| Writing for instruments you don't play
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Hi! I've played with many bands, and I've also composed and recorded stuff for a movie few years ago, but it was mainly me playing bass or guitar and sometimes explaining to some other guys what to do. Recently I began writing music in the old fashioned way, writing scores and so, but I'm almost illiterate in music theory and I'd really like to learn more, which is kind of not too easy since I live in a very small town, away from other professional or academic musicians and can't afford much more then to look for solutions on the net. How do you learn writing for, say, a strings quartet? I understand I can get a lot of help through the score soft-wares to just put together an idea, but I don't really know the limitations of specific instruments, or what is actually different in a specific instrument set up. Like, what kind of a role in a composition or arrangement does a viola have in comparison to a cello in string quartet, or what would be the highest available note you can get on a clarinet, just to give an example to what are really the information I'm after. The stuff I'm aiming to write is instrumental music, mainly for films, and not very much leaned on pop-rock music. I'd place it between classical and world music. | 
