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I do, and I try not to feel too narcissistic about it. If you go back now and then and revisit what you've done, you can decide where you want to go next. So you don't just write the same stuff over and over. "Hmmm... I meant to do x, and I still never have. Right, that's going into the next piece." I think it helps you keep a more balanced portfolio.

Yes, I do. Up to the time that it becomes crystallized in my mind, I listen to a composition a lot. After that, less. It is as if I need to listen a lot to it before it becomes crystallized. Perhaps the crystallization process is a process of the new music forming new brain circuits and until those are formed, the music doesn't become truly crystallized. By crystallization, I mean that it reaches a state where you realize every note is in the right place and don't feel the need to make any changes, even potentially. This is also why I am not in favour of revising pieces after the piece has been crystallized. Posting the piece somewhere online, or otherwise introducing it to an audience can serve as an indication that the crystallization process has finished. I have rarely revised a piece after posting it here for example. After the crystallization process, i.e. concerning pieces I have composed long ago, I listen as a way of remembering what I have composed in the past. It becomes a memento of a past period in time. You are no longer directly in the piece as would be the case of pieces not yet crystallized or just crystallized. The piece comes at you from a past time. It evokes a memory of the past, from your past. To attempt to revise a piece like that would amount to an attempt at tampering with the past. Finally, concerning pieces that have received a premiere, I listen to enjoy the interpretation and revel in the success of my piece. Unfortunately, those are the least frequent. Yet they are the best because a human performance is always different and says much more about a piece than a computer generated one. The performer feels the composer's meaning and interprets it. Such pieces can live forever, especially when interpreted and performed by a great exponent of the instrument.

only the good ones. it's like they're done by another person. it's not natural to make beautiful music. because you cannot be attracted to yourself. if you can anticipate exactly what will happen, then it's boring to listen to. that means that when you composed the music you switched perspective in a way that was not intuitive to you, (probably thru a composition secret/technique, consciously or unconsciously).

A case study of new music I've been involved in premiering in the last two years, and how those composers got it done: 1. Just helped a composer record the premiere of his new oratorio. He paid for about 50 orchestra members, at union rates. VERY EXPENSIVE. He paid for singers to do the solos. He paid a conductor to conduct them all. A sound engineer to do the recording. A rehearsal pianist to work with the choir for two rehearsals. A production guy to get all these various people organized. He paid to rent the recording space. He will pay to have the recordings digitally edited and copies made. He is a singer himself, so he was able to get enough singing friends to volunteer to be the chorus, but that means it was a small chorus, there were only a few rehearsals, and we weren't a well-balanced group. Since we were all volunteering, he couldn't push us too hard to practice, or turn away any extra singers who weren't well-prepared. That may hurt the quality of the final recording. All of this will have cost him, maybe $100,000 to get a demo CD that he can take out into the world and say, "See, this piece has been performed once, and here's how it sounded." Chances of selling some of those CDs to help cover some of the cost? Very small, since no one has heard of the piece before. He's going to have to give them away and hope they make their way into the hands of important people. 2. One of the big choirs I sing with commissioned a piece from a composer last year, in honor of our choir's 75th anniversary. Large music organizations do that fairly frequently. So, how did this particular composer get the job? Picture yourself being on the 75th anniversary committee, sitting under flickering fluorescent-lights in your group's practice space. You decide to have a big party, someone is put in charge of bringing paper plates and napkins, you discuss whether this anniversary is big enough that you should rent out some nice space for the party and hire a professional caterer and invite donors and notify the local arts reporter for the paper. Someone suggests commissioning a piece as a lasting memorial to the anniversary. Who you gonna call? John Williams? Nope. He's not going to want to deal with you, unless you are a major symphony or a movie soundtrack. But everyone in the room probably has a composer friend or two from music school. You bring samples of their work to the next committee meeting, and you pick the one who seems to do work that would be a good fit for your group. So, stay in touch with old friends on Facebook so they know you are still composing. And put links to your new music on the web where it is google-able. Don't be pushy, just make sure your random acquaintances are aware of what you do for a living, and have a way to check you out if they are curious. Smaller music organizations, where no one has a composer friend, will often have contests to compose them a piece for an anniversary or other event. It's totally possible that Merna will be put in charge of advertising the contest, and Merna will have no idea where to advertise it, so google regularly and check weird back-alley music websites for composition contests. (The church I sing with had a contest to compose a hymn for our anniversary a few years back. I never heard about the contest until the winner was selected and I work for the music department. The winning selection was fairly un-sing-able because there were so few pieces submitted for consideration.) 3. The church choir I sing with is always over-budget, because we need an organ prelude and postlude, a choral prayer response, a choral benediction, and two choral anthems, in addition to hymns from the hymnal, for every Sunday and holiday service. We have a bell choir, three children's choir, a "once in a while" choir for people who sing well but can't make rehearsal every week and a regular adult choir with paid section leaders/soloists. That's a lot of music. Even with a good music library, you end up doing the same pieces over. But buying new music is expensive. So when our director finds something free from an unknown composer, or in the public domain, he's willing to give it a listen. We do lots of new music. Compose sacred music for choir, organ, and piano. There is such a need for volume of pieces that your chances of getting performed go up. We do some new work every year. Usually the composer is some friend of someone's daughter who has just graduated and put their music out there for free. Again, word of mouth is important. Stay in touch with people on Facebook. 4. I'm a soloist and sometimes I get called upon to sing something in particular, but sometimes people just need some music and they leave it up to me and the pianist to choose. So get your music out to soloists and small chamber groups you know who gig around, or at least make it very google-able in places they are likely to find you. These are not people with money to burn, so be sure you have good quality samples. I don't want to shell out for your piece on your website only to find out that there was a key change after the sampled section that takes it out of my range, or that there is a piano bridge in the middle that's just way to difficult to ask the accompanist to learn by Tuesday, given what they are paying her for this assignment. 5. One of my pieces got performed last year by a middle school choir. Finding quality music for younger musicians can be a real challenge. Directors frequently have very lopsided groups. 20 flutes, 20 trumpets, and one french horn. 40 sopranos, 40 altos and one shy bass. They need music for very specific configurations of instruments or voices that includes everyone, keeps everyone engaged and learning, but isn't too difficult. Rounds are good for kids just learning to read music. Since you can teach everyone their parts at the same time, you don't have kids running around the room while you teach just one group. Partner songs are good for the same reason. The teaching goes faster, so you can keep your class engaged and sight reading doesn't get in the way of music making. Pieces with a small solo in the middle are good, to challenge that one kid in the class who is already a decent musician from piano lessons, or whatever. Pieces where the soprano part is a little more challenging, and the bass part is very easy (because you've only got one bass, poor guy.) Schools generally have some sort of budget for buying new music every year, and the most important factor is that it work for the group of kids they have. It needs to be sound good enough to keep a middle or high school aged kid interested, (not babyish) but be workable in rehearsal for someone who has never touched a musical instrument before. Again, make sure your music is googleable. List specifics about the orchestration so that someone googling "easy flute trumpet tuba" will find your piece in their search results. Be sure they can preview the sheet music before they buy, so they can be sure it will work before they buy 50 copies. I only found out the middle school choir did my piece when I stumbled onto a video of them on youtube. I just put my sheet music out there for free and hope people will be able to find it.