# Am I doing it right?



## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

my last piece I posted eventually I want to be in a 3 movement multi instrument work though for now I am writing the whole thing out for solo piano at first, and then I will either bump it to a two piano work if I want to orchestrate it and finally to the orchestral version or go straight to the chamber instruments from the solo work I use, is this how you work on works that call for more than one instrument?


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

That's how some people do it, yes. I personally write out the score for the orchestral groups rather than piano, i.e. have a grand staff for woodwinds, a grand staff for brass, a grand staff for percussion, a grand staff for strings, etc. and annotate any places where I'd like a particular timbre or color to stand out. There's really no right or wrong way as long as it works.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

It is best to conceive of it directly for the instruments, and either write it out directly that way, then make a piano reduction of it...

or, any of the following 
There are many ways of approach -- a piano draft, with an above simultaneously working particell scoring, at least the instruments by family groups one per stave or brace, as required.

Ideally, you should be thinking of and conceiving of ideas for the instruments for which the piece is destined. 

The danger, for many, in working it out on or at a piano, is to fall into idiomatic configurations which are native to the piano, and sound well on it. That means one can also go readily off the mark as to writing well and idiomatically for the winds.

If you have written well for the instruments, the likelihood the piano reduction will fit nicely or politely under the hands is very slim - the feeling every pianist knows first hand if they have ever played (even) the best of orchestral reductions.

The answer, after considering the above, is "Whatever works, and works best for you." 

I often have a piano draft; often enough that goes to more than two staves to clarify independent parts, even if it was easy enough to write it out in piano format on two staves. 

More often I have piano draft and leave a number of staves above it open for immediate orchestral drafting, that particular mode gets worked both ways, sometimes piano to instruments, as often the other way around.

Many a student piece, especially those from pianist / composers, ends up sounding like a piano piece translated to instruments: I admonish you again, whatever your method, to think of the idiomatic kind of music and configurations of each instrument, what they are capable of, what sounds 'native' to them. If you are really good, the listener will not be able to think, "That oboe line would have been better on the clarinet," for example.

Your initial musical idea or premise should tell you 'what instruments it is for,' Often the idea and the forces needed arrive as one thing.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

I compose mainly for the piano, because it's my main instrument. On the few compositions that I have for instrumental ensembles, I have avoided deliberately to write those pieces in the piano. In those pieces, I worked directly with the full score of the instrumental ensemble, I have only used the piano for listen some harmonies, themes, etc.


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## StevenOBrien (Jun 27, 2011)

If I remember correctly, this is how Mahler wrote his first few symphonies.


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## Romantic Geek (Dec 25, 2009)

Manok said:


> my last piece I posted eventually I want to be in a 3 movement multi instrument work though for now I am writing the whole thing out for solo piano at first, and then I will either bump it to a two piano work if I want to orchestrate it and finally to the orchestral version or go straight to the chamber instruments from the solo work I use, is this how you work on works that call for more than one instrument?


That's not a bad way to do it. I believe that's how my former composition teacher (who was nominated for several Grammys) did it. So, I mean...it works for some people.


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