careyford

Writing a symphony can be daunting because we associate it with a big orchestra and being as long as a Mahler symphony. Whatever the piece of music, you can begin by writing something shorter for a smaller orchestra. Say you start with 30 seconds for solo clarinet and violins. You can do that pretty thoroughly in an hour or two. You’ve started your symphony even if you don’t know where it fits. You may not use it at all, but you’ve begun.

One thing that helps with writing a symphony is breaking it off into smaller pieces. Beethoven approached string quartets as his training ground for orchestral works. Of course, he got so good at composing string quartets they stand on their own! Start by composing a piece that’s 30 seconds long for just a couple instruments and see how it goes. Really a symphony can be seen as hundreds of 15, 30, 60 second sections put together in an order that makes them “add up” for a listener.