Three Strings Per Line

I’ve had the privilege of composing and recording music for string sections of various sizes. These sessions remain some of my very favorite because of both the sheer beauty of the sound produced by a group of violins and because of the endless degrees of tonal subtlety that string sections provide. These degrees of subtlety are achieved through the instrument’s huge range of expressions as well as by the actual distribution of numbers of players within the violin sections.

It is a basic orchestration rule of thumb that in order to achieve a smooth and homogeneous sound, musical lines written for violins should be played by a minimum of three strings per line as represented here (the words ‘violin’ and ‘string’ being interchangeable in this context).

acrylic on canvas   12 x 36