How long do you spend composing a single work?

I know there was a topic based on how long you compose per day. This topic has a twist. I am curious how much time many of you spend per composition. I will start first:

Back in the days, when I was just practicing, I spent maybe a month per composition. I used to write ragtime music, so it didn't take me too long to compose the simpler pieces. My ragtime music is on average 2-3 minutes long.

When I turned 18, I started to compose more serious and bigger works. Since I write bigger free form piano solos now, I spend about 6 months composing each of my pieces. It is frustrating for me to compose sometimes since I can spend hours on a section to just throw away everything I did that night. This is another reason for me taking a very long time per composition. On average, the length of my bigger free form piano solos are 10 minutes long. My longest piano solo is 14 minutes long.

So, what about you guys? What is your estimated time to compose a single complete composition? And how long are your compositions on average?

For my two completed compositions:

Horn concerto - 24 mins length, worked for 27 months (July 2002 to Oct 2004)

Faerie Wind - 2 mins length, worked for 4 weeks (Dec 2004 to Jan 2005)

And my current work in progress, which is my third composition:

Piano quartet - 14 mins written to date (of planned 25-30 mins), in progress for 26 months (Aug 2003 to present)

Note: I don't necessarily write quite as slowly as it appears - I only compose when I have time for it between other commitments. I think I typically average about 2 hours per week composing.

For anything more complex than a simple sub 5 minute piano piece (which can sometimes come complete from start to finish in one inspirational session of a few hours - although some I have worked on for a couple of months), I will typically take about 6-24 months to write a 10 minute movement for ensemble or orchestra.

I know that sounds like a long time, but I have very little time for the actual writing it down, most of the 'composing' is done in spare 10 minute sections in my head waiting for a train, although I often have to wait a long time for the inspiration to hit. And even when it does, when I finally get round to putting it on paper, I often discard it; I probably reject about 90% of the ideas I come up with (ideas based on a current idea, rather than whole new ideas, if you see what I mean).

So I write very slowly indeed. In about 20 years of composing I have 'written' about 30 short piano works, two string quartets, one 'symphony', 3 or so small ensemble works, a few duets for varied instruments, and about 5 smaller orchestral works. Although several of these still exist only in part at least in my head (some for over 10 years...), as I find the time and energy to commit them to paper.

My time writing a piece certainly is not in proportion to how long it is.

My pieces (that I recognize) range from under a minute to 15 minutes in length.

The shorter pieces might take a few weeks or a month to write, where as the 15 minute piece may have taken a few days, a week, or a year.

I have a 7 minute piece for piano and string orchestra that I wrote in under and hour--I thought of it as an exercise, but it was taken seriously and performed.

I have a 7 minute piano solo piece that took 15 weeks, and another 5 minute piece that took a week or two.

Due to natural life changes, I figure it would take a month to get anything done. But, "back in the day" when I was composing non-stop every day, I could put something out in a reasonable amount of time.

I've never finished a multi-movement work, except for a little piano suite that took me six or seven months (January to August 2004).

My string quartets are being very uncooperative. I have three movements of one completed (in F), one movement of a second (in B minor), most of the final movement to a third (in E), and a really, really awesome - but quite short - beginning to a fourth (in E-flat). Would that I could finish them one after another instead of this. Ah well.

But yes. I'd love to finish the one in F by the end of the year. (I can't write the slow movement, darn it!) That'll've been a year and four months (from August 2004).

Single pieces, the two or three-minute type, generally take me anywhere from two weeks to more than a year. I don't have much spare time either, especially during the school year - and, more importantly, I tend to only want to work on my compositions when I'm feeling inspired. If one's frustrating me, it'll take longer. Some of them come along much more easily than others, and not in a predictable way (a current orchestral piece is maybe mentally the easiest thing I've written in years, while a little piano piece from May 2004 that I've almost but not quite finished is bothering the heck out of me because I can't think of anything for its last five bars in the middle there).

Interesting thread.

I guess i'm guilty of the ''churn out short, stupid stuff non-stop'' thing. This is probably due to the fact that i cannot focus for very long, i start out with great plans for a piece but when i've gotten into it; i get at least fifteen other ideas that, in my head, sound much better than the one i'm currently working with. This, of course, has got to stop.....

Hehe, did that make any sense? It's my impression that i'm not the only one having this problem... Marisa, you said you had the problem before?

Sort of. It was more that I used to just write really short pieces. As in thirty-second pieces. Those days are over, thank goodness.

I still get overwhelmed by ideas sometimes, but not nearly as often as I used to. I think as one gets increasingly skilled as a composer, one gets better at writing down exactly what's being heard in the mind. And so ideas come out better, and sometimes more of them can fit into the same piece.

