r/composer • u/Desperate-Finger-334 • 3d ago
Discussion What should I write before my first symphony
I want to write a symphony but obviously that's getting ahead of myself so what should I write before that that like styles or things that are fun
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u/RichMusic81 Composer / Pianist. Experimental music. 3d ago
Importantly, what have you written already?
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u/Desperate-Finger-334 3d ago
Mainly just random stuff and I do do a decent bit of improv on my instruments
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u/N437QX 3d ago
if you want to write a symphony, just write a fucking symphony. write it for yourself only. don't give a shit about what I or anybody here or there thinks.
the important thing is this: write, write, write. if it sucks, rewrite! all this shit's disposable. there's no hidden fees or limited tokens to using your noggin. keep trying to outdo yourself. don't look in a rear view mirror. don't freak out that you'll never be good enough. don't shame yourself because it's been weeks since you've put a note on a staff. if you get overwhelmed, go to a different instrument, different section, different project, whatever; just put the oar back in the water and keep paddling. and keep trying to one-up what you did last time.
by the way, there's a whole thing called naive art and children's drawings and they're valued specifically because experienced artists have been so exposed to formal training that they can't make art from a genuinely inexperienced point of view. what you authentically write from heart today is something you wouldn't be able to 30 years from now without faking it. yes, it's likely that no one but you will ever value your DIY symphony. that's fine. you are the most important member of your audience.
this is your ONE SHOT at life. lots of "wait til xyz." no, write what you want to write TODAY because tomorrow you actually could get hit by a bus. the point of true artmaking isn't money, rewards, or recognition; the paddling is the point.
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u/Veto111 3d ago
Too many amateur composers have written mediocre symphonies that just sit on a hard drive and will never be performed. The better answer to when you should write a symphony, is when you have been commissioned to write a symphony.
If that’s a goal of yours, you should start by writing solo and small ensemble chamber music that you have a chance of getting performances. Hopefully that will build into more networking opportunities and eventually you may end up at the level where you are talking to people that might program symphonic music.
But until you get to that level, I wouldn’t recommend thinking about writing a symphony and then just hoping that someone will pick it up. Chamber music can be just as musically fulfilling, and you will get many more opportunities for performances.
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u/deathbysnusnu 3d ago
Mediocre is putting it nicely, I've seen tons of "I spent 6 months writing my first symphony!" type posts and I've yet to hear a good one. It's extremely difficult to sustain and balance musical interest for such a long time.
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u/Effective-Advisor108 3d ago
So no one will ever write a symphony again, people just don't get commissioned to write symphonies.
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u/DADAiADAD 2d ago
TCO just premiered a Bernd Deustch 60m 5 movement choir and orchestra piece like last year, its rarer but it still happens
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u/Desperate-Finger-334 3d ago
I'm a hobbyist I'm not even looking to get commissioned for anything too much stress on the deadlines even if you offered me a million dollars I wouldn't accept it takes the fun out of music for me
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u/HomosexualTigrr 3d ago
Then if someone offers you a million dollars to write a symphony kindly direct them my way!
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u/Desperate-Finger-334 3d ago
Sure I'm dead serious when I say that I wouldn't do it
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u/HomosexualTigrr 2d ago
Speaking seriously, I don't think it shows a greater commitment to your art form to say you'd refuse compensation for it. I think doing the work of making something as difficult as composition your career is the greatest tribute of all
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u/Desperate-Finger-334 2d ago
It's not about what it shows it's seriously would just take the love out of the game for me but if you like it then you do you
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u/Nimi_R 3d ago
What is your musical background?
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u/Desperate-Finger-334 3d ago
Hobbyist I play Alto recorder Uke Harmonica
I have a decent grasp of basic music theory
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u/_undetected 3d ago
String Quartet
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u/SundaeDouble7481 3d ago
Yes. And critically, get that quartet played, by whatever means are necessary. Organizing a piece with 10x the number of players is going to be far more than 10x as difficult.
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u/victotronics 3d ago
I was going to say the same thing. It's much too easy throwing infinite resources at a piece of music. Writing something interesting with minimal resources is a much better exercise of your craft.
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u/soundgaszm 3d ago
That entirely depends on the stuff you have written before. But... it's like "what should I write before writing my first piano sonata?" And the answer is "know how piano works". And then "write shorter forms for piano". Writing an string quartet won't magically make me good at piano writing. The orchestra is the same, first start learning orchestration. How instruments works. From that, if you feel like writing forms for instruments families, do it, but as orchestration studies. Then you write for orchestra. Your first symphony doesn't have to be a masterpiece (and it won't be a masterpiece), you can always write more or modify it layer
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u/Cheeto717 3d ago
A theme and variations on the theme from X Men
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u/Desperate-Finger-334 3d ago
This one sounds fun I'll add it to the list of stuff I want to compose
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u/Apprehensive-Quit419 3d ago
i never thought of doing variations of existing pieces! that sounds very fun and probably helps alot. Do you go by ear, or do you take the sheet music and change things up?
