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Wow, I certainly have missed a very lively debate here on the nature of our craft's end result. I'll put my two cents in the mix here: For me, music is both an extension of my own personal thoughts/ideas and a continuation of the overall stream of human experience. Let me elaborate on both of these, before the trolls start pouncing. By personal thoughts/ideas: My music is structured to convey my own ideas and thoughts. I, like I'm sure others here, do my best to present my ideas and thoughts in an intellectually coherent way. With my harmonic language, which while not out there in totality isn't Common Practice, that requires a great deal of thought and planning. To this end, I think I succeed in creating music that seems logical, natural, organic, and intellectually coherent. It get's what I want to say across and does it in a way that other's can comprehend and appreciate it - or at least I hope. By overall stream of human experience: This is where, I'm sure, trolls will pounce. I believe that each of us rests on the shoulders of giants. Our work, at our earliest stages, is built upon and inspired by the work of these giants. Whether it be Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, Shostakovitch, Schoenberg, or Dittersdorf, we all have started our foundations with aspects taken from the works of these giants. Thus, the same as I. I studied the masters to death. Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Handel, and Schubert especially. My foundation was built on things I took from my studies. My own experiences however moved me from their language to embrace the language I now use. Each of us, even those who have yet to experience life, move through experiences and are shaped by them. As artists, that shaping is most profound in the art we create - as has been chronicled by virtually every composer/painter/author since time immortal, lol. To close in my thoughts on this, it is my belief that if you are serious about your art/craft that you will indeed move through the normal stages of being a composer. You start by studying and finding what it is that speaks to you. You write it - knowing you'll make many mistakes at first. You write it some more and expand on it. You experience life and emulate it through your music. You grow. Everything else outside that circle, all the theories and philosophies and opinions... is mute.

But that begs the question then, what if said ideal is unknown or undefinable? And yet, it is still called "good music." You can't just put each piece or composer in a little box and judge each to itself, that's silly. You got to evaluate music within the whole. For example, in concert music, there are certain good qualities that a piece should have in order for the majority of listeners to consider it "good quality." Things like it not being boring enough to fall asleep, being emotionally captivating, giving the listener something to take away from the hall after its over. Stuff like that. We see this in other arts all the time, especially cinema. Does music get its own special exemption from critique because "well, its whatever the composer intended". It may not be couth or wise to say this, but to hell with the composer! Was it good music or not? The music is not the composer. In order for it to be useful in evaluation it must stand alone from its creator. If we use the composer's justification as the sole means of evaluation then we dwindle down into "everything is good" therefore there is no such thing as "good." And that's just silly.

My answer: Enough variety in rhythm, instrumentation, and melody to sound unique, and enough repetition to give the piece a sense of coherence. What constitutes "enough" is up for discussion.

Important questions. What has not been stated yet that I feel is a vital aspect of developing as a composer is to LISTEN to composers you love, frequently, and analytically. This doesn't mean you have to break down the theory of all the music you love, but simply following the chords on your piano when listening to a piece you like can help you get some ideas on what chord arrangements you particularly like. Music is a language and everyone learns languages by first hearing language, then producing it themselves. Honestly, I think Johnbucket's advice is nonsense. DON'T be afraid of imitation. Every modern-day songwriter I enjoy has in an interview somewhere their favorite bands or composers from childhood and talks about how obsessed they were with that group or that guy. Now as you progress as a musician, and as your range of influences becomes broader, your works will sound less generic and eventually you will have your own style that could loosely be called a mix of your influences. Everything you listen to, music or otherwise, is stored in your subconscious, so if you like a certain composer, LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN ANALYZE! There is no such thing as a childhood prodigy. Those who are called childhood prodigies are people who were either trained from a very young age by parents or other teachers, or who were able to get out of the public school system and spend their time the way they wanted to. Read about Laszlo Polgar - he homeschooled and trained his 3 daughters in chess from a very young age and 2/3 became Grandmasters. So there's very strong evidence, from a wide range of sources that geniuses are made, not born. People tend to like this idea of the childhood prodigy (not necessarily you) because it gives them a cop-out for not achieving excellence. "Well, I'm not talented enough to do this," is a common thing that goes on in people's heads. Also, check out ANY Youtube video of a virtuoso in ANY category and you will see comments like "I am in despair. Doubt I will ever play like that..." (I just copied and pasted that from an 11 year old virtuoso violinist'svideo). People who know they are underachieving either watch a master and get inspiration or get demotivated because they see what they are capable of, or at least what is possible and know they are not dedicated to achieve their maximum potential.