Orchestrating other composers piano music?

Hello everybody.

(I do not hope this is a dumb question.. :hmmm: )

I guess the topic title says it all. Would it help me improve my compositional/orchestration skills, if i orchestrate piano music that was composed by some of the old masters? I am thinking that it could be useful if i am doing those kind of exercises as i am studying a book on the subject (Adler and Berlioz)

Please help me, :happy:

Lukas Engberg

If you practise orchestrating, you'll get better at orchestrating. If you practise composing, you'll get better at composing. I suppose it would be a neat little diversion to orchestrate random classical piano repertoire, but if you want to improve YOUR writing skills then you actually need to write (and orchestrate) YOUR music.

Study only gets you so far...the rest is practise, work, and perseverance.

Yes, I think orchestrating your favorite piano music would help your compositional skills as well as orchestration skills. In getting to know a piece you should be able to pick up some ideas about composing that you can apply to your own works. Marius makes a good point that to improve your writing skills you actually have to write rather than transcribe/orchestrate. However, there is a nice middle ground known as arranging. If you arrange a work you'll have something concrete to start with and you can branch off, really making the idea your own. Arranging gives you experience in both orchestrating and composing.

I think it all depends on what level you're at. If you've never composed but wanna get a sense of orchestrating, than absolutely go for it. If you're feeling up to arranging a piece, as Black Orpheus said, it is a nice middle ground. I found out it useful for writing counter melodies. Like, if you're complimenting a great melody, it makes you step up in your own writing to match it.

As Marius said, the end goal is to orchestrate you're own music but as a start, definitely have some fun with other composers' music.

Who were you thinking of orchestrating?

Peace on Earth,

-John

In short, yes. No matter what your ability. It allows you to study the work of great composers and to see how they use lines and how you can vary how instruments share them.