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Oh I see what you mean. Well! I would regard that as an impossible question to answer myself! I'd say that my voice just came to me and I haven't tried writing in other styles since. A composer's voice is individual. It's unique in the fact that no one else would think in the same way to create music as someone else would. I remember a talk that a composer/teacher was giving someone about writing on old styles. This one student had written a keyboard toccata in the style of JS Bach, sticking to the form of something similar to a French overture. This toccata was brilliantly written and the student had a very good understanding of counterpoint and harmony. The teacher told him that if he (hypothetically) showed that to Bach, Bach would have told him that it's a fantastic piece of music, but also that he should come up with his own style of writing according to the era he was living in. (Actually, from then on I stopped writing sonatas like Mozart and concertos like Vivaldi! So you can see the talk had an effect on me as well.) As for trying to find your own voice, well that's a toughie. Composers' voices develop as they mature. I know Ligeti went through several phases where for a few years he was writing very rhythmic and percussive sounding music, then he moved on to what he calls "micropolyphony," and also on to a more postmodern sounding voice at another point in his life. A lot of the "minimalists" (in need of a better word) started out composing in post-webernian serialism before taking interest in non-western music and repetition. There is a famous story you might have heard about the Argentinian composer Astor Piazzola and his encounter with Nadia Boulanger. Piazzola had been studying composition, counterpoint and whatnot which had him composing in a very European style. He showed some of his compositins to Boulanger who told him, "You don't need me to teach you composition. Go back to your own country and explore the music there." It was in fact she who encouraged him to write his Argentinian Tango music. My own compositional voice at the moment is freely atonal and often uses leitmotifs in programmatic music and operas. It has a fair bit of repetition in it but mainly seems to focus on tone colour. It is usually very contrapuntal and uses lots of canons and fugata sections at various points. When I first started composing four years ago, I didn't have a good understanding of counterpoint and harmony so my very first compositions (which were tonal) were very homophonic and my music teachers would often point out consecutive fifths and octaves throughout every piece. The process of changing my compositional voice came mainly through experimentation and research on contemporary music all around the world. I have changed a LOT since then, and in ten years time when I'm 24, I bet I'd be writing in a completely different voice compared to what I am now. There. I hope that helps. froglegs

Self-gauging = assessing growth = how far one has come, evolved, learned Thus, How does one asses how far they have come as a composer? I'm not really sure how to take such a simple sentence that is a clear, direct question and 'elaborate' on it. Is there something you want me to say to make the question clearer for you? Please, do let me know. ------------ Also, as a prior YC staff member, please avoid posting 1 word posts. I've noticed you do that quite a lot. Certainly, a person with your overwhelming intellect is capable of structuring more than 3 words together into a sentence. No need to spam the forum with 1 word posts.