# Composing for wind instruments



## freixas

This question, ideally, would be answered by a professional wind player. 

Today's composers have tools that allow them to immediately hear their compositions played with somewhat realistic-sounding instruments. It is easy to write music that is difficult or impossible to perform on a real instrument, but which the computer will effortlessly play.

I'm new to this forum and I don't believe I can post attachments or links. Let's say you were handed a (woodwind) part with a time signature of 4/4 and a tempo of q=120 and what you saw was a sequence of 20 to 40 measures of eighth notes without a single rest.

The question I have is: would you consider this unplayable? Would you say it was playable, but only after you spent time figuring out where to assign breaths? Or would you say it was no big deald and simply start playing, figuring out the breathing spots as you went? Would your answer depend on the phrasing? Would it depend on whether there were a lot of other instruments playing or this was solo?

I realize that an oboe can play longer than a flute and that notes played piano might take less breath than notes played forte, so (if it makes a difference) assume the notes are "mf" and that there are enough of them to tax even the best oboist.


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## freixas

Being new, I might think that there's not much activity on this forum. After all, looking at the last post dates in the forum, I see Dec 4, Dec 7, Dec 26 and Jan 3, so replies are few and far between. But I also see that this thread has received 56 views since I posted about 48 hours ago. 

Perhaps professional wind players don't frequent the forum much—I'd be open to thoughts from any wind player. 

Perhaps this topic has already been well-thrashed somewhere. If so, let me know where. 

Maybe everyone looking at this topic is a composer hoping to learn something about composing for wind instruments.


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## Johann Sebastian Bach

I'm not a professional wind player but, as a professional conductor I have some experience of the general principles at play in your question.

My first response is to say that you should write what you want to write and then let the performer work out how to play it. I think you'd be surprised at how a good professional will deal with challenging passages. There's no such thing as rigid bar lengths in music (apart from on a computer). In performances by humans, nuances of breathing will lengthen some bars (or shorten notes) in order to accommodate a breath. 

My second response is to wonder about the type of phrase you describe which, to me, comes over as lacking variety. Remember also Debussy's comment about music depending on the space between the notes. A passage as rhythmically repetitive as this might not work.

It is impossible to answer your question about whether a player would need time to figure out how to play a passage. There are easy fingerings and more difficult ones, there are natural passages and un-natural ones. The more chromatic a passage, the more difficult it becomes.

It's also not easy to answer your question about phrasing, since you can't provide enough information due to the restriction placed on us newbies. (Perhaps you could just post some anodyne comments on some of the jokier forums to get your score above the magic 10.) However, in general, if you're writing in a classical idiom, phrases are obvious: a more contemporary idiom might have idiosyncratic phrase lengths.

I hope this is of some help.


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## QuietGuy

I am not a performer, but I have a degree in composition, and have done a lot of orchestrating.

Are you writing for a chamber group with woodwinds by twos? Or a concert band with many flute players available to you?

If there's more than one (i.e. 2 flutes) divide the phrase between the two players, so that one player plays while the other rests. (Or flute section if a concert band.)

Otherwise, if you're writing a chamber piece with only one woodwind part each, alternate the 20 -40 bars between flute, oboe, clarinet, etc.

I hope this makes sense and helps you. Good luck.


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## freixas

Thank you, both! I'm still working on getting up to the magic 10 (this one is 9!).



> My first response is to say that you should write what you want to write and then let the performer work out how to play it.


I've heard exactly the opposite and I wish I knew where I saw that advice. I suspect now that it may have come from the movie business, where performers have little or no time to prepare.



> My second response is to wonder about the type of phrase you describe which, to me, comes over as lacking variety.


Agreed. Originally, the question was inspired by someone else's composition. However, in my own music, I have occasionally had an instrument perform an ostinato passage (say, two eighth notes, alternated for many measures) to create a background texture that a melody plays over.



> If there's more than one (i.e. 2 flutes) divide the phrase between the two players, so that one player plays while the other rests.


Agreed. I have used this technique.



> Otherwise, if you're writing a chamber piece with only one woodwind part each, alternate the 20 -40 bars between flute, oboe, clarinet, etc.


This option is a bit trickier since when you change an instrument in, say, a wind quintet, you are also changing the "color" of the tone. Unlike string ensembles, the woodwinds have unique sounds, not just among the different instruments, but among the different registers of the same instrument. Varying the sound is good idea in general, but there may be musical lines where a change in timbre might be jarring.

