This book studies the hyperorchestra as used in music for the screen and draws from the intersection of practice and theory. The term hyperorchestra derives from hyperreality, a postmodern philosophical concept coined by Jean Baudrillard. The hyperorchestra is a virtual ensemble that inhabits hyperreality. It approaches music spectrally with the aim of becoming a more effective vessel for meaning generation. The book is informed by concepts from postmodern philosophy, such as hyperreality and Marshall McLuhan's media theory. The book is also informed by the author's own compositional practice; it describes contemporary processes, current software tools, orchestration and instrumentation principles, and contemporary approaches to music composition (such as spectral music). In doing so, the book proposes a new perspective for analyzing contemporary film music that pinpoints the importance of the relationship between timbre, meaning, and the different narrative levels within an audiovisual piece.
The Hyperorchestra
The book is divided into two parts. The first part, Theoretical and Practical Foundations, provides theoretical grounds for the hyperorchestra in three areas.
Chapter 2 focuses on the philosophical background from which to describe the hyperorchestra. It is divided into two parts. First, there is an investigation of how postmodern philosophy defined the concept of hyperreality and how it was informed by McLuhan’s highly influential theory of media. Second, I analyze the aesthetic and philosophical foundations that emanated from introducing digital visual tools to cinema, emphasizing Prince’s theory of Perceptual Realism.
Chapter 3 is devoted to investigating the process of increased virtualization of the musical phenomenon since the introduction of recording technologies, culminating in a preliminary definition of the hyperorchestra. This chapter expands the ideas from the second chapter into music.
Chapter 4 describes innovations in screen scoring practice through digital tools. Thus, it provides an account and a taxonomical analysis of these tools for the contemporary screen composer. A significant part of the chapter is devoted to virtual instruments, proposing a set of taxonomies to describe and analyze them and a practice-induced typology.
The second part, The Hyperorchestra and the Contemporary Aesthetics for Screen Music, is devoted to aesthetics.
Chapter 5 provides three frameworks and eight examples to describe hyperorchestral practices. First, I describe how screen scoring became a nonlinear process with the aid of digital technologies. Then, I propose a model to describe and analyze hyperinstruments and the hyperorchestra. I use a selection of movies and TV shows to exemplify these models.
Chapter 6 is dedicated to hyperorchestration, encompassing a set of techniques used in writing music with the hyperorchestra. I draw from the examples and analyses from the previous chapter and supplement them with examples from other movies to demonstrate the application of the hyperorchestration techniques I am describing. The chapter includes a description of the process of creating hyperinstruments based on the framework proposed in the previous chapter, along with a detailed description of how mixing should be considered analogous to any other orchestration technique in the domain of the hyperorchestra.
1 Introduction
Screen Composers as Filmmakers
The Computer and Audiovisual Storytelling
Is this a treaty on Hans Zimmer’s aesthetics?
A Theory Informed by Practice Approach on Timbre, Organology, and Technology
Scope
Terminology
A User-Friendly Glossary of Concepts
PART I: Theoretical and Practical Foundations
2. From Hyperreality to Digital Cinema: A Theoretical Overview
A Philosophical Model for the Hyperreal
Digital Cinema, Virtual Realities, and the Hyperreal
3. Conceptualizing the Hyperorchestra
A process of increased virtualization
The Hyperorchestra: A Technological Definition
4 The Digital Tools for the Hyperorchestra: MIDI, Virtual Instruments, and Digital Music
The end of pen and paper: the toolkit for the contemporary screen composer
The interface effect and the Musical Instruments Digital Interface (MIDI)
The effect of the mockup: Replica and simulacra of the film orchestra
Modeling the Real: Sampling Techniques for the Hyperreal Production
Classifying Virtual Instruments: Taxonomies
A Practice-induced Typology of Virtual Instruments
PART II: The Hyperorchestra and the contemporary aesthetics for screen music
5 Hyperorchestral Aesthetic Frameworks for the Screen Music Composer
Hyperorchestral Screen Music Analysis: A Sonic Approach
Music Creation Frameworks
Creating Music in the Digital Age: A Collaborative and Nonlinear Mode of Composition
Hyperinstruments: a timbral revolution
The hyperorchestra and the generation of meaning
6 Hyperorchestration: Sonic Strategies for the Creation of Meaning
On Orchestration: a Birdseye Overview
Hyperinstrumentation and Virtual Organology
Mixing as a mode of Hyperorchestration
Spectral Transformations: Timbre, Harmony, and Dynamic Hyperorchestration
Expanding Western Orchestration Principles with the Hyperorchestra