I'm happy to say that I just started working on my new piano concerto (in d-minor) and have written 12 pages this morning.

Anyone else writing a similiar piece?

I've written 5. They are extremely fun to write, but I'm focusing more on solo piano/ chamber works for now. I just finished my 5th one like 3 weeks ago, so probably in a month or 2 ill write another one!

Yes. I had somewhere between 28-32 pages of a concerto in Dm done when my computer crashed and I lost it. Thanks for remindming me! grr....

Care to plug it into some sort of notation software and give us a listen? (Or perhaps post the score?)

Im in the slow process of writing a piano concerto. First and 3rd movements are f#minor, the 2nd is d minor. Im getting very frustrated tho, Im not particularly good at orchestrating.

members.sibeliusmusic.com/brucejefferies

theres a recent version of the first movement on there if anyones interested. im currently completely rewriting th ecadenza, becuase i dont like it at all.

Piano concertos?

I've started to write two, but I'm stuck with the orchestration. They're really fun to play, though. Especially with your computer playing orchestra... :-)

And guess what scale the second one is in? D minor. Maybe we should start a club for "Dm piano concerto writers" :-)

I've written a concerto, but in e-minor, not in d-minor... Guess I can't join the club...

Well you know d minor is the saddest key (that's straight out of Spinal Tap). I haven't written a piano concerto, though it's a project I've contemplated and something I may start as soon as I get some ideas.

However since some have commented on weakness with orchestration I thought I'd copy something I received this morning from an organ list on the range of the french horn. I knew when I read it that I should share this information. So now I share it with you.

I should preface this with this information. In the message below Dr. Watkins comments that typically horn players specialise as either high or low. To my knowledge this is still the case and unusually it's horns 1 and 3 that are typically high and horns 2 and 4 that are typically low. I don't know why it's this way and can only speculate that a 2nd chair horn may be the better player than 3rd chair and they didn't want the high horn parts to get all the good players.

On last note about the horn, it is notated a fifth above concert pitch. That means the F below middle C is notated as middle C (hence the designation horn in F).

AND yes orchestration is a strange and mystical art. Do not rely on your midi instruments to accurately portray what a real orchestra would sound like. Else you'll expect low octave flutes to be audible against FF strings and brass (ain't never gonna happen!).

Cheers,

Steve

==========Forwarded message===============
I asked my long time friend Dr. David Watkins about the range of the French Horn and here is his reply. He spent forty years with the Terre Haute Symphony and is a retired French Horn Prof at Indiana State University in Terre Haute. We were kids together!
Von


"I'm going to speak in concert pitches, not in the pitches that are notated for the horn in F. For a junior high school kid, I would expect the range to be from the B-flat a 9th below middle C to the C an octave above middle C. For a more mature player, I would put the low edge at the F an octave and a 5th below middle C, to the D or E-flat an octave-plus above middle C.

The lowest written pitch I ever encountered was the F two octaves and a fifth below middle C. (This is the fundamental of the harmonic series for a horn in F, but it is really difficult to produce for 99 percent of all horn players.) It was during the Contemporary Music Festival at ISU back when that festival dealt with avant garde stuff. I exchanged that note with the bass trombone, which was higher. The highest I have heard played was the high C two octaves above middle C (the high C associated with sopranos and trumpet players). It was in a Haydn trio for horn, violin, and cello, and the horn player was using a descant horn--an F horn an octave higher than the normal F horn.

Yes, the horn can play down into the bass trombone and tuba range, but seldom is asked to, as down there it doesn't have the volume associated with the other two instruments. The Shostakovich 5th Symphony has all 4 horns playing the A two octaves and a 3rd below middle C--and he had the nerve to label it piannisimo! (To get that note, you use any dynamic that will work!) Generally, the accepted top of the range is F an octave and a fourth above middle C, but Schumann wrote a high A-flat, Haydn a high F-sharp.

Considering the "normal" proficient and possibly professional horn player, I would put the functional low register as down to the B-flat or A two octaves+ below middle C, and the functional high register up to the F an octave and a 4th above middle C.

Yes, this is a very extensive range, and for most of the horn's life, players have specialized as being high register players or low register players. Although this is still true to a certain extent, modern composers ignore these traditions and write for all horns over the complete range."

Hope that was helpful to someone. Now to start mulling a piano concerto.

I wrote a piano concerto in 2002 which I revised recently. It was only one short movement (12 minutes), accompanied by a chamber ensemble of 15 players. I was quite proud of it at that time, and although I think I've written better things since then, I still am.

If you have the Sibelius Scorch plug-in, you can see and hear it here . This is still the original version, though, I haven't yet uploaded the revised one.

I'm quite good with orchestrations actually.
The piano part is little poor because I can't work on it without piano infront of me.
I don't need piano for the orchestra part.

