percussion.

. . . and then some!!

I have a Fender Precision (and a Yamaha) and a Trace-Elliot Combo: When I turn the Amp up even half way you need to raise your voice to be heard in the Garden 50 yards away! The power (and therefore the volume) of amplified instruments is only limited by the amount of power the sound engineer can pull off the grid/generator and then control. Anyone been to a rock festival? Instruments amplified to be heard clearly by over 100,000 people can be claimed confidently to produce more volume than any number of string basses!