Now everyone here knows that Prince is a master musician, he rocks the guitar, tickles the piano, kicks ass on the drums. But there's one very large instrument Prince has yet to try out - The Orchestra.

Would you like this? I think it would be very interesting to see what he would do with a whole Orchestra. Perhaps it would re ignite that creative spark many people here feels he's lost in the previous years. I mean, he must be getting a little bored of songwriting himself by now? Maybe Its time for him to move on to a more grand canvas? Hey if Paul Mccartney can compose music for an Orchestra despite being unable to read or write music then Prince can, right!? Merry Xmas

Kamasutra - NPG Orchestra

See the Forum FAQ section 4.1

http://prince.org/msg/7/145050



The NPG Orchestra - Kamasutra 1998

(Packaged As A 5th Disc With Npg Version Of Crystal Ball,
Previously Only Available Separately On Cassette In 1997)

The Plan (2:03)
Kamasutra (11:49)
At Last..."The Lost Is Found" (3:37)
The Ever Changing Light (2:59)
Cutz (3:03)
Serotonin (0:47)
Promise / Broken (3:46)
Barcelona (2:16)
Kamasutra / Overture #8 (3:11)
Coincidence Or Fate? (3:24)
Kamasutra / Eternal Embrace (4:02)

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[Edited 12/24/09 8:38am]

langebleu said:

NPG Orchestra = Prince in a pit of keyboards like Yanni.

I would like to see him do an Unplugged with an orchestra. That's really the best option. He could do a concert w/ an orchestra, but ultimately...let's get him to the Unplugged thing. Go very acoustic, but funky, and let's enhance songs like "Purple Rain", "If I Was Your Girlfriend", "With You", "Nothing Compares 2 U", and other songs with a real orchestra (again, in some cases). Can you imagine hearing him sing some of those Clare Fisher inspired songs live with Clare's arrangements being played by a 20 piece ensemble instead of keyboards? Hell, get Clare or his son in there to conduct and arrange the strings! FUCK, that's a damn wet dream!!

Since Venus de Milo... it has always been my ultimate Prince Dream to hear an entire Orchestral project with Clare Fisher... an album for example...


[Edited 12/24/09 9:57am]

saafiir said:

Wendy and/or Lisa talked about that. Clare did a lot more orchestrations than what Prince used. A good example was the Parade album. Clare works in counter point melodies and harmonies, which means if Prince goes up a note, Clare goes down one. It's a constant ying and yang in the music. Wendy said if they left in ALL the orchestrations that Clare did, it would be more like a "Prince Featuring Clare Fisher" type album, and any singing or otherwise would get muddled and lost in it. It'd be TOO much.

However, an instrumental album with Prince and Clare doing some very cool, funky, and beautiful stuff.....well that would be just fine by me.

Ah my bad, I've never heard of the "Kamasutra" album although it looks interesting
I love ernestsewell's idea of working with Clare Fisher again because the arrangements in Parade are very cool & almost on an orchestrial scale in some places so to combine them with a full orchestra would definatley wield interesting results. Hopefully as Prince gets older he'll want to move onto musical styles beyond the song format. I personally believe he's gotten bored of his music because it's not a challenge anymore & composing for an orchestra would be a great big challenge... hopefully he's playing around with the idea right now, it must have crossed his mind at somepoint....

MyNameIsCally said:

Talk about different musical styles how about country/rockabilly music. Didn't he wear his cowboy outfit with the muppets. Anyone have a pix of that?????

Cover some SUN records cuts,buddy holly cuts, don't forget Charlie Rich!!

MyNameIsCally said:

Believe me, the kamasutra album is everything but interesting...

I was thinking it would be cool for Prince to play with an orchestra as I sat listening and watching the Junius Courtney Big Band earlier this week.

I think he could do it and do it well. Eventhough some here don't like Kamasutra, I liked it for what it is because when I listen to music I see stories, so the type of music doesn't matter because there is always a story unlike any other and I visualize the story and get lost. Music is great that way.

I'm always amazed at how versatile Prince is.







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[Edited 12/24/09 23:31pm]

What's wonderful about Clare Fischer's arrangements is that he did his homeworks: Fischer has a strong culture of both classical, neo-classical and contemporary music, which Prince has not.

Kamasutra, despite its good moments, suffered from the fact that it was mostly Prince on keyboards and programming, something he's an expert at when it comes to pop/funk, because he has the cultural background, but which is totally unsufficiant on neo-classical/contemporary, because he obviously wasn't exposed to much of today's great synth composers such as Ryuichi Sakamoto or Harold Budd, nor to contemporary orchestral and/or ambiant composers.

