How do you guys come up with string parts?

[Mortal_Dezire]

I'm working on a singer/songwriter style of project with a guy thats really into Damian Rice and he wants strings with the songs. You guys have any tips on where to start with writing some lines? What instruments should I use? Do I just follow the bass notes of the progression or what?

 

[JeffTD]

Root notes follow progression for the most part, and then I'll either play a melody on guitar or just hear it in my head and go from there.

Nice avatar, that Vladstudio picture was my desktop background for the longest time, and still is my phone's wallpaper.

 

[Mortal_Dezire]

Thanks. The Avatar is the album cover from my old band. I always wondered where they got the picture...

 

[JeffTD]

Hahahahaha definitely taken from Vladstudio; copyright infringement for sure.

 

[dcb]

i'm currently working with a band that has a cello and violin player. these guys are crazy - they come into your studio. play their stuff,
add tons of harmony on the fly, even with very complicated scales (halftone, wholtone scales) - if you can, go find someone who plays that
instrument - always sounds better than pushing notes in cubase ;-)

but if you really want to get into that stuff, i would start grabbing books about counterpoint and harmony. you'll learn most importantly how not to cross
voices (thats the main problem for people without theory) - i only knwo the german words for this like querstand ;-) (i study musicology...)
but go grab a book! thats the best way to come up with great lines.

if you're only doing pop arrangements, i would definately try to work with octave root notes and thirds, basically the typical way of arranging simple string segments.

and : singer songwriter mostly needs string quartetts... sometimes for solos a cello is nice to give the song more emotional depth...

 

[Keeper of the Seven Cheese]

Like anything with musical composition, I find it easiest to approach it from the chord progression side of things.

You could start by having things rather simply following the chord progression with 3 notes (1st, 3rd and 5th) paying attention to any inversions implied by bass lines. When starting off this could give you a very good starting 3 voices for your string arrangements. If you would like to then add additional layers it would be good to start thinking about a melody. Whether you'd like to compose it on a piano or guitar is of little importance. This melody then opens itself up to emphasise extensions and chord tones of the progression, introduce movement to the arrangement and harmonies to be written and interwoven with the other chordal layers. This is a rather homophonic way of approaching things and if you are after more a more complex approach, I definitely think it would be good to read up on some counterpoint rules and common approaches.

If you want to start writing them up in a DAW though, I'd say putting in the chords first with a melody on top would be easiest and then you can make small modifications to each voice within each chord to add movement and silence so that it's not all block chords that are playing and rather an interaction of different instrumental voices.

 

[Arrowed Lung Studios]

Well if you know theory, just spell out the chords with the orchestral instruements. It may be boring rhythmic wise, but I usually feel like the addition of strings is just to add chord definition and another layer. You could change up the rhythm a bit, to make it more exciting. As for instruments, the "meat" of the orchestra are the violins,violas,cellos, and bassist's. When I write my pieces I do violins 1 and violins 2,violas,cellos, and basses.