How long does it take you to finish a piece?

Title says it, basically: How long, on average, does it take you to completely begin and finish a piece?

I consider myself VERY slow. I can easily produce ideas but assembling them into a coherent, attractive picture takes a long time.

I do find writing for a text is easier as the text may guide you with the struture of the piece and even the rhythmic/melodic choices. So, after studying a short liturgical piece from my organ teacher, I wrote a nice Kyrie lasting about 1.5 minutes over a two week period (It will be part of a Mass).


The only "complete" piece I have posted on YC was a 3-4 min organ work which took about 7 months to write (between work and school asssignments), though technically even longer as I used some material I had written over a year ago for the piece. More recently I posted some variations for solo clarinet which are "temporarily" finished ( a work in progress if you will). The main part of it took about 2 weeks to write, revisions another 4 weeks. I took a break from it but am now writing a conclusion and verifying i one variation is doable.

ONe of my "issues" though is a tendency to overwrite or overedit. And I have taken composition seriously for about 4-5 years and only recently started taking classes at a music school (prior I studied privately).

What I see from more experienced composers is as you write more you will be able to write "decent" to "pretty good" pieces very quickly. These pieces would have been considered great ones by them earlier in their careers, but their standards (hopefully) improve, and /or tastes, philosophy change. So in the end, everyone feels like a beginner when starting anything new -- no matter how many times thay may have done something similar.

Years - if that. I can't say that I have a single piece that I don't think could be improved or revised in some way. Most of my pieces have very long compositional lifespans marked by constant revising and developing. My shortest time to complete a full piece was a day - longest time was 2 years.

if you don't only want input from "young" composers" but from some of the "old" ones as well, well, speaking for myself, I'm a rather slow writer.

It partially depends on what I'm writing.

I have gotten the thematic ideas for a 6-minute symphonic movement out in a single afternoon, while I've struggled on a 4-minute clarinet sonata movement for months.

On the other hand, the "offical" longest time it's taken me to write a single piece, from conception to final score, was my Requiem, clocking in at a little over 10 years to complete for one hour of music. After a partial premiere, the work was withdrawn.

I've knocked off "quicky" pieces in as little as an hour. Especialy if I'm not as gung-ho about the notation. While my 2nd symphony is giving me a bit of a work-out, since only the first three movements are finished, and I've been banging away at the 4th movement for nearly 3 years now. (Nevermind the 5th movement, which is still barely on the drawing board)

1st symphony took me three months, working 6 days a week, averaging 12-14 hrs/day.

Clarinet sonata took me around 3-4 months.

Cello sonata took a little less than a month, if I recall correctly. Although the work underwent major revisions at a later date.

I find that when I get "stuck" it's often on an "ending" section. I guess I'm just one of those composers who hates to say goodbye.

A long, long, time. I think I've only finished one complete piece for a student orchestra, which probably took me about two months working mostly on weekends. Usually by the time I've written a few pages, I decide that what I've written is so horrible that I just can't go further, so I've started lots of works, but rarely finish them.

I often write things very quickly(2 days), but I am slowing down now, which I think is just a sign of maturing on my part...

for a choral piece it's only a few months. For other things, who knows? I haven't really composed much that I'd actually have performed.

I can't give an average as it varies so much. For a sketch, it could be done in a few hours, but for a completely developed and orchestrated work, my fastest time is about 2 days (took a week to finalize). Or... 5 years (and counting).

oh wow--like foreverish..

I generally don't finish works . But when I do, it's takes a damned long time: 12-20 bars a day is extremely good going for me.