Kamasutra IS well composed, and it could have been a masterpiece if Prince had chosen between two options instead of doing a bit of both:
- He could have left most of the arrangement aspect of it to Fischer instead of including some strings here and there and have a very beautiful orchestral album with minimum (if any) synth.
- He could have given up the lyrical aspects and explored more of what he did with the track "Cutz", which is much more experimental than the rest and much closer to modern minimalist or so-called "repetitive" music.

Now, it's never too late. Prince mentioned a few years ago that he wanted to explore new grounds and that he was considering composing "something with flutes". Whatever he meant by that, and weither he did it or not, it really sounded like he wanted to compose a contemporary musical piece.

A few links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w...rary_music
http://en.wikipedia.org/w...ntal_music
http://en.wikipedia.org/w...list_music
http://en.wikipedia.org/w...tive_music
http://en.wikipedia.org/w...ient_music
http://en.wikipedia.org/w...ical_music

So yeah... it's never too late


[Edited 12/25/09 0:18am]

ernestsewell said:

ernestsewell mentioned it ... wouldn't it be nice if Prince did the orchestra unplugged show with (the return) of Wendy & Lisa? Think of the possibilities
[Edited 12/25/09 12:09pm]

NONSENSE said:

I think it'd be great to have Clare do some orchestrations for an Unplugged, and W&L do the others. Half and half. They did the strings on "Purple Rain", and other stuff, so they have the knowledge to do it. It'd be a nice mixture of styles.

I've always enjoyed the Claire's contribution to Princee's work !

Old Friends For Sale & Crystal Ball are the 2 songs that Clare Fischer freely showed off his chops when it came to Prince' music.

I think his work for Rufus surpassed anything he ever did for Prince though IMO.

Yes I would, in a Dan Fogelberg kind of way...When I hear songs from, "The Truth," I know how Prince has a side of him that we don't know much about....

If this makes any sense, "The Dan Fogelberg," in Prince...Some of this Orchestrated music is incredibly touching.

Clare Fischer can write for orchestra. Prince, I'm sure, can not.

It's not really about talent, or about coming up with musical ideas. Orchestral writing is very much a technical skill, which you have to study and practice - at a school, with a teacher, by yourself, or whatever - it's not something that you "just do".

Besides basic things such as melody and harmony, you have to know registers, dynamics and difficulties on all the instruments; how they're transposed and notated; how the sounds blend together; and a lot of other stuff.

If don't have this knowledge, you can't really write orchestral music, unless someone is helping you. That's been the case with Paul McCartney, who someone mentioned - when writing his "classical" works, he basically comes up with chords and melodies, while his assistants solve the technical issues.

Of course that's something Prince could do as well. Or he could even learn to orchestrate "for real" (anyone can). However, at this time in his life, I doubt he would have the patience and motivation to go through the years of study that's necessary.

I don't mean to sound negative, but all this "Oh, Prince is so talented, I'm sure he can fly a plane...and he would probably be a great surgeon, too!"... Music is not just about divine inspiration, it's also very much about work and training and effort - whether you like it or not. I can guarantee that Prince spent hundreds of hours learning to play piano, guitar, bass, and drums - he didn't just pick them up and started making records.

Anyone can do anything, but you must be "willing to do the work"...

RealMusician said:

From Wikipedia, a funny story about musician Coati Mundi (ex member of Kid Creole and the Coconuts):
"In an interview, he once said: "I have never let the lack of talent stop me from doing anything". He cited an example of this regarding the "Gichy Dan and Beachwood 9" record produced by August Darnell. He was being interviewed for the job of arranger-orchestrator by the Head of A&R at RCA records. Andy was asked if he knew how to arrange for strings. He said without hesitation "Of course". Andy convinced RCA Records to give him the job. In actuality, he did not know a thing about string arrangements. Immediately after the interview, he bought a book on arranging for strings and woodshedded day and night. What resulted was a successful arrangement job. He even received a wonderful compliment from the great violinist Harry Lookofsky who served as concertmaster on the date."

saafiir said:

That would be amaZING!

What would top it though, would be if he played a live soundtrack to partner a screening of Purple Rain... like they sometimes do with classic films. That would blow my mind

RealMusician said:

You know I think you're wrong here actually! Prince is clearly getting bored with songwriting, or at least not finding it as thrilling as it once was. I think he would love the challenge of learning how to do such a technical & complicated thing regarding composing for an orchestra. I myself find the learning process of music to be extremeley fun & rewarding & I'm sure Prince feels the same otherwise he wouldn't have learned to play so many instruments. I guess all I can do is cross my fingers lol