Just read the wind repertoire and listen to lots of it ! Writing for full wind orchestra is actually really easy , in my opinion I started with that before writing chamber works . However , this comes from having experience playing in the orchestra . If you ' re just an observer , things may not make a lot of sense , and you won ' t understand what ' s idiomatic for different sections of the ensemble . There ' s a wealth of literature for the wind orchestra , and there ' s really no need for strings . You just have to give up the notion that strings are important . They ' re not . Of course , Mozart wrote only for strings , with a few other instruments providing the occasional color . Forget that Mozart ever happened . In literature for stringed orchestras , there are a few conventions , mostly because the music is old and the instruments are new . Brass didn ' t have valves , so brass parts were limited and generally not very melodic because the instruments just weren ' t capable of that . The Boehm system hadn ' t been invented yet , so woodwinds were much less nimble . The saxhorns didn ' t even exist , so you didn ' t have tubas and euphoniums , and of course , the saxophone didn ' t exist either . Percussion was in a different world there was no marimba and no vibraphone . We don ' t live in that world anymore . This means that you ' re a lot less limited when it comes to part writing for all these instruments , and you can even do cool things with percussion . What it means more practically is that most instruments should be playing most of the time . There ' s no need for 64 bar rests , mostly , unless you ' re writing a quieter section or just something with a very particular instrumental color . You can double the third trumpet with the third clarinet and second alto sax , and you can have the second trumpet doubled with the second clarinet and first alto the first trumpet can be doing its own thing first clarinet doubled with second oboe and second flute first flute and first oboe doing their own thing . Bass clarinet and bari sax and bassoon can hold the bass while the tuba rests . Trombones and bassoons and euphoniums can handle tenor , along with low clarinets . You can do all of this at the same time , basically . What you need to do is get used to the ensemble sound over the solo sound of the various instruments . And then you need to play a lot of wind orchestra music to get used to the percussion section . In fact , if you ' re writing for the ensemble , you might want to play percussion in it . I have no idea how nonpercussionists ever learn to write percussion parts I played percussion for several years in college , which is how I know stuff back there . I tend to think of the string section as the bread of the stringed orchestra and the winds , brass , and percussion as the burger and condiments . Fuck bread . Eat a steak !