Solo Orchestra
September 9, 2018 9:41 AM Subscribe
Given the miracle of multi track recordings, has anyone singly performed a symphony as an orchestra for an album? Impossible live without pre-recordings.
IIRC, Prince did similar for some album work.
Unlike "one man band" where they play many instruments surrounding them live, usually in jest.
IIRC, Prince did similar for some album work.
Unlike "one man band" where they play many instruments surrounding them live, usually in jest.
Oldfield played most of the instruments on Tubular Bells, but not all; there's a few other people including flutist Jon Field (at the time in a band called Jade Warrior) and drummer Steve Broughton of the Edgar Broughton Band (named for his brother).
Roy Wood – who helped form The Move, The Electric Light Orchestra, and Wizzard – came closer with his first solo album Boulders, a little later in 1973. Again, not a symphony orchestra, but it really is a solo album; he's credited with "Banjo, Bells, Brass, Cello, Composer, Concept, Cover Painting, Cowbell, Double Bass, Drums, Glockenspiel, Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Bass), Guitar (Electric), Harp, Harp Guitar, Instrumentation, Liner Notes, Piano, Primary Artist, Producer, Recorder, Saxophone, Sitar, Slide Guitar, String Bass, Tambourine, Trumpet, Violin, Vocals, Vocals (Background), Washboard, Whisper, and Whistle (Human)." But there's also a harmonium on one track played by another person.
Wood repeated this feat with his second solo album, Mustard, in 1975, again doing just about everything (even the cover painting), but that too included vocal tracks from a few other people including Annie Haslam (of Renaissance) and Phil Everly.
posted by LeLiLo at 2:53 PM on September 9, 2018 [3 favorites]
Roy Wood – who helped form The Move, The Electric Light Orchestra, and Wizzard – came closer with his first solo album Boulders, a little later in 1973. Again, not a symphony orchestra, but it really is a solo album; he's credited with "Banjo, Bells, Brass, Cello, Composer, Concept, Cover Painting, Cowbell, Double Bass, Drums, Glockenspiel, Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Bass), Guitar (Electric), Harp, Harp Guitar, Instrumentation, Liner Notes, Piano, Primary Artist, Producer, Recorder, Saxophone, Sitar, Slide Guitar, String Bass, Tambourine, Trumpet, Violin, Vocals, Vocals (Background), Washboard, Whisper, and Whistle (Human)." But there's also a harmonium on one track played by another person.
Wood repeated this feat with his second solo album, Mustard, in 1975, again doing just about everything (even the cover painting), but that too included vocal tracks from a few other people including Annie Haslam (of Renaissance) and Phil Everly.
posted by LeLiLo at 2:53 PM on September 9, 2018 [3 favorites]
'Something/Anything' by Todd Rundgren was mostly but not all solo artist overdubs.
John Cale multitracked many of his string parts through his career for that Classical sounding thing.
posted by ovvl at 4:34 PM on September 9, 2018
John Cale multitracked many of his string parts through his career for that Classical sounding thing.
posted by ovvl at 4:34 PM on September 9, 2018
Our answers seem to be heading outside the world of classical orchestra, and a few mentioned above are also found on this list: 10 Albums In Which A Single Musician Plays (Almost) Every Instrument
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 5:50 PM on September 9, 2018
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 5:50 PM on September 9, 2018
Best answer: The problem with looking for this in a classical context is that classical musicians tend to specialise much more - most classical instruments take a lot of study to play passably. In fact, playing something like the french horn makes it even harder to play something like the tuba - they require training your lip muscles in opposite directions (very narrow and tight for french horn, very relaxed and broad for tuba). I don't know any brass players that would claim to be able to competently play two instruments that had significantly different-sized mouthpieces.
Woodwind players do often play multiple instruments, as the embouchures aren't mutually exclusive, although players of double-reed instruments (e.g. oboe, bassoon) tend to specialise in that area. It's common for professional West End/Broadway pit band reed players to play (and be expected to play) flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet and alto/tenor/baritone sax, and often weirder, less common woodwinds as well. Orchestral musicians rarely play anything like so many, though, and even the West End reed players I know consider themselves primarily a player of one instrument who "fakes it" on the others.
