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That might work for you, but I don't take inspiration from A life experience. The music I make is the result of the culmination of ALL my experiences, along with any number of factors. I don't set out to portray anything, or to evoke a specific emotion, or to demonstrate any particular inspiration. It's all subconscious, for me as well as the performer and listener.

For me, inspiration is almost everything. Without it I wouldn't compose. And the pieces that I write as a product of inspiration bear that mark and are far better than the pieces that are the product of trivial inspiration or no inspiration at all.

There is no intentional inspiration for anything I write. I draw from my life experiences and the people around me and am perhaps, inspired; however, never is there a conscious selection of an inspirational source. @ Phil - I don't think this is a stupid thread; perhaps we can all dial down a bit and avoid acting like a dick.

You used common practice harmony, and than the most easy version of it. Mainly tonic, subdominant and dominant chords. You transpose to the parallel key, again the most obvious choice. My advise is to learn from musical history. Start analyzing more music from say the romantic era. See how composers move to farther tonal regions. (Brahms or Tschaikofsky, Mahler or whatever you fancy) Then study harmonies that add or alter then tonal framwork. See for example how Debussy uses added notes. Or listen to some Russians. Mousorgsky, RimskyKorsakov, or Scriabin. they add all kinds of octatonic scale, or other composer ones, like Shostakovich, Prokofiev. You could continue to discover quartal harmony (that is not based on triads as in the common practice era, but on 4ths) Look for bitonality (Honneger amongst others). See what nice sonorities you can create with serial music. Start for example with early Schoenberg, or take the violin concerto by Alban Berg, which I really love. It is a great and accessable introduction in serial music. I hope this helps