Piano sketch or not for orchestrating and composing

Context: composition of an orchestral work or, at least, a chamber piece.
Do you first use a sketch for solo piano?
What advantages would this have?

With the whole range of software and virtual instruments available, the temptation (and reality) of composing directly for the orchestra is very strong.

As an amateur composer who makes music purely for intellectual pleasure and for the senses, and also because I am partly self-taught and partly formally trained, I confess that the small pieces I have written have been without a piano sketch.

By piano sketch, I do not mean, in this case, a reduction for piano that is idiomatic for the instrument, even virtuosic. I mean a sketch that captures the basics: structure, harmony, melody, rhythms, accents.

I consider my training in classical and modern harmony to be very good. In counterpoint, quite good. But lately I have become interested in orchestration and, in turn, trying to structure a work of a certain length (without going overboard for the moment).

And in this sense, I think that the piano sketch can be very useful and not a waste of time.

In relation to this, I am also doing the opposite: orchestrating fragments or small pieces for solo piano.

What do you think?

Hi @Luis Hernández!

I personally use different numbers of staves to sketch things out for orchestra depending on how far I am in refining my material, what my needs are or how big the orchestral forces I'm sketching out are going to be.  If I'm sketching out for a string orchestra I usually don't need more than 3 staves (treble clef, alto clef and bass clef).  If I'm expanding the string orchestra sketch for a bigger orchestra I use 6 - 8 staves:  3 staves for the strings, 2 for winds, 2 for brass, and 1 for percussion.  Finally, if the score is really complex I will write things out for a full orchestra partiture upwards of 16 staves.  But I rarely use just a 2 stave piano score for an orchestra - for me it's too small.

I've heard that John Williams uses 8 staves when he sketches out his film scores.

Great topic!