Wow... :wacko: I feel very strange....none of my compositions with the exception of some of my major orchestrals (unfortunately not uploaded yet) have ever taken me more than month to write :unsure: ...

Meridia's Overture (which you HAVE heard) for example was completed in 2 weeks. As for my piano pieces (which only Wolf and perhaps Letehn have heard - yay for MSN :D ) take me as long as the song is. I sit down and improvise and record what comes out to get the end result.

Anyways reading this has made me very curious, why does composing take longer for others? Is it because you have less time to work on composing? (I have 1 hour on average per day myself) ?

I don't want to sound snobby or anything, I'm just genuinely curious to see what the reason behind this phenomenon is.

:blush:

For me, several things:

1. I've always been on a career path outside music. When I started composing, I was a college student doing a biology major; after I graduated I did experimental psychology research for a year, and applied to both medical schools and graduate schools, both of which involved a lot of travel for interviews; and now I'm in medical school. All of these things involve massive time commitments, so I don't think I've ever spent more than 15 hours composing in a single week, it's been more than a year since I've been able to do 5 hours in a week. These days I do most of my composing in the 10-minute breaks between lectures, and only when I don't have something else that I need to do. I average only about 10 minutes per day for composition, which is usually enough to write or edit about two measures' worth of music.

2. It also doesn't help that I have to try to hide my composing activities from my parents, who are still trying to convince me to quit music completely.

3. When I do have time to compose, I tend to latch on to a single theme or motive and keep turning it over in my head. I have a hard time developing a theme satisfactorily, so I'll usually think about it until I have something to do with it. That can take a long time. For this reason, I simply cannot finish a piece in one sitting, no matter how short. In fact, the most I have ever written in one sitting was about 40 measures, and that was the first time I ever sat down and tried to compose. (That ended up being the first 40 measures or so of the slow movement of my horn concerto.)

4. I'm also a pretty poor melodist, and I generally come up with about one usable melodic idea per 3-4 weeks. The rest of the time, I'm trying to develop what I already have.

And Marisa - I haven't see you post any music to the board since it changed... and I don't think any of us have heard that piano suite. Post! Post! :unsure:

Anyways reading this has made me very curious, why does composing take longer for others? Is it because you have less time to work on composing? (I have 1 hour on average per day myself) ?

If I work on a piece for 6 months, I am assuming I put in about 2 hours of composition time per day. This equals about 360 hours worth of my time put into a single piece.

The reason it takes me so long is because I am very particular about my music. Coming up with a melody isn't what takes me so long, it is how I want to present that melody. I find this process difficult sometimes, because I want to be semi-original, although there are times when I borrow completely from Chopin. Then there is the issue of which style am I going to implement for a particular section. Also, ideas take a very long time to come to my head, personally. Then there is the issue of key changing. I always venture out of my home key and sometimes I have a hard time finding myself back home. Then I have to be careful not to sound redundant in some of my faster passages, so it is a very careful process for myself. It is extremely hard to write a presto good quality piano passage. If you are not careful, the fast passage won't sound like anything, even if it is harmonically good on the ears. Making sure patterns are strict for a particular section also adds to the time consumption. I personally don't like to use irregular patterns.

I have two methods of composing. By improvising, and by coming up with a tune in my head. Usually by improvising, I improvise measure by measure carefully, eventually giving me an idea of how the piece should progress. It is very hard for me to come up with an idea in my head without sitting at the piano (or some kind of music maker). Furthermore, I also compose for playability. Sometimes it is hard to compose something that not only sounds good, but it easy on the hands. My earlier pieces are guilty of being tremendously hard to play, although all my pieces are played by myself (very slowly). My current piece is specifically aimed for playability, and of course quality. This is why it takes me so long to compose.

Originally posted by ]\/[4@Oct 27 2005, 10:18 PM

Anyways reading this has made me very curious, why does composing take longer for others? Is it because you have less time to work on composing? (I have 1 hour on average per day myself) ?

I also have very little spare time. It probably looks as if I have more than I do with my visits here (and those darn mind invasions don't help), but I'm definitely pretty busy. Yes, I asked for it. And hard work doesn't scare me. But it leaves me without much time for my pastimes other than surfing the Internet and listening to music (reading; writing stories and poetry; composing music; going for walks; Sudoku [those are awesome]; and the like).

That, and, as I said, I only like to work when I'm feeling inspired. Which makes it tricky, because usually when I do have spare time, I'm not in the right mood to compose - and the reverse. This usually results in my composing, say, from 12 to 2 AM on a Wednesday night or something, when I should have been asleep. Then it throws off the end of my week, but usually puts me in a good enough mood to manage until the weekend. Heh.