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u/Cheeto717 2d ago
I usually go by ear. Transcribing by ear is a great skill to develop though admittedly it’s a totally different skill set than composing. But writing a theme and variations on an existing theme is something composers have been doing since forever.
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u/gforgeo 3d ago edited 3d ago
I take it for granted that you play an instrument at least at an intermediate-to-advanced level. You should be able to sight-read a Brahms intermezzo or a Mozart sonata, for example.
If you want to write a symphony, I would recommend that you study composition, alongside basic harmony. Then, start by composing short, simple pieces - say for solo piano - that demonstrate your understanding of the composition concepts you learn.
Once you've done that a couple times, you have to study sonata form and compose at least one movement of a sonata. I would strongly recommend you write it for a solo instrument, because if you write something with accompaniment (e.g. Sonata for violin with piano accompaniment, as is the case for most violin sonatas) you'll have to study how to write piano accompaniment as well.
Once you've done that, you should study chamber music. String quartets, quintets, etc. Write at least one movement of a chamber work.
Hopefully, you will have a general idea of how composition works, how the sonata form works, and how different instruments can work together. The next step is to get a book on orchestration and learn how to use an orchestra. Take piano pieces and orchestrate them to practice. A great way to do this is to study Ravel. Many of his orchestral pieces started out as piano pieces. Take the piano pieces, orchestrate them yourself without listening to Ravel's orchestration, and then compare your version with Ravel's.
Congratulations, you're ready to write a symphony. Keep in mind, this is the bare minimum amount of knowledge required. The symphony, unless you're especially talented, will most likely be bad
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u/Desperate-Finger-334 3d ago
The only classical (technically Baroque but whatever) is the alto recorder but yes I can sight read pretty decently
Thank you for the reply so much it really cleared a lot of stuff up
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u/prasunya 3d ago
A short piano or flute piece in C major
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u/StudioComposer 3d ago
Start with a duet or two. Then three or more trios. Then quartets. Keep adding one or two instruments at a time until you’re writing for a full orchestra. You’ll find some phases go more quickly than others. It’s not a race. It’s simply you challenging you.
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u/ComposaBoi 3d ago
You should write for ensembles: string quartet, wind quintet, brass quintet, etc. to familiarize yourself with the instruments, their ranges, colours, textures, how to write idiomatically, etc. then you will probably be ready to tackle a symphony. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should. I would be sure that you are mature as a composer before writing a symphony.
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u/tottasanorotta 3d ago
Depends on what your requirements for a symphony is and who you want to agree with that it is a symphony. I mean just go ahead and start writing whatever you think a symphony is. No matter what you do the result can be quite nice. It might not be Beethoven's 9th or anything, but by modern "pop music standards" it can be quite the musical journey.
I remember how Mike Oldfield described imitating things from classical music when writing Tubular Bells. It's not like it is something that Mozart would approve of as being a symphony, but the result is still something that could loosely be described as a symphony. If you want to write a symphony like the composers of old, then that will of course require a lot of time and dedication to learn about how that is done.
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u/AdventurousHippo9997 3d ago
Preludes and Fugues. Highly disciplined pieces that will help with your musical thinking. Only have to be a few minutes in length each.
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u/BoysenberryFit7033 2d ago
I would say 2 or 3 pieces for different groupings. String quartet, wind quintet, brass orquesta. But work them with a mentor (can be a teacher or a mentor). I find it hard to imagine learning orquestration on your own, because there are so many things that need to be considered that the books don't necessarily mention. It is so contextual. That and any software will only be a rough demo at best of what a real orchestra sounds like.
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u/yangyang25 1d ago
well, some random ideas here: try writing a chamber symphony, like with a small orchestra. or a string quartet in symphonic form. Put it in a program like Sibelius and you can hear it on midi, and see if you like it. I did that and realized my early music wasn't so great, but I'm glad I got to hear it in some sense. maybe some woodwind or brass quintets too, to get used to writing for ensembles. One issue really isn't the ensemble itself, it's where is the music going over the long haul and does its path make sense? So maybe before you get all up with a full orchestra, make sure you can do that with a smaller ensemble.
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u/ConfidentHospital365 1d ago
Write something short. Maybe a one movement thing in sonata form. Then maybe write something slow like a funeral march. Then maybe write something lively like a dance in 3/4. Symphonies are big structural endeavours and it’s hard to get that right. Work on form first.
