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  #41  
11-17-2009, 05:11 PM
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Sekto Springs
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: May 2003
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while creativity and knowledge of theory is obviously necessary to compose good music, it certainly helps if you know the instruments you're composing for. My friend asked me to play a piece he wrote for piano, and it just didn't feel right, and he's not a pianist. I'm far from being a fine pianist myself, but I've played enough to know that Bach and Mozart knew their shit when they wrote for piano (or harpsichord, perhaps).
This.

As a composer, you have to know certain things about what you're composing for - whether or not you can play it is irrelevant, but you can't write a part for flute 50 ledger lines below it's range and expect the musician to magically make that note.

You also have to bear in mind the complexity of certain instruments. You can't write a piece for contrabassoon in 160 bpm with tons of slurred arpeggios and expect the bassoonist to play it smoothly. Making overly complicated pieces is indeed the mark of an amateur musician. That doesn't mean that complex pieces are bad, quite the opposite, in fact I'd like to think of myself as a maximalist I utilize as many instruments as I can, but I always make sure they blend well and don't write ridiculous motifs.
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