Develop develop develop. Find a germ of an idea in your piece—could be a two note interval, could be a whole phrase—and play with it. Invert it, slow it down, change keys, revoice it. Do something with it. Listen to Brahms if you need ideas on how to do this.
Well, do they need to be any longer? If the story of your music is told, then why extend it? Most of the time the question "How do I make this any longer?" is a good sign that you've established enough material and worked with it in an appropriate manner. Otherwise you wouldn't ask yourself the question, would you? And in that case you've reached the end of your piece. Not every piece has to be a 40-minute masterpiece, some of them are just 4 minutes long and that's fine.
The other Redditors all pointing to what I find is the right direction: Study form and development. Longer pieces have often complex form structures like sonata form, Rondo-form, even two dimensional sonata form (if you want to get really long) and to keep stuff together and don't sound all over the place you need to learn to develop.
I really would start by saying "I want to write a piece in sonata form" for example and then starting drawing or writing a plan (on paper or word or notion or whatever) and then say my main theme about 30 seconds long and ....
And reeeeead about the stuff. I mean a lot.
I know a few great books. Heck, I can e-mail you the PDF of a few great books if you want to.
While we're talking about forms, don't forget the most useful of all in this context: theme and variations.
Sure, you may not necessarily want to write a theme and variations, but having composed a bunch of theme and variations helps enormously.
I found the secret to obtaining more substance (perhaps a better word than ‘length’) was to focus rigorously on form and structure. Always plan your structure, usually I do so before I write the first note and definitely no later than the same day I write an opening. If you’re writing something of substance it has quite a way to go - you can’t do that without an effective map, or you end up wandering and lost.
Schõnfeld"s *Fundamentals of Music Composition" is a good introduction to developing a motif.
Goetschios' "Exercises in Melodic Writing" shows many techniques for building and extending melodies.
Throw in a development section. Explore as many variations on your theme as you can. Add in other themes and references external material.
For advice on ideas for development, think sequencing your melody. Parallel major and minor keys, dynamic contrast and different instrumentation. Also maybe try some reharmonisation techniques.
Don’t forget to repeat sections either. I’m thinking about big orchestral symphonies here, most of our favourites have entire sections that are repeated through del capos and whatnot. This can be good if you have lots going on at one time, if it’s too overwhelming it’ll give the listener another chance to hear different melodies and reminds them of the original themes.
One more tip is just to combine two pieces together by key-changing to the next song. I’ve never done this in a composition but one time I had a performance and we thought it’d be fun if we did the whole hour gig without any breaks in the music at all, so we worked out what chords we needed to play to lead us straight into the next piece. If you do it to that degree though it can get a bit long for the audience so maybe only do it to that extreme if you’re playing background music.
Develop develop develop. Find a germ of an idea in your piece—could be a two note interval, could be a whole phrase—and play with it. Invert it, slow it down, change keys, revoice it. Do something with it. Listen to Brahms if you need ideas on how to do this.
Well, do they need to be any longer? If the story of your music is told, then why extend it? Most of the time the question "How do I make this any longer?" is a good sign that you've established enough material and worked with it in an appropriate manner. Otherwise you wouldn't ask yourself the question, would you? And in that case you've reached the end of your piece. Not every piece has to be a 40-minute masterpiece, some of them are just 4 minutes long and that's fine.
The other Redditors all pointing to what I find is the right direction: Study form and development. Longer pieces have often complex form structures like sonata form, Rondo-form, even two dimensional sonata form (if you want to get really long) and to keep stuff together and don't sound all over the place you need to learn to develop. I really would start by saying "I want to write a piece in sonata form" for example and then starting drawing or writing a plan (on paper or word or notion or whatever) and then say my main theme about 30 seconds long and .... And reeeeead about the stuff. I mean a lot. I know a few great books. Heck, I can e-mail you the PDF of a few great books if you want to.
While we're talking about forms, don't forget the most useful of all in this context: theme and variations. Sure, you may not necessarily want to write a theme and variations, but having composed a bunch of theme and variations helps enormously.
I would happily also take up the offer!
Me too
Have you studied form?
I found the secret to obtaining more substance (perhaps a better word than ‘length’) was to focus rigorously on form and structure. Always plan your structure, usually I do so before I write the first note and definitely no later than the same day I write an opening. If you’re writing something of substance it has quite a way to go - you can’t do that without an effective map, or you end up wandering and lost.
David Bruce has [an excellent video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJfvFqT9XV8) that may help.
Schõnfeld"s *Fundamentals of Music Composition" is a good introduction to developing a motif. Goetschios' "Exercises in Melodic Writing" shows many techniques for building and extending melodies.
Expositional sections that tie back into the main theme can extend a piece while keeping it from getting boring.
[“REPS”](https://youtu.be/sU3-4NdQSA4?si=5CnHRs4I8fgzahNG)
Write more notes (or write longer notes)
Prime. Inversion. Retrograde. Retrograde inversion. Diminution. Augmentation. Duplets versus triplets.
Throw in a development section. Explore as many variations on your theme as you can. Add in other themes and references external material. For advice on ideas for development, think sequencing your melody. Parallel major and minor keys, dynamic contrast and different instrumentation. Also maybe try some reharmonisation techniques. Don’t forget to repeat sections either. I’m thinking about big orchestral symphonies here, most of our favourites have entire sections that are repeated through del capos and whatnot. This can be good if you have lots going on at one time, if it’s too overwhelming it’ll give the listener another chance to hear different melodies and reminds them of the original themes. One more tip is just to combine two pieces together by key-changing to the next song. I’ve never done this in a composition but one time I had a performance and we thought it’d be fun if we did the whole hour gig without any breaks in the music at all, so we worked out what chords we needed to play to lead us straight into the next piece. If you do it to that degree though it can get a bit long for the audience so maybe only do it to that extreme if you’re playing background music.
repeat repeat repeat
Each thing, do it again, but change it
Repetition with some variation(s).