The Process of Composing A Symphony

The Process of Composing a Symphony
4/4/16, 10:14 PM
MUSIC COMPOSITION MADE SIMPLE
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October 31, 2011 by Jon Brantingham 17 Comments
The Emotional Process of Composing Music
Do you have that desire to compose something great for the
world? Did you experience something that you cannot explain in
words? Music is an incredible thing, that can express the
inexpressible, but how does that happen? How do you get from
emotion to music? What is your process of composing?
It All Begins With Experience

when I experience something do I compose, and only when composing
Only
do I experience anything. Gustav Mahler
I am a firm believer that wisdom only comes with experience. There are some things that
cannot be learned from a book, they have to happen to you. One of these things is
https://www.artofcomposing.com/09-process-of-composing
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emotion. Emotion cannot be described to the point of experience, it must be felt.

But music offers something different. It is one of the few things that can convey emotion.
When you hear Beethovens 7th Symphony, 2nd Movement, you feel his emotions.
My Motivation to Write
I, like many others, dream of writing a Symphony. It was something I attempted in my
teenage years, but I failed. I never finished. Maybe because I didnt quite get the form, or I
just didnt have the patience to see it through. But more than likely, I didnt have the
experience. Not necessarily in writing music, although that plays a part, but definately I
didnt have the Life Experience.
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Life Happens
But something funny has happened to me over the last 10 years. I grew up. Life
happened. I graduated, joined the army, went to war, got married, became a Dad, went
through ups and downs, lost some family and friends. I have lived.
So this is where I believe my desire to compose a symphony comes from. It is more a
desire to express my life through music. So how is this done?

Planning
As with most things, I attempt to be methodical about everything I do. My process for
composing a Symphony may seem a little dry, but I think it will prove to be very helpful. I
wish I could say that I envisioned the entire Symphony in a flash of genius, and am just
writing down that revelation. But its not true. So I am planning it out, each step, in detail.
This will give me a plan a map.
The process of composing in writing (like writing a book or essay) is very similar. You
create an outline and you fill it in.
The funny thing about plans, they dont always go to plan. But as we say in the army:
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Mean Old Army Guy
The Traditional Symphony as a Roadmap

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We have to start somewhere, so lets take a look at the Symphony overall. I realize this is
not every Symphony. I am not going to worry too much about what a Real Symphony is,
or if it should be three, four, or five movements. I am just taking a General Symphony
Outline and building from there.
A symphony traditionally has four movements

1. First Movement Tends to be in Sonata form (also commonly called Sonata-Allegro
form, to differentiate it from the Sonata Cycle). I will stick with this, as the Sonata
form gives you a great vehicle for development. An excellent example of this is
Beethovens 5th, 1stMovement.
2. Second Movement Tends to be something slower, and can be in many different
forms. Sometimes this is swapped with the third movement, which well talk about
below.
3. Third Movement Tends to be a Minuet and Trio or a Scherzo. Well talk about
these forms more in depth later on down the road.
4. Fourth Movement Once again, this can be in all shapes and sizes, but it usually has
a much more finale type of feel to it. I am thinking of doing a rondo for the last
movement, but I havent made up my mind.
For my purposes, I am going to swap the 2nd and 3rd Movements. Ill explain in later
posts.
My Motivation
So with the overall view of the symphony down, I will approach it from an emotional
direction first. I want to make sure the symphony conveys an emotional journey. What
better to do that then to use the last few years of my life to map it out. These are the life
experiences I am going with.
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First Movement Going to Iraq

Second Movement 15 Months in Combat
Third Movement Meeting My Wife
Fourth Movement Coming Home
With those four topics, I have about a million different emotions to convey, so I will have
to be selective, but this is a good starting point.
First Movement Sonata Form

Going to Iraq. I wont get into the details too much, at least not here, but in a period of a
few weeks, I went through an emotional roller coaster:
I prepped for going, a good friend got shot down in Iraq
I was in a car accident, my car was totalled
I said goodbye to my family (for all I knew was the last time)
I partied in Scotland (thank goodness for crew rest, the airplane crew had to take
the night off)
I stepped off a plane in Kuwait, into what felt like a hairdryer all over my body
Crossing the Berm into Iraq
It was a crazy time.
So with this in mind, I have tried to capture the emotions I felt in a logical way, that will
help me compose the Symphony. This is what I came up with. Its basically an outline.
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This is a picture of my troop, just before taking off for Iraq. What a crazy time.
Outlining the Symphony