And Marisa - I haven't see you post any music to the board since it changed... and I don't think any of us have heard that piano suite.

:) Ah! I feel wierder now! I take 2 hours at most on my pieces! Not weeks and months!

The fastest I've ever composed a song was 7 minutes and was 49 seconds. (cause it was for a video game my brother was making.) ;)

All of my compositions take exactly the same amount of time as their total length, since they are totally improvised. An average improvisation of mine is 20 minutes long.

Hmmmm... i never really know how long it takes me to write a piece... one i wrote in 1 day (about 3 hours) and spend another 2 weeks "perfecting" it.

So this one piece i wrote 3 years ago but just before a few months i stopped "perfecting" it...

Longest it ever took me for a piece was 3 months.

Avarage piece is 3 minutes long.... :blink:

Depending on how well organized the piece is in my head befor eI sit down to write it is the critical factor for me. Here is a comparison:

"Homage for Dohnányi' an eight minute Concert Band work, was written in the span of three weeks. I worked a little bit every day on it during that time period. This is a quick time frame for me.

"Piano Concerto in F Sharp Minor - Mvt I' which I recently posted in the Major Works section has been something I've been working on in one form or another for nearly five years. The first three years of it I struggled to write it as a Piano Sonata. But the ideas I had were too big and I could not be satisfied with it in that form. About a year and a half ago, I finally settled on turning it into a Piano Concerto. It took me a year to write the first seven minutes. I kept getitng side tracked. But this summer I had some time and motivation, and I finished the last ten minutes in a little over a month. But by that point, I had completely absorbed the material of the music in my mind, so it was mostly a matter of transcribing what was in my head down on the computer.

I have pieces of music that I've been working on for far longer though. For instance 'Xylophone Concerto in D Major' has been in the works for almost ten years now, and I still have not finished it yet.

Not long enough, usually. Most of the stuff I've done recently were done in an hour or so, but they were mostly for fun - I didn't really bother too much with the details, wanting to surprise myself a bit with final product.

My short attention span has allowed a maximum of about 2 months for a single piece, though the effort was certainly staggered.

It's hard to say, I usually play for a couple hours a day (sometimes with luck of finding something and sometimes without). Usually my personal best pieces (or parts to long songs) have been done extremely quickly after a long calm of nothing written. I usually write best after a bad incident, but I try to practice regularly.

Piano Sonatas (1 day - avg. length - 14 minutes)

String Quartets (3 - 4 days - avg length 21 minutes)

Etudes (3-4 hours - avg length 1:36 minutes)

Concerti (1 Piano - 19 minutes - 3 months, 1 Violin 33 minutes - 2.5 months)

Symphony Nr.1 (45 minutes - 6 months)

:( - I'm a very angry person - Channels into my music in terms of energy !!

Define work. Single movement? Multi-movement? And as a general rule, something for, say, piano, will take less time than something for orchestra. A simple matter of logistics.

It depends on the piece... 1 1/4 of a full opera took me a year to complete and I'm still working on it. My second symphony has been on and off for a year as well...

School and work always get in the way. I'll take a year off after I graduate and get back to you on this question!

It depends on the piece... 1 1/4 of a full opera took me a year to complete and I'm still working on it. My second symphony has been on and off for a year as well...

School and work always get in the way. I'll take a year off after I graduate and get back to you on this question!

Do you plan on getting the opera performed??

or posting it up on the the forum?(and if its here already, PLEASE DIRECT ME!)

I am hoping to get it performed.

The audio samples can be heard on my web site. The opera is called "Betrayal Story".

My earlier pieces took me 5 to 8 hours to complete. They all weren't bad, but they were only around 3 minutes. My newer pieces take me 15 to 20 hours to complete, although they are mainly written for wind essemble, I am starting a Concerto for clarinet. I also have done some soft rocky type stuff that can take me 8 hours or for the shorter worse ones 1 hour. :)

Unfortunately, because of my job which has really long hours, I tend to compose in spurts and it usually takes a long time for me to finish writing a piece. I still have tons of stuff that I started years back in college and remain unfinished but I still consider substantive enough for me to eventually go back and work on them.

My quickest though was a showpiece I wrote for violin and orchestra which I wrote during a boring shift working the circulation desk in the college library but that is a huge anomaly for me.

My works for class run between two and three minutes, for solo or duet instruments, and usually take 3 - 5 days to compose. Because my school IS composing, I usually wind up composing for upwards of 3 hours a day, which is probably why I produce so quickly.