zandt1

I'm new to the forums and was going to revive an old thread from page 10 or so but felt my question didn't fully fit into that thread (it was loosely related)

If one does not play an instrument, how would they compose for it? I mean, a specific instrument. I play guitar, piano, and drums. Lets say I wanted to write something for the violin, or the oboe, or anything I'm not familiar with playing...how would someone go about doing that? How does someone compose for an instrument they don't readily play? Or must you know how to play it to be able to write for it? I'm really urging to write music that's Orchestral and I'm not sure where to begin to learn how to write for those other instruments? I don't think just writing a melody and pressing a "select violin to play that" button would work at all.