And many symphonies ultimately have a 4 movement structure that goes something like:
- Main bit in sonata form
- Slow movement
- Scherzo
- Bringing it all back home
If you can write those things as standalone ideas you’ll be most of the way there. The problem is that a symphony is meant to have all those individual parts tied together thematically and that’s very, very difficult if you don’t have a realllllly good feel for those different forms
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u/65TwinReverbRI 3d ago
Mozart wrote:
Any number of solo piano (keyboard) works - 12 we know of that exist in a "completed" form. Those are shown to span either 2 or 3 years - so I'm sure there were many more sketches and experiments and things that maybe just never got written down etc.
He then wrote (or completed and put in printed form, etc.) 10 violin sonatas - which of course would have 3 movements in each - so 30 more "pieces".
It's important to note here that Mozart's father was a Violinist, and composer, and it's the assumption that his father helped refine his earliest compositions - but he wanted it to seem like Mozart was the wunderkind of wunderkindery so that he could show him off even more - and it makes sense that since Mozart played keyboard instruments, that his father could do duets with him with violin (though there was Nannerl who could do keys, and Mozart could do Violin too, or his father could play keyboard as well I'm sure - at least to the level Mozart was writing at the time).
He then essentially wrote forty three more pieces, mostly short solo keyboard music, including some "sonatas" as well as fragments and sketches.
THEN he finally wrote a Symphony.
BUT it's really important to understand that the Symphony form at that point was NOT the kind of thing we think of when we're thinking of Beethoven's 1st symphony. The Symphony had not yet acquired the status it would soon achieve and was more like a "divertimento for strings".
Beethoven wrote 38 published works before his 1st symphony, many of which are multi-movement so you're looking at closer to 100 "pieces".
That doesn't include the many sketches and incomplete pieces he would have done, nor does it include the "student" works we don't have.
These are mostly Piano Trios, Piano Sonatas, or Piano w/instrument Sonatas, or String Quartets.
Tchaikovsky had 37 works we know of before his 1st Symphony. Many of those are lost though.
He started primarily with solo Piano or Songs (voice and piano)
It should be noted that his works follow much more closely the kind of "Conservatory Education" that he had, where he starts with solo piano, adds an instrument (voice) and starts with songs, then on to single movement pieces of larger forms, then multiple voices (choir) and small ensembles - trios, quartets - and it's worth noting that the String Quartets are not "String Quartets" in the sense of a 4 Movement work, but a single movement for that ensemble - he was starting small and building up.
While the pieces can't be dated perfectly, it's likely they did "build", so he then has Quintets, Sextets, Octets, Orchestra, and so on - so it's likely he worked "progressively" towards larger ensembles but with shorter, single movement works.
His first symphony was written in 1866, but he heavily revised it in 1874, and then it didn't get performed until 1883 (aside from the first performance of the first version).
It's worth noting that, in addition to writing pieces before they tackled a symphony, all of these composers spent their youth playing piano, and the music of others (and could play other instruments, performed professionally, etc.).
And they did this with training.
And it's worth noting that they will have had many pieces that never saw the light of day - sketches, early experiments, etc.
And again, those were done with training from a Composer.
Honestly, the steps are these:
Learn to play an instrument to a decent level of proficiency through lessons, learning the standard repertoire. The typical instrument is piano, but other chordal instruments would be good instead or in addition to, and the more other instruments you can play and have familiarity with, the better.
Perform on that instrument - as a soloist and/or as part of ensembles, under the direction, and with the collaboration of other professional musicians whom you can learn more from.
Further your education with either private studies if you started in band/orchestra/choir in school, or ideally, study composition via a music degree, where you'll be given further opportunities to learn to play your instrument better, and perform more challenging repertoire surrounded by other musicians of a similar caliber and working under those even further along to mentor you.
It's worth noting that all the famous composers followed a similar trajectory - they were TRAINED. They took lessons in playing, and played instruments well (and virtuosically at that) and they took composition lessons as well, if not getting a conservatory/university education instead where those things were covered (which became more common as we move to the 20th century).
They spent plenty of time writing other, shorter, smaller scale works WHILE they were performing and working with other professionals and taking lessons - all a major part of the whole learning experience.
So "38" etc. is not a magic number here.
If you write 38 pieces but don't even play an instrument, and don't even play music with other people, your result is going to be "uninformed".
So I mean, you might as well write one today...
So the real answer here is, if you do it right, you'll know when you're ready. Or, at some point, go "crap I wasn't ready, let me revise this". If you work with pros, they'll tell you when, or tell you "this needs revision" etc.
Can you write well for strings? If not, you need to spend time with that.
Can you write well for woodwinds? Brass? Percussion? If not, you need to spend time with that.
Can you write short forms well yet? If not, you need to spend time with that.
Is this a "Simple Symphony" or a "YARB" (yet another romantic behemoth)? One is gong to take a whole lot more skills than the other.