Right off the top there is no versus as acoustic music is not the same art form as music in which multitimbrality is important.
Where it's sexy to me to mix many timbres and feel like I'm Vincent painting with multiple colors on his brush (he did), sexy for an acoustic musician isn't the timbres but rather the harmonics. A note is not just a note as it's a sound with a series of harmonics. The quality of any acoustic instrument is in how many harmonics it produces and the most straight-up description of that is how rich does it sound. A physical example would be in comparing a whistle to a saxophone. It's all about harmonics.
Warning: if you want to follow deeper into harmonics then get ready for some physics as this aspect is entirely mathematical in understanding ... but no mathematics at all in appreciating as consider the whistle vs the sax. You know what that is.
The compromise in electric music is the resonance of the instrument is not usually the same as an acoustic instrument and many things may tend to limit the harmonics. Maybe you would like to think of it as a penny whistle but a really, really cool one.
There is no versus as both approaches seek the same thing and, with symphony, they seek all of it. A symphony orchestra wants all of the multitimbrality from all those incredible instruments and it wants acoustic instruments such that every sound resonates through every harmonic.
As an electric musician, my next question is why not combine them. This has been done by Moody Blues, Electric Light Orchestra, Trans-Siberian Orchestra and others but it has stayed largely on the fringe probably at least in part because such endeavors are incredibly complex, incredibly expensive, etc, etc.
The reason for the question is what happens to the chart for "Les Miserables" if you add electric instruments. This has become the icon of Broadway musicals with 10th and 25th anniversary shows that were immense spectacles ... but ... it sounded to me as though the orchestra was entirely analog. What happens if it's not.
Where it's sexy to me to mix many timbres and feel like I'm Vincent painting with multiple colors on his brush (he did), sexy for an acoustic musician isn't the timbres but rather the harmonics. A note is not just a note as it's a sound with a series of harmonics. The quality of any acoustic instrument is in how many harmonics it produces and the most straight-up description of that is how rich does it sound. A physical example would be in comparing a whistle to a saxophone. It's all about harmonics.
Warning: if you want to follow deeper into harmonics then get ready for some physics as this aspect is entirely mathematical in understanding ... but no mathematics at all in appreciating as consider the whistle vs the sax. You know what that is.
The compromise in electric music is the resonance of the instrument is not usually the same as an acoustic instrument and many things may tend to limit the harmonics. Maybe you would like to think of it as a penny whistle but a really, really cool one.
There is no versus as both approaches seek the same thing and, with symphony, they seek all of it. A symphony orchestra wants all of the multitimbrality from all those incredible instruments and it wants acoustic instruments such that every sound resonates through every harmonic.
As an electric musician, my next question is why not combine them. This has been done by Moody Blues, Electric Light Orchestra, Trans-Siberian Orchestra and others but it has stayed largely on the fringe probably at least in part because such endeavors are incredibly complex, incredibly expensive, etc, etc.
The reason for the question is what happens to the chart for "Les Miserables" if you add electric instruments. This has become the icon of Broadway musicals with 10th and 25th anniversary shows that were immense spectacles ... but ... it sounded to me as though the orchestra was entirely analog. What happens if it's not.
In case you're not familiar, "One Day More" is not a weeper like "I Dream a Dream" (the one Susan Boyle sang). "One Day More" may be one of the most complex choral / orchestral arrangements ever but listen specifically to how the orchestra does not pale despite the magnificence of the vocal. This is specifically what Cowell destroys.
But I want more. What would happen if some (all?) of those instruments were electric. Emphasizing again, this has nothing to do with one being better than another but rather toward the larger goal of the richest possible sound. In the crescendo for "One Day More," it's absolutely thunderous so the objective is not to make it louder but rather, if possible, to make it even richer.
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