How to write for Woodwinds 

It's absolutely criminal how few views this quality video is getting. Thank you lots for this, looking forward to more videos!!

I played the clarinet in school and several other woodwind instruments. Just watched to see the take on it. About the breathing.... really none of the woodwinds need long periods or measures or any measure to breath. Breathing really becomes a thing when long held notes or lots of fast playing that may require breathing marks. The little commas that help know an appropriate time to take a breath, otherwise wood wind including brass players are trained to figure out periods when to take breaths without anyone noticing. So you can go nuts if you like with clarinets or wood winds.... oboists and bassoon players it's again with all wood wind, just don't tie a bunch of long whole notes over many measures and expect every player to just be able to sustain long notes forever without a breath... however, an illusion of this can be done via conductor just telling first and second and maybe 3rd and 4th players to mark out different breath markings so the notes are still sustained throughout a long period of tied whole notes, allowing each player to take a breath while other players continue to hold the notes; giving each player a chance to breath. Certain fingering between certain notes can be difficult on some instruments... but again wood winds are accustom to practice all sorts of motion between whatever notes to another. As a clarinetist my biggest weakness was heavily chromatic notation... but again, we can learn the piece no matter how chromatic. Rusty or new players it might take a few stabs to get it down if you right to chromatically or go through many chromatic markings. An expert woodwind player generally shouldn't have any problems with anything. Another difficulty for intermediate or new players is not sounding like they're slurring up or down when it's not notated... slurring is easy for wood winds. What's not easy is normal interval, or staccato, particularly if up a scale or arpeggios. New players generally tend to have issues with tonguing the reed to not sound slurred or to sound overly staccato.... so newbies may have some difficulty playing non slurred and very quick arpeggios or scales; without it often coming out as sounding slurred when they play them. Experts or even intermediates have no problems at all taking whatever direction a composer has to offer; so long as it fits on their scale of the instrument of course. New players and even intermediate players on clarinet have difficulty playing the highest notes without them sounding horrid. Newbies often fumble and squeak at the high notes. Low notes, at least I found, and I think most clarinet players, find the easiest. Middle range to near high range not too hard... the extreme top of the range becomes a challenge for the first 2 years of playing. Just a little depth on writing music if you're considering doing it for various skilled players.

Great info here, and the piece is a great showcase for the woodwind section. One thing I'd add is that pretty much all bass clarinets nowadays go down to at least a written Eb, with many professional models going down to a written low C, sounding the same low Bb that is the lowest note of the bassoon. Also, as a bassoonist I would suggest thinking of the bassoon as primarily as a tenor instrument that can play down into the bass range. The bass range of the bassoon is its loudest register and it is a very useful register, but it can sound a bit coarse and the lowest notes are hard to play quickly. The bass clarinet can often be a better bass instrument for the woodwind section since it has a beefier bass tone, and it frees up the bassoons to cover music in the tenor range, but if you don't have a bass clarinet then the bassoon is of course the best woodwind instrument to fulfill that bass role.

Mr. Simon, as a former opera musician I really like your work. Congrats.

As a clarinet and bassoon player, I appreciate that you mention our need to breathe. I would point out that, in general, woodwind players are not old asthmatics and can play more than a couple of bars at a time. I wouldn't change a thing about what you wrote here, as the short passages are what the music called for - bits of color. In extended passages, just pay attention to the music and phrasing and create a spot to breathe every so often. A rest here and there works nicely, as does a longer note that the instrumentalist can cut a bit short for a quick breath.

You're an immaculate teacher. Thank you so much for these lessons!

This is wonderful!!! Would you please please consider doing a series of videos going more into depth on winds??? Like many aspiring composers, Winds are my weakness instrument section.

Underrated channel

Thank you. Your videos are beautifully clear and well produced. Some of the best on YT and also a paid course I have done.

Another superb presentation!

Fantastic! Great tips! Thank you so much for sharing this!

Love this pieces and video, thanks!

Great video as always! Helpful and interesting to watch and learn from. Looking forward to the rest of the series!! :)

Thanks man! I already improved so much in one week❤

Perfect materials for passionates again. Thank you.

Great presentation. These section overviews have been a great help for me to understand how to work with the instruments. I am wondering if you could share your ideas on how to use what you call flourish or ornaments - these little runs, stabs etc. by various instruments - kind of how to garnish your melody orchestration. Thanks for your work!