Yeah, I'm no good without a piano in front of me, but since I rarely have on in hand when/where I can write, I often rely on what pitch I can find using Finale, rather than working with a real piano, and I must say, it both slows the process down and provides weaker results (especially when writing long runs...chords I'm much better at and always have been...but runs are no good little bastards :p ).

I don't know enough about the orchestral instruments to attempt such a thing (ie writing a piano concerto).

Maybe one day in the future.

All you need is range. The rest you can do by ear (for the most part).

Vienna Symphonic Library helps a little.

Both Rimsky-Korsakov and Berlioz wrote books on Instrumentation/Orchestration - you may want to consider taking a look at those. I personally like the Berlioz a little better, but they both have merit, and both give lots of examples of orchestral writing for various instruments, instrument ranges, as well as idioms that work well or not so well for various instruments.

Only if you're orchesrating for your computer... One of the things I've learned the hard way, is that orchestrating for a computerized orchestra is very different then orchestrating for a flesh-and-blood acoustic orchestra.

If you want the music to sound good with a "real" acoustic orchestra, then you do[/b] need to know quite a bit about orchestration. That's exactly why I'm currently stuck with two partly-orchestrated concertos... :-)

Thanks for the pointers/encouragement.

My concern is in line with Guri's comment. I play the piano so I know that it is very possible to write music on a comuter that no human could ever play.

However, I don't know enough about what a violinist, or french gorn player would find impossible.

Nontheless, one day I might attempt a midi concerto since it's highly unlikely that a real orchestra will every play one of my scores.

I can answer for most brass players. (I am not intimately familiar with the slide mechanism of a trombone, but that's about it.) As far as brass players are concerned, difficulties lie pretty solely in pitch. The valves can be depressed almost as fast as a piano's keys, though the faster you go, the more clarity you lose in the rebound of the valve. But pitch is another story, because it's not fixed. Generally, large (particularly large and fast) leaps and extreme pitch ranges should be avoided.

That being said, Haydn wrote octave leaps into a trumpet concerto that move decently fast, and it was a pain in the ***, but entirely possible. Extreme ranges can be found in the Vienna Symphonic Library link...from personal experience, try not to go all the way down to the F# below middle C, and try not to go above a D or an E two octaves above middle C. (Reasonably, I could reach the A above that once upon a time, but not everybody can, and it starts to reach the "screech" limit of the trumpet, where tone goes right out the window...you hear jazz players do this a lot.) I've seen stretches to an F, but very rarely.

You'll see all that in the VSL, though. I just thought I'd add a little trumpet-specific information since it was my primary instrument before piano (and up until I was 19, when I stopped playing trumpet all together).

Hope it helps.

The real issues with orchestration go far beyond range. Maintaining balance between choirs is certainly one. For example do you write for a 1, 2 or 3 flutes when using the flute to bolster a melody carried by the 1rst violins? Another reality is that real orchestras expect some input from the composer on string bowings (which the concert master will promptly change). Also if you don't play a wind instrument the concept of breathing sometimes gets forgotten, but there are big differences between instruments on how long they can play before having to take a breath (oboes can play forever, flutes definitely not). Just some things to think about.

The Vienna Symphonic Library site IS cool by the way.

I finished my 43rd Piano Concerto a month ago....

?

I act like 5 years younger than I am on here, I swear haha

a) Always compose for 42 flutes. 42 is the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

b) Since the concertmaster is going to change it all anyway, have fun with him/her. Write absolutely ridiculous bowings...or even draw an oversized jumbo-jet (complete with seat and tray-table in locked and upright position).

c) Alas that I used to be brass. I never EVER think about breathing because it's second nature to me, but I can see a trumpet player turning blue having to hold an "A" for 47 seconds. :p

While I realize that most of your post is in jest I'm sure you know that the trumpet player would only be required to hold the note for 42 seconds.

I have already composed and arranged to perform one of my own, in E minor. It is a cyclic 3 movement piece, which is not excessively long. I may post the score someday.

I wish I had the inspiration for such thing but I'm writing a play about pianos instead. When it comes to paperwork, I feel better with words (in french).

Hmmm...although this is a piano forum I'm sure that the reference to trumpet, 47 seconds and circular breathing would come to play here somewhere.

On a related note, I was asked to play the flute for a friend's composition (flute, violin and piano) and had to point out that I simply could not play a 2 minute sequence of notes that he wanted bouncing between the lower and upper register (skipping the middle register). The two problems were that I wasn't good enough and that what he had written (which sounded good on his synthesized orchestra) tended to be a prone to squeaks when I played it.

Ed

I agree with ed, I'm currently working on composing songs for trumpets and spend a lot time talking with my boyfriend, understanding what is possible for him and what is not. A friend of mine lead an orchestra and compose for it and say that to do his job, you have to be able to play of each instrument.

When I try to learn the accompaniment of my man's trumpet songs, I can easily know if the arrangement was done by a pianist or not. Non-pianist write stuff that don't transpose the hand on the keyboard in an optimal way (some parts doesn't sound rich while they are hard to play).

im a piano-solo-person.