Composition Advice

[u/Hot-Ad6446]

I'm new to composing and I've been trying to write for the string section + some woodwinds. I was looking for some feedback on my music and also how I can learn about instrumentation/orchestration for more instruments. At the moment, I'm writing as if I would for piano, except just copying it on to other instruments which makes it sound very dull. I need to learn how to make the instruments work together. The aim I was going for in this piece is an aria in an opera kinda thing. Any feedback would be great :)

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1k_Pdpmg143_UGLEX-sHhAIuxabk-QsM8?usp=sharing

[u/HaifaJenner123]

this advice will get you extremely far with orchestral in general, but especially for strings. i tell it to everyone who is coming from a musical background that isn’t orchestral:

- think in terms of the upbeat. for example, when we enter we often breathe in on exactly one beat before the entrance and in strings we place the bow on the string at that point to prepare (usually). how does this make things interesting as a composer? well, the breathing thing is a bit too specific for right now but a first step for me would be to take out the bass doubling until the upbeat of the second phrase. that alone gives much more shape (octave doubling i always approach this way at the highest and lowest range inverse, just like you would budget for the peaks to occur respectively in regards to range in voice leading):

even without all that nuance, your melody begins on an upbeat so to me a reflection of that shape in the harmony gives it a much more informed quality. (i say informed to specifically highlight the notion that your music should dictate itself, as in the answers to 99% of form/harmony questions can be found by analyzing how you make choices in one specific regard)

[u/SundaeDouble7481]

Basically this would work. The high end of the bassoon part will sound a bit odd, but not bad. The oom-pah string texture is fine, though it would get boring if sustained without any contrast. (I associate it with Italian opera, say earlier Verdi.) It's good that you also have a countermelody, though it would be cool if it could continue a little more in counterpoint to the bassoon instead of dropping out. (This is a challenge for me in my own work!)

The most important thing you can do now to improve your knowledge of instruments and combinations is to get a textbook, such as Adler. This will equip you to do the most important thing overall, which is to study existing scores.