Thanks so much! I am just starting to get into composing my own music, and this is an amazing resource to have :) I am a string player, so woodwinds and brass have been a struggle for me to write, but this helped so much without being condescending or gatekeeping information like some other sources will. Many other things I have looked at gave very basic information and ended with "just get a theory teacher if you want to actually learn", so thank you for having a straightforward and highly informative resource available!

Thanks a lot for your vids! It's just impressive and understandable! I have found a lot of useful theory and practice! Just love it!

This was helpful thank you ❤

I thoroughly enjoyed this, and as an aside, it sounds lit it would fit perfectly if dropped into the Fable series of games.

This channel is a real find!

What a fantastic piece of music, here! And further more, you are also excellent at explaining what you are doing to others, which is another rare skill to have! Thank you so much, Simon!

Thanks for this content, Simon.

Thanks a lot for giving so much tips and ideas I could add into my new song

Fantastic video. What a great piece you'd written too. 👏 🌷

Hoping this channel grows! Would be nice to have the MIDI available for study

Top content!! Infotainment level!

I absolutely love this video! It’s helped me understand a lot!

Thank you very much. These videos are help me.

Clarinets, oboes and bassoons: our auxiliaries all are lower than the normal instrument Flutes: Haha piccolo go squeak

Smashed it again!

Great video, this whole series is so good!

The piano roll examples helped a lot. Thank you!

that comedy piece is so beautiful. thanks.

These videos are great! Thank you so much

Its worth noting that the Basoon can have much the same effect as a barritone saxophone when written low.

Thank you SO much

Superb quality video, thank you. Best wishes from Argentina

Amazing channel🙏

I come here to learn from you but also to listen to your music. You're very talented.

Nice video sir

Excellent.

Thanks , Love it ! :)

Geat channel and content sir.

Those re great looking studio monitors

Great video! Many thanks! Curious to know what strings you're using for this piece?

I like how you go over how you wrote the woodwind section of your piece. I have a question though, does any of this besides the registers and the rests for breathing apply to woodwind quartet writing? Just thought I'd ask since I am composing a piece for a woodwind quartet of Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, and Bassoon.

Very nice. I wonder if you have anything about writing for sax quartet or quintet?

I would quite like to know how one would use woodwinds outside of a full orchestral arrangement. For example I have a song where piano plays chords, upright bass covering the lows, pizzicato strings doubling up on the rhythm . Then a flute playing the main melody and oboe harmonising under that and clarinet doing a counter melody. I know there is probably no rules for use this way but some guide lines may be helpful to make sure I am filling the space.

the composer for a level 4 piece in my high school band needs to see this... im the only oboe (i started 2 months ago too) and i have 40 (60 if you dont count 3 rests) measures of 50 bpm with like 3 solos 😭 idfk how im holding on edit: they also only give 2 breath marks and there are 7 measure slurred parts 😀

Thanks so much for all your work

i had no clue about "transposing instruments". ive always wondered why my orchestral VST has "Bb Clarinet" and whether i should be choosing that as "normal clarinet". i've also wondered why copy&paste notes from one instrument to another sometimes sounds "wrong". so what's the deal: due to historical tradition we're just supposed to know about this, and tweak the written notes so that they sound correct? bizarre

Thanks so much for this video!!!! What vsts do you use to get the best woodwinds and string section sounds? Got any samples you could share?

what composiing program does he use?

What is this piece called? Also I remember this piece being used in one of Grian's videos and that's where I recognized this piece from

Why am i getting Home alone chase vibes while listening 2 the final piece?

I wish you could indicate each colour coded register on the stave.

10:02 How can I use Pralltriller in the media? Is it possible in Logic?

Just one question, can you help explain why the saxophones don't really play in orchestras?

Next wishes is writing for a piano and for a chromatic percussions :)

The problem I am having is that I can come up with a melody but where to place my different instruments to put in play

can we get the midi somewhere?

What happened to your brass video??

A lot of the highest notes can be exceeded with weird fingerings on woodwinds; there isnt much of a “top note” like piano or something

I really sad I cannot follow these lessons, for foreigners not native-eng-language is quite difficult follow, not eve with subtitles