To start, I listed the movement, wrote my inspiration, and then wrote down all the
emotions.
Next I mapped those emotions along a shell for a sonata form. The sonata form can go
through various keys, but it is usually firmly rooted in tonic for the exposition and
dominant for the development. Ill go over the sonata form in a later post in much more
detail, like I have with the small themes. Please forgive me for not writing complete
sentences in the outline, it was more stream of through type stuff.
1. First Movement:
1. Inspiration: Going to Iraq
2. Emotions: Uncertainty, Pain, Excitement, Anticipation, Vulnerable, Sadness,
Missing my family, Feeling pain in my heart for the chance that my family will
have to miss me. Uncertainty. Relief after first flight was over. Feeling of
accomplishment.
3. Form: Sonata-Allegro
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1. Introduction: In America, week before leaving, car crash, friend gets shot
down. Packing up. Arrival to Kuwait, funny, odd, camels, sand storm, late
nights, lots of work, preparation.
1. Key Dominant (this is the typical key for introductions in classical
form).
2. Slow, ominous in America, Odd in Kuwait
2. Exposition
1. Key Tonic, maybe minor for uncertainty
2. Main Theme
1. Depart for Iraq
2. Flying around Bagdad, Tigris, Euphrates, Palm tree groves,
landing, safe.
3. Subordinate Theme: Defeat, death of more friends, moving to
Mosul.
3. Development: Finding my place in Mosul, new job. Direction coming.
1. Key Dominant
2. Re-transition Focus on Dominant 7th
4. Recapitulation Tonic, major
1. First Theme
2. Transition/Secondary Development
3. Subordinate Theme.
I plan on posting my exposition very soon. I want to make sure I put up something good.
That is it for now. I would love to hear your thoughts on this. What is your process of
composing music?
Am I being too analytical?
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Jon
Filed Under: Form, Musical Inspiration, Symphony of Enlightenment
Tagged With: Composing a Symphony, How to Compose Music, process of composing,
sonata form, Sonata-Allegro Form, The Symphony
About Jon Brantingham

I have been composing since the age of 12. I am not a theory
professor, nor do I have a degree in music. I just love composing,
and teaching composition, and I want channel that into great
resources for anyone learning to compose music.
Comments
Reece Wagner says
March 1, 2016 at 7:09 pm
Very interesting piece I have a musical theory background and share your
desire to write a symphony, but I felt overwhelmed reading your composition method I
dont have the classical or technical understanding of music that you seem to. Where did
you learn about traditional symphonic structure, and does it need to adhere to a formula
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to be considered one?
Reply
Jon Brantingham says
March 2, 2016 at 12:14 pm
Reece,
I in fact, decided to hold off on composing the symphony. As I started to learn more about
the subject, I realized there was a lot more that I needed to know in order to write a
Symphony that is of merit.
As far as the structure, most symphonies rely heavily on classical form techniques. I am
actually reading a book right now on Mahlers use of Sonata Form. So composers even as
recent as Mahler (and in fact many after him as well) have used traditional formal
structures, such as Sonata Form, Minuet/Trio, Large Ternary, etc.
If you read around my site, youll find many articles discussing these forms.
The beauty of the forms, is that they allow for a lot of flexibility. The forms are based in
the idea that you can represent temporality with specific techniques. For instance, you
can represent beginning by using stable harmony, less surface rhythmic activity, and a
generally slower harmonic rhythm usually focused around tonic harmony. Compare that
to representing middle which often has unstable harmony ie. lots of modulations,
increased surface rhythmic activity (more notes per bar), faster harmonic rhythm,
fragmentation, model-sequence technique, and so on.
These are just some of the concepts that come together to make up musical form.
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Reply
Nadine says
February 18, 2016 at 6:49 pm
PLEASE GO ON I AM SO LOOKING FORWARD ON READING THE REST
PLEASE PLEASEE
Reply
Deborah Weiler says

January 16, 2016 at 11:04 am
I am looking for someone to help me put on paper the finished song. I need
musicians, choirs, composition writers. I dont need to do this by myself, will be glad for
the help. I have a good song and I live in southeast Virginia if there is a possible
collaboration.
Reply
Anna says
November 18, 2015 at 7:22 pm
Hi Jon,
Ive just read your story. You sound like a very organized person . I wonder if you have
managed to finish your symphony yet?
Was wondering what is your opinion on a different composing method. What if I just
have all the music in my head already. No plan. No structure like you. Just music. Ready.
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There. Waiting. Just putting it straight down onto the paper/computer. What if my
composing is spontaneous, natural?
Have u ever tried it?
A.
Reply
November 19, 2015 at 9:28 am
Anna, I actually decided to hold on the Symphony for a while. As I got further in
my studies, I realized there were a few things that I really wanted to understand on a
deeper level first primarily large scale form and orchestration. I am planning on coming
back to the project soon, but right now, I have been working on other projects such as
scoring films.
As far as spontaneous composing yes, there is nothing wrong with it, and in fact it is
generally how many good ideas come up. But I think youll find, a lot of spontaneous
composing is really just people relying on things theyve done in the past with a slight
change, or they are just feeling around in the dark. Ive found that spontaneous ideas
generally only take me so far usually a theme but no more. After that, it is work, plain
and simple to make it longer and more substantial.
None the less, composing is always a mix of spontaneity and diligent planning, even if the
planning isnt written down, you still have to have an idea of where you are going, and go
there.
Reply
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Kevin Pfaff says

