Leaderboard

I do it in a few ways. For example, sometimes I just need to sit down and carefully write a skeleton of my composition, and other times the music comes by itself (usually when I am falling asleep haha) that's why I always have pen and paper prepared and I slowly collect all my ideas, and then later on play around them and I do lot of thinking. But I like to (and I really try hard to do that) imagine the whole piece all together (the goal, the vision) and later on, I am figuring out the details and how to reach my (hopefully) original vision. Then it seems much easier to write it as a whole. The process of envisioning is harder.

I think it really depends on which kind of music you want to write. I've found that improvising can often lead to exciting pieces but they often lack structure. If you instead decide on a form before you begin writing it will make your piece seem more coherrent. Anyways I think a mix of improvisation and structural awareness can lead to the best pieces.