The score that got me asking this question was for piano and flute. The composer had the piano and flute both playing pretty much without rests. My own inclination if I were writing a piece for flute and piano would be to have the flute play bursts of music, with the piano filling in spaces between the bursts (if needed).

Anyway, it sounds like I might be more concerned about breath issues than I need to be. An exception might if the performer has to hold a note for a certain length of time. I have the EWQL Symphonic Orchestra sounds and I found it cute that, if you try to get a tuba to play a long note, the sound sample dies out early. I would guess a real performer would be doing the same.


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## Johann Sebastian Bach

You're quite correct to point to context concerning difficult passages. Movie composers are stuck in a straight jacket in order to comply with any number of requirements. Having said that, session musicians (who play movie scores) are amongst some of the best sight readers on the planet.

There are many examples of composers and performers working hand-in-hand, especially when the instrument isn't a particularly common one. The harp is a good example, since the ways of playing a harp is hidden in spell-books owned by elven princes. Seriously, I've known a composer to sit beside a harpist in a rehearsal and re-write passages which were impossible.

If you want a sound to last for a long time, use two players and instruct them to breathe in different places. This is a common practice in choral music, where a section might be told to "stagger breathing" in order to produce a seamless sound.


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## freixas

> There are many examples of composers and performers working hand-in-hand, especially when the instrument isn't a particularly common one. The harp is a good example, since the ways of playing a harp is hidden in spell-books owned by elven princes.


LOL! The second serious composition I wrote (and it's not been that long since I wrote it-I'm just starting) included a harp. I started researching all the instruments and the more I read about the harp, the less confident I was in writing for it. In the end, I kept the harp part extremely simple but I'm sure the annotation is still way off (and it might not even be possible to play).

There's a harpist, Shirley Blankenship, who dedicates a lot of time to fixing up bad harp scoring. Her web site is called The Harp Legacy Project. You may already know about her. If composing weren't just a a hobby right now, I'd hire her to fix up the harp part in my little symphonic suite.



> If you want a sound to last for a long time, use two players and instruct them to breathe in different places. This is a common practice in choral music, where a section might be told to "stagger breathing" in order to produce a seamless sound.


I was experimenting with turning a piece originally written for eight players into a brass quintet. In the original, a cello provided a background of long, low notes. For the brass quintet, I assigned this role to the tuba, of which there is only one. The only solutions I know are 1) alternate the low notes with the trombone (in phrases) or 2) change the music to eliminate this effect (or, at least, long stretches of the effect).

This is my 10th post, and I believe I will be given super-powers in about 12 hours or so. I may then be able to post some virtual holographic attachments to illuminate some of this discussion.


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## Stirling

freixas said:


> This question, ideally, would be answered by a professional wind player.
> 
> I'm new to this forum and I don't believe I can post attachments or links. Let's say you were handed a (woodwind) part with a time signature of 4/4 and a tempo of q=120 and what you saw was a sequence of 20 to 40 measures of eighth notes without a single rest.


Have 2, and play them in sequences. A very old trick.


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## QuietGuy

LOL I understand about writing for the harp. I once wrote a piece for harp and flute, and consulted a harpist about harp writing in general. I explained what I wanted to do, and she assured me it could be done. Nonetheless, it had many pedal changes, so that she appeared to be dancing in her chair! Still, it's one of my best pieces. It's occurred to me to orchestrate it in order to fill out the texture a bit, and give the harpist a break. Maybe I will someday!


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## freixas

> Have 2, and play them in sequences. A very old trick.


The piece that brought this question up for me was one written for flute and piano. The option of using two flutes is not available.


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## freixas

Since the trick of using two instruments has been mention (and since my restrictions have just been lifted), here's the way I have two wind instruments trade off in a long ostinato passage:









The advice I received was to "hand-off" the musical line by sharing the note at the start of the measure.

Here is a line written for a cello. The piece is for an octet ensemble that I would like to rework as a wind quintet. While the line is effortless for the cello (and probably boring to play as well), I hesitate to simply reassign it to the bassoon without making some changes. On the other hand, poster "Johannes Sebastian Bach" suggests maybe I shouldn't worry about this.


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