8926 / 18210 · Workshop 72 — Orchestral Thinking at the Piano: Register, Density, Doubling, Texture Rotation, and Making Two Hands Sound Like an Ensemble← prev⊞ allnext →
72.94Mini-composition exercise
Write a 32-bar solo-piano arrangement where the harmony is deliberately simple but the orchestration changes continuously.
Requirements:
- at least five distinct textures
- melody appears in both hands at different moments
- one bass+melody-only passage
- one pad-like sustained-harmony passage
- one brass-like block/stab passage
- one octave-melody passage
- one countermelody section
- one complete breakdown with one layer only
- one maximum-density climax reserved for no more than four bars
- final texture thinner than the opening climax
- register itself must contribute to the form
The listener should feel a complete arrangement even if the chord progression is plain.