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Here is my most recent question on Music Stack Exchange:

Are my orchestration ideas for the Grave section good?

Here, I am asking about whether or not I need to adjust my orchestration. That sounds like a pretty objective and answerable question. Sure it might require detailed answers but it is answerable nonetheless. However, this question that I posted is coming across as too opinion based, too subjective of a question, even though what I am asking about is objective.

How would I edit the question to make it more objective? Would I leave out the "Is my orchestration good" part and simply ask at the end of it "Do I need to adjust my orchestration?" Would that be all that I need to do to turn this opinion based question into an objective, answerable question that would get some upvotes?

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    Both of your proposed questions on this meta seems still too opinion-based due to music and its nature (you might get answers such as "yes" with each answerer's opinion on what to change... subjectively, or "no", or "maybe", or "it depends" that won't help really you and future readers). A good, objective question is to ask about a specific concept that applies to the general case. If you can compare your orchestration techniques to some established works, then it might be an acceptable start...
    – Andrew T.
    Commented Apr 8, 2019 at 4:03

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Is this square red enough?

enter image description here

Obvious problem, right? Red enough for what? In whose opinion?

Slightly facetious example aside, the problem with any of those questions is twofold; they are very broad, and very opinionated.

So, we need to fix both of those to get you some help.

One of the ways would be to attempt the orchestration, and then ask specific questions about the things you get stuck on. Or you could grab a book on orchestration, and ask about things that don't make sense. Anything along the lines of "is thing good" doesn't tend to fly (for better or for worse; I'm here to help you get an answer, not critique a policy).

Alternately, you could find someone to review your orchestration. This is not the forum for that, but I imagine there are people who can help you. Face-to-face is always best; I learned most of my limited orchestration knowledge from long-suffering band directors who happened to help me out.

Short answer; I don't think you're going to get anywhere without making your question much more specific. A good guide would be existing well-received orchestration questions.

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I think a better way to phrase it might be

How do I achieve (effect you want) in my orchestration?

That way, you can have it be an open-ended, not-so-subjective-as-to-be-unanswerable question. In my experience, the way you have it in this post sounds too much like "check my work for me".

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  • @DavidBowling I respectfully disagree. I think that that statement is intended to discourage questions like "what style of music is the most uplifting", where there really is no answer. But most questions on this site are somewhat open-ended anyway; music.stackexchange.com/q/1723/45266, music.stackexchange.com/q/15221/45266, and music.stackexchange.com/q/850/45266 all have multiple answers, and there are literally thousands of other examples.
    – user45266
    Commented Apr 13, 2019 at 17:22
  • @DavidBowling I suppose the other option would be to make it a closed question, like "Does this arrangement technique create x effect", in the hopes that someone who answers happens to explain what you want? I'm not sure we're understanding each other, though, and if you had an answer written, I might be able to follow you better.
    – user45266
    Commented Apr 13, 2019 at 23:36

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