Thread by @February33Jazz

Orchestration tip:
Not everything needs to be epic.

The trend right now is for orchestral music to be "epic", like all the time. What I mean by this is loud, heavy, intense textures making use of *huge* orchestras. Film music does a lot of this, video games too. 1/6

But an issue I hear a lot of is that the music flatlines after a relatively short time. It's epic...then epic...then more epic, etc. It's not really that exciting to listen to on its own for more than a few minutes. Even more, there's this war to out-epic other orchestrators. 2/6

Musicians, especially professionals, have spent years mastering their instruments. They can play with intensity at all dynamics, and convey many emotions at all dynamics. You can use this to your advantage. Epic sounds moreso if there's a lot of contrast around it. 3/6

Have the brass play soft, or just rest. Use woodwinds for lead lines. You can still use percussion to keep the groove, but you don't really need 127 layers of percussion to do that. Dipping into this world of color that is usually passed over allows you to take advantage of...4/6

CONTRAST.
If you have something intense, but soft, then when something loud comes in, the contrast makes the loud seem much more massive. You don't even need a huge orchestra for this. A standard orchestra playing full textures can be overwhelmingly powerful. 5/6

Epic doesn't necessarily just mean loud, heavy, and repetitive. Taking advantage of contrast can allow your orchestrations to be intense, interesting, and extremely versatile. 6/6