Help to get started

I was hoping i could get some stories on how people went to come to get into writing for orchestra, Im generally an all round round music lover and have written several jazz standered style lead sheets etc that i hva eplayed with soem great succsess but am much more interested in writing for orchestra and such but have no idea where to begin, i can play piano at about a grade 3 standered but i am more of a percussionist/drummer style. Did most of you get compositional techers to teach you four part harmony or counter point or did you play piano to such a level you just knew everything? or did you get a massive amount of theory and justuse your knowledge? I'd appreciaite any comments cause i really would like to write for orchestra

Writing for orchestra is a very complex matter. However, there are a few resources that I know of that are quite helpful in the process.

http://www.mti.dmu.ac.uk/~ahugill/manual/

The Philharmonia's Website has tons of neat videos showing you how each instrument works, and sound samples of the notes it can play. However, you should avoid the ensemble section, it's not too helpful since it doesn't include scores with it's recording, nor tells you much about actually putting the ensemble together.

Adler's Orchestration Book

I recently picked this one up, and it is excellent. Newer version might have recordings with them.

As for learning piano, it's a great skill, but composing for an orchestra can be done with small reference to the piano. It's a bit more difficult, but has been done before.

I'm wondering, have you had any theory classes? That's where you should learn counterpoint and harmony from. A composition teacher would expect knowledge of these things.

And also, I believe that you do not need a composition teacher right away. While some might disagree with me here, I think that time to develop one's own ideas of style is easier without a teacher. In the case of my brother, who never had a composition teacher until college, I feel that his teacher has now nurtured the growth that he had already begun, as opposed to turning him one way in the cannon. While style can be learned on an instrument after techinque, I think that technique can and should be learned before technique in composition.

As to how I started writing for orchestra (which is very seldom, it is a very hard ensemble to write for.) I merely decided to it was time to write for it. I had no idea of what orchestration was, and hardly knew about the other instruments. But as I listened to other pieces, I started to hear 'colors' that I liked. Bassoon and Cello; French Horn and Strings... And these things worked and weaved into my study of many orchestration books and scores of orchestral works. And now, I will be going to college and furthering the craft.

Pretty much, don't lose heart if your first orchestral piece isn't to great (and possibly unplayable.) The craft will continue to grow even though you may bomb a couple of times.