As far as strings go, I know a few violists who double on violin, which is uncommon but not unheard of. It tends not to go the other way - violinists consider violas (and pretty much everyone else) below them. Cello and double bass are both so different that I can't think of anyone I know that plays one and another string instrument, unless you count jazz players playing double bass and electric bass.
Percussionists have to be able to play loads of different instruments - although percussionists definitely do specialise I reckon that's your most likely category for "single orchestral section played by a single person".
Essentially, I reckon your best bet for "most classical instruments played" would be a reed player who played piano as well and wasn't afraid of faking it on percussion. I can't think of any classical recordings of mixed ensembles, and I think strings are really the stumbling block - there's so little demand for string players to double, and such a steep learning curve with relatively little transfer between each instrument, that I think single players who could play all of a string section's parts just don't really exist.
Most of the most famous modern multi-instrumentalists have been mentioned so far in the comments, but it'd be remiss of me to finish this post without mentioning Jacob Collier, who started out on YouTube by posting six-part a cappella arrangements where he sang all the parts, but quickly branched out into more complex instrumental arrangements. He plays/sings everything on his album In My Room - as a bonus, here he is at the Proms a few months ago with, at various points, an orchestra.
posted by spielzebub at 6:34 AM on September 10, 2018 [4 favorites]
Woodwind players do often play multiple instruments, as the embouchures aren't mutually exclusive, although players of double-reed instruments (e.g. oboe, bassoon) tend to specialise in that area. It's common for professional West End/Broadway pit band reed players to play (and be expected to play) flute/piccolo, clarinet/bass clarinet and alto/tenor/baritone sax, and often weirder, less common woodwinds as well. Orchestral musicians rarely play anything like so many, though, and even the West End reed players I know consider themselves primarily a player of one instrument who "fakes it" on the others.
As far as strings go, I know a few violists who double on violin, which is uncommon but not unheard of. It tends not to go the other way - violinists consider violas (and pretty much everyone else) below them. Cello and double bass are both so different that I can't think of anyone I know that plays one and another string instrument, unless you count jazz players playing double bass and electric bass.
Percussionists have to be able to play loads of different instruments - although percussionists definitely do specialise I reckon that's your most likely category for "single orchestral section played by a single person".
Essentially, I reckon your best bet for "most classical instruments played" would be a reed player who played piano as well and wasn't afraid of faking it on percussion. I can't think of any classical recordings of mixed ensembles, and I think strings are really the stumbling block - there's so little demand for string players to double, and such a steep learning curve with relatively little transfer between each instrument, that I think single players who could play all of a string section's parts just don't really exist.
Most of the most famous modern multi-instrumentalists have been mentioned so far in the comments, but it'd be remiss of me to finish this post without mentioning Jacob Collier, who started out on YouTube by posting six-part a cappella arrangements where he sang all the parts, but quickly branched out into more complex instrumental arrangements. He plays/sings everything on his album In My Room - as a bonus, here he is at the Proms a few months ago with, at various points, an orchestra.
posted by spielzebub at 6:34 AM on September 10, 2018 [4 favorites]
This guy claims to be able to play as a whole string quartet. But I didn't see any commercial recordings, though he has some Soundcloud tracks if you click that tab below his main picture.
posted by wnissen at 1:29 PM on September 10, 2018
posted by wnissen at 1:29 PM on September 10, 2018
But in general, I agree with everything spielzebub said. There's just no upside when you have string, reed, brass, and percussion that each require their own proverbial 10,000 hours to achieve mastery of a single instrument in its category. It's surprising enough when a classical violinist makes a good fiddler, the instrument being identical but the style having little overlap.
posted by wnissen at 8:46 AM on September 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by wnissen at 8:46 AM on September 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
« Older Voting in New York, and why have any party... | Path of Voyager relative to the galaxy? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by twoplussix at 10:08 AM on September 9, 2018 [2 favorites]