February 12, 2015 at 9:50 pm
I too have been composing music since 1968, Jon. I started out writing down
little classical instrumentals inspired so much by Bach and Beethoven.. Over there years
I have composed 2000 pieces of musicmostly rock songs. But I have composed 14 full
length fugues. Again, like you I am not professionally trained. just read a lot of books
about it. so now I am finally writing my first serious symphony at age 57. it is hard. I have
all the themes from all those years and I can still use them. Its just getting hard starting.
Reply
February 24, 2015 at 9:51 am
That is hard, as is developing the piece, but its worth it.
Reply
Paul says
December 29, 2014 at 10:20 pm
Fantasy is a place where things of the magnitude of Beethovens Opus 131 can
happen, reality isnt. You will find yourself with something bland and insignificant if you
base your music in the mundane, Jon.
Reply
December 31, 2014 at 2:13 pm
I would say, my experience in war was anything but mundane.
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Reply
Clayton Riegger says

January 16, 2014 at 7:44 pm
Im really excited for you to post this; are you finished? (not to be rude, but its
been over two years and it sound very interesting!) If not, when are you going to?
Best of luck with the Symphony!
Reply
January 31, 2014 at 9:28 am
Clayton, thanks for the encouragement. I actually moved on to different things
since then, but I plan on getting back into this in the next year, when I start going to a film
scoring program. I still have the original ideas written down, so I can go back to them and
see if I like them.
Reply
thomas says
November 17, 2013 at 1:46 pm
hey jon, to be honest ive never attempted to compose a symphony let alone even
thought about it till last night. recently i decided to start community collage to study
music theory and pretty much every thing else music wise looking over the course i saw a
sec. that said composing symphonies, no i have been playing guitar for over twnty years i
play mostly rock music and writing a rock song is very simple, first come up with some
lyrics then build 3 or 4 chord that fit very well with those lyrics then i tend to use the
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circle of fifths for these parts i find the scale and keys that contain my chordsthen i look
through at the chord degrees in each scale/key then picking the one i like most and i take
the rest of the chord in that scale /key and i finnish writing the chord progressions,
normally i will have intro and choruses in one key an verses in another jus tochange it up
some and with a nother key comes another 7 chords to choose from so well thats my
writing technique for rock songs any ways but im going to attempt to write a short small
symphone now fshort and small for my first attempt so im looking for as much info as i
can get my hands on haha
Reply
beerski says
July 17, 2012 at 10:21 pm
Very moving story man. You certainly have been through a lot. God bless you
and your loved ones and thank you for serving your country. I enjoyed reading your
thoughts and views on writing a symphony as I am currently working on my 4th piece.
The first 3 are not traditional symphonies. They are more like one progressive movement
but in my 4th I am learning how symphonies work but studying peoples ideas like yours
and listening to LOTS of music. Dvorak and Mahler are my favorites right now but I love
Tchaikovsky and others. Ive been a musician for over 15 years but I dont know music
theory so I write from the heart, not by the book. Seems you do both. I have no idea how
to tell what key a musical piece is in. Anyway, learning as I go. Thank you.
Reply
Jon says
July 18, 2012 at 8:21 am
Thanks for the kind words. I am finding out that a Symphony really is no joke. If
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you want to do it justice, there is just so much you have to know. I am write now, really
getting to know musical form, so that I understand, not just the way music has been put
together in the past, like sonata forms, but WHY it was put together that way. Then I can
make better judgements about the way I will put my music together. As I continue to
write articles on this site, and compose more, I am coming to the conclusion that I must
learn as much as I can, and then when I sit down to write, let my subconscious take over,
and not over think things. It is a constant back and forth. If youve got any of your music
posted online, Id love to hear it. Send in a link.
Jon
Reply
Chakshum M says
July 2, 2015 at 6:15 am
hey i m 12 right now and i have composed two piano sonatas and one symphony
Reply
July 2, 2015 at 4:06 pm
Great job Chakshum. It takes a lot of determination and effort so I commend
you. If you keep composing and studying, you can become a great composer. They say it
takes 10,000 hours of dedicated, deliberate practice, but with that kind of focus, ill bet
you could do in 9,000
Reply
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