Leaderboard

From teachers: approach towards structure and motivic work plus how to handle an orchestra for rich and exciting music. From performers: write for instrument/voice and not against the instrument/voice. Personal experience: experience tons of live concerts with music you don't know yet. Take time for critisism you receive and try to understand why somebody smashed your piece.

I'm copypasting from another site... *Basic theory for ALL styles (except atonal). Very useful for everybody. http://www.musictheory.net/ http://www.teoria.com/ * Rather straightforward treatise: http://imslp.org/wiki/Harmony_Book_for_Beginners_%28Orem,_Preston_Ware%29 *Tchaikovsky's treatise. However, he's a bit anal retentive in the last chapters. http://imslp.org/wiki/Guide_to_the_Practical_Study_of_Harmony_%28Tchaiko... * "Long" treatise. I don't know if that's meant to be read completely (Aaag!!), but it may be useful as a reference work. http://imslp.org/wiki/Harmony:_Its_Theory_and_Practice_%28Prout,_Ebeneze... (among others) *Orchestration http://imslp.org/wiki/Principles_of_Orchestration_%28Rimsky-Korsakov,_Ni... http://imslp.org/wiki/Grand_trait%C3%A9_d%27instrumentation_et_d%27orche... *"Classical" composition in general (considerable harmonic knowledge is required) http://imslp.org/wiki/Musical_Composition_%28Stanford,_Charles_Villiers%29 http://bookos.org/book/773582 *Jazz harmony Look for stuff at www.scribd.com

finale 2011

It's like writing anything else, only more symphony-y

Agreed. Start with "The Study of Orchestration" by Samuel Adler. If you can't afford it or steal it, check the numerous FREE nooks and crannies on the internet dealing with melody, harmony, rhythm, and, oh yes, orchestration. Write lots of pieces with a solo instrument. Then with two. Then three, etc. Work your way up to the orchestra. If you don't do it this way, by all means write for the orchestra and experiment. See what works and what doesn't work to your ears. Once you create some glorious monumental Mahlerian work, feel free to post it here. Members here can tell you all the things that aren't working, which no offense, will be most of it. You'll get the same advice of my comment and most everyone else's above mine, and you'll have wasted time. Just sayin'. I feel like a topic like this crops up every 2 weeks or so. :/

No, it's completely different. I don't mean to be rude, but you should really be beginning with some basic things like a wikipedia search. If you don't know the difference between forms, and it looks like you don't, you can't possibly write a symphony. I would first suggest looking into more basic forms, like binary and rounded binary. Sonata form (which is virtually always the first movement's form, as well as the form of 1 to 2 other movements sometimes) grew out of rounded binary, although it's different. You can look into the composers Austenite listed, but I would avoid the later composers except for listening pleasure at this point--their forms are more obscure and in some cases so specific to their compositional styles that they will not be good models for you. (Not to mention that some of them sucked at writing in sonata form, to be frank.) Haydn and Mozart would be better, but the very first symphonies by composers such as Sammartini and Stamitz are best of all because they are so basic and short that you will hopefully get the idea better. One of the critical things is that you have a movement away from the tonic into a new key, which is different in concept from how Baroque composers modulated.

Have you ever heard of the term "sonata form"?

It's not as much of a big deal - that is, if you already know what to do with theme development, harmony and counterpoint, voice leading and orchestration. Tip: listen to a lot of symphonies before thinking about writing one, just as you wouldn't attempt to write a novel before reading a lot of them. And I mean a lot. Beethoven and Mahler are obvious choices, but go well beyond them. Haydn, Mozart, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, Lutoslawski... pick symphonies from different eras and different musical trends. And draw your own conclusions ;) .

that's my ringtone.