dsch150371

Oh yes, dreadfully distasteful. I have pages and pages of work that doesn't sound particularly like anything else (at least that I'm conscious of). I'm embarrassed when I put them in front of my composition teacher, despite any favorable feedback I might get. I'm definitely cognizant of that -- in my day job I run a consulting firm that revolves around building relationships. For me, this isn't about building a career as a composer. If it were, I'd be spending less time posting here and more time networking and writing substandard work I know will sell. I'm in this to write quality music that I feel good about, although as evidenced by my original post, I'm not having much luck there.

Lack of talent is actually becoming my concern. I've been at this for a long time (I was a composition major in the 1990s and started studying again last year) and while frequently I'll listen to another composer's piece and think "Wow, I'd love to write a piece like that," I'm not *trying* to mimic other pieces: it just seems to happen.

Like most composers, I listen to a lot of music, and study a lot of scores. Frequently I'm dissatisfied with my material and that can be a real block to my composition, but when I am productive, I find the music I produce ends up sounding extremely similar to pieces by other composers. Of course, I like to take ideas and imitate other composers, but when I actually have a piece come together, I realize it sounds very similar to a piece I admire from another composer. I tend to hope that as I keep revising and tweaking that it will become my own, but I'm often bothered by the fear that the listener will say "That's a rip off of Piece X!" It isn't intentional on my part -- it just seems to happen. Does this happen to anyone else? If so, what do you do about it? Do you scrap it, try to make enough changes to reduce the similarity, or just run with it and let the chips fall where they may?