Download the free guide “5 Spells Every Composer Needs.” Spells are interval-based composition techniques that work like magic. In this guide, Frank explains 5 of his most-used spells with examples so you can implement them in your own music.
https://musicintervaltheory.academy/spells
In this episode, Frank explains why a perfectly correct orchestral score can still sound wrong—and how the real culprit is often the bass and its overtone series. Learn how strong low notes can generate conflicting harmonies in the upper register, and what you can do to avoid those acoustic traps. Whether it’s dynamic control or harmonic substitution, you’ll walk away with practical tools for writing cleaner, more intentional orchestration.
Transcript
Hey, it's Frank. Welcome back to the Music Interval Theory podcast, where we break down the
real world mechanics of writing music that not only looks great on paper, but actually works in
the studio on the stage or behind the screen. Today, we're going to talk about a strange moment
that every orchestrator hits sooner or later. You finish a queue, print the parts, the orchestra
sits down to play and something sounds off. You check your score, everything looks right. The harmony
is clear, the voicing is clean, the dynamics make sense. But still, it sounds wrong. Let me tell you
something important. If it looks right in your orchestral score, but sounds wrong with the orchestra,
the score is not lying. The acoustics are and the usual suspect behind this betrayal, the bass
or more specifically, the overtone series that every strong bass note projects. See, when you
write a loud bass note, say a root down in the low register at forte or fortissimo, that note
doesn't just sit there and behave. It throws its overtone series way up into the higher registers
and those overtones are not subtle. They're loud, they're real, and they show up whether you
want them or not. Now, here's where it gets sneaky. Three octaves above that bass note, the overtone
series naturally includes scale tones like the major third, the fifth, and even a flat seven.
The human ear picks those up clearly. So, imagine this. You write a beautiful minor triad,
right in that upper register. You wrote a minor third. The harmony looks perfect on paper,
but the bass, it's already projecting a major third into that space. So now you've got a clash.
Your written minor third versus the overtones major third, and it's not some vague theoretical
tension. It's an acoustic fact. The ear hears both, and the result feels muddy, weird, or just
plain wrong. And no amount of telling yourself, but the notes are right, is going to fix that.
So what do we do? Well, the good news is there are honest solutions. One is dynamic control.
If you bring that bass note down a few dynamic steps, maybe even to piano,
the overtone series stops dominating the texture. It's still there, but it's not punching through
your carefully written harmonies. Another fix is harmonic substitution. Let's say you've got that
minor triad that's getting stepped on. Instead of forcing that flat three into the clash zone,
you can swap it out for scale tone two, side-step the problem entirely. Now your harmony breathes,
the clash disappears, and the texture works. Both fixes are valid. You choose what serves the
music best, but the key insight is this. When harmony fails, it's often not because the notes you
wrote are wrong. It's because of the notes your bass is secretly adding. And once you learn to hear
that and plan for it, you stop getting blindsided by those moments where the orchestra plays
something that feels completely different from the score you trusted. This is one of those
invisible skills that separates a solid orchestrator from a great one. It's not about knowing
every chord symbol or every counterpoint rule. It's about hearing the room, understanding how
real instruments behave, and working with the physics of sound instead of fighting them.
Just because your score looks right doesn't mean the music will sound right. Loud bass notes
generate strong overtones, especially in the upper octaves. Those overtones can interfere with the
harmonies you've written above, creating clashes you didn't intend. Two reliable solutions,
control the dynamics of the bass, or rewrite the harmony to avoid overlapping with those upper
partials. Thanks for tuning in today. If you liked it, please subscribe to the podcast so that you
never miss an episode. Keep writing, keep listening, and keep making the music only you can create.
