Top Ten Signs You May Have Just Written a Mahler Symphony

10. Somewhere in the world, someone is already arguing over which order the middle movements should be played in.

9. You have set a new world record for most grace notes in a first violin part.

8. 15 year-old boys are already practicing the trumpet parts really, really loudly before their high school orchestra rehearsals, where they will be playing Sleigh Ride.

7. You’ve already gone back and put 500 fortepiano markings in the brass parts

6. You’ve just written a footnote explaining that “the Luftpause notated above should not be so long that it actually sounds like a Luftpause, nor so short that it doesn’t sound almost like a Luftpause

5. Someone has already started an arrangement for string quintet, clarinet and harmonium, and you don’t even know what a harmonium is.

4. The contralto repertoire has just expanded by 6.23%

3. A Hans Rott aficionado has already identified at least 11 instances or plagiarism from the Rott Symphony in E, including your blatant use of the pitch “middle c.”

2. Your conductor friends seem a little put out when you keep bragging that “the damnable Scherzo will prove un-conductable for the next 100 years! Everyone will take it too fast!”

1. Your wife couldn’t resist pointing out that you forgot to end the symphony in the tonic key….. AGAIN!