Orchestration Question 15: Productivity

How much time it takes to compose and/or arrange a piece of orchestral music - excerpted from "100 Orchestration Tips."
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[@GeraldWilhelmBradenComposer]

Bravo Thomas, this is a great video, and you are a wonderful orchestrator! I worked as a professional commercial composer for over 30 years, before I decided to just compose classical music strictly for art when I was in my mid 50's. This was such an interesting video, because people also often ask me how long it takes to create my orchestral pieces, from the piano sketch, to the finished orchestration. For me, there really is no "normal" amount of time, because I am no longer "on the clock" to earn my living. Though my orchestral pieces usually take anywhere from 1 to 3 months to complete, depending on how many days a week I am working, and how much "expanding" on the sketches I add to the piece. Many of my past music students and other people used to (and still today) pass around these "legend" stories of famous composers writing entire symphonies in a few days. I always tell them that's a bunch of hogwash, because we are talking about 30-50 pages of full orchestration for each movement, AND they wrote everything by hand in the past....Ha! Thank you for sharing this wonderful and informative video....Peace! 🎼❤

[@mrplatink]

Holy MOLEY!! You are literally LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE!!

[@michael18276]

Orchestration by ear, for me, 2 min a day at most; from midi, maybe 1 hour a day.

[@ex_orpheus1166]

Franklin seems to be dosing well on that couch!

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Yes, he's one of those effortless celebrities. :D

[@snowleopard9749]

Does having a cat improve your productivity?

[@ashsoforenko3952]

What would you have to say to the amateur composer, who doesn't and never plans on having to answer to a fixed schedule or monetary motivator? Do you think it would still be productive, even just from an artistic perspective, to increase or decrease music produced per second from the ideas in the video? Especially from a personal perspective, if you won the lottery today and got to compose for enjoyment for the rest of your life how would those productivity time frames change?

[@OrchestrationOnline]

I would say that it's a bit like asking whether someone with no deadlines should ever try to act like they have a deadline. The whole point of the video is essentially how professional standards call for a certain degree of productivity. Without that pressure, there's really no need to worry about increasing one's speed or level of creative output.

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Also, if I won the lottery today (I don't gamble, but saying I did), I would basically continue my career mostly as if nothing ever happened, because the structure I've built with my contacts and connections is more valuable to me than money. It's a life's work - whereas money just represents financial security. To be sure, I might travel more and stabilise my family finances, but I wouldn't otherwise change things very much.

[@brendarua01]

This is a lovely response. I congratulate you for finding your passion in life's work.

[@nilsfrederking62]

Interesting question. I was completely baffled by Haydns catalogue of works, but no single piece of Haydn is one of my favorite musical pieces and some of my favorites I listened to hundreds of times. Some artists only made a few works which are of such a high quality that they are still well known, even if they were created hundreds of years ago - there is a tendency that things fade away..... But another question is, whether you want to spent excessive time on only a few works, you will get done less, also sometimes it needs a few works till there is one particularly good one, you cannot control that, some composers were extremely consistent, like Chopin, but even he has slight differences in "quality". And spending a lot of time on a composition, does not necessarily mean it becomes better and better, sometimes it is better just to write a new piece. But also it can be fruitful to improve a piece, to find out what could be improved, find solutions, maybe even write some parts completely new, till it is very well balanced. Of course it is also important that you stay motivated and enjoy the process, if it does move too slowly it can be demotivating.

[@musiqueacoustique1]

2 min per day for original concert music? That is very impressive. I can see that with a slow movement. What about fast paced music, where you write and orchestrate 100 measures and you only have 30 or 40 seconds of music, can you still get 2 min per day?

[@OrchestrationOnline]

Two minutes is calculated as an average, fast or slow. A lot of different factors influence the amount of output, not just tempo. Lack of distractions is probably the biggest factor in a high rate of turnover.

[@musiqueacoustique1]

@@OrchestrationOnline It's really interesting that you see distractions as the biggest factor. I hope you consider this topic for a future video along with other tips to speed up your composing/orchestrating process.

[@SirWhiteRabbit-gr5so]

What does "on-time" mean? [/sarc]

[@OrchestrationOnline]

For me, usually a week or two before the deadline because I'm already onto something else by then.

[@sebastianzaczek]

Ah yes, productivity... sometimes i can compose entire pieces in just a couple days and sometimes i'm literaly stuck for a week... A couple Videos ago you told me something about the "next orchestration challenge", do you already plan _when_ it will be? Maybe i might become productive then...😅

[@sebastianzaczek]

And will you inform us here on KZbin as Well?