A Thought or Two on Composing Music

Composing music is a curious activity and the more one thinks about it, the more curious it becomes. One thing we all have so much of now is access to music.  The internet provides us with endless samples of music from across the world and from almost any era.  What’s more, in the UK we are blessed with an incredible range of live music-making from choral societies to free-improv, orchestral performances to gamelan.  Opening yourself to it all can be both hugely exciting and bewildering.  Composition no longer appears to be a particular activity.  Beethoven seems a world away from Ravi Shankar, Metallica on a different planet to Eric Satie and how can Bach and John Cage be considered part of the same art form?

One question that almost all composers face at one time or another is what should I compose?  You might have urge to do it, but have no idea about what it is.  Or you might have a very clear genre in mind, but not sure what makes it work the way it does.  Composers often start off with something particular in mind but find that what they actually want to compose changes in the process.

The nature of the work composed is governed by a wide range of factors - the composer's aims, the cultural setting, the practicalities of music making, knowledge of principles and theory, the physics of sound and performance.  These are basic components of any composed work, and each is unique to the composition and it’s composer - their time and place of being.  Developing an understanding of these is both a technical and very personal endeavour.

Whilst taking an interest in and listening to a wide range of music (live where possible!) is always valuable, learning to listen and understand your internal processes is the key.  The processes of creation becomes the reason for doing, no matter how much there is out there already!