Composition "Retreat"

The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. Beethoven, Wagner, Bach and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand with as much regularity as an accountant settles down each day to his figures. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration. - Ernest Newman

I've been kind of dissatisfied lately with my compositional output during my first semester in college...although inspiration is not hard to come by, I've got a lot of developable ideas, I've just not had the time to follow through. Since I had to quit my job when I went to college, I've decided to compose full-time this winter break as a test of my commitment and ability. I'm drafting a set of deadlines for works-in-progress and I want to set time to just sit down and compose. I'm kind of treating it as my kinda litmus test for whether I should continue studying composition or not.

Has anyone ever taken a long period of time off to just work on creative projects? For someone who's really been working irregularly for a while, how much do you think is too much time to spend composing per week?

I think often we get caught up in the idea of "I have to compose all the time in order to be a composer" when in reality that's not true at all. It's okay to have other interests. So there's no 'too much' or 'too little' time of composing (unless you're just lazy.)

Speaking from experience, my compositional output in my first year and a half of college was very little. This wasn't because I was bummed or anything - it was because I was learning. I came to college to learn, and so while I still wrote, I did it slower, to make sure I was really learning. Because prior to college I'd not had any educational compositional experience, a whole new world was opened up to me. One has to take time to fully take in this world - I liken it to learning an instrument: You can't expect to pick up a clarinet for the first time and then be disappointed that you're not playing concertos in the first semester. Essentially when you begin studying composition, you begin learning 'your instrument'.

What a bullshit statement (Ernest Newman's), there. Everyone has their own way of approaching writing music and there's nothing particularly wrong about this. I really take my time when I write, for example, so I don't produce as much as I probably "could." Though really, I also do tons of other things besides composing which right now I actually like more than composing (for various reasons.) Inspiration or not, it can go either way and it doesn't make you less "great" (ugh) than the ol' warhorses.

As for it being like an instrument, I guess you could say it like that too. In terms of effort it IS really the same, you have to really hammer at it and be constant otherwise you really won't get as much out of it. Though, there are lots of different approaches so it doesn't mean you have to poop pieces out like a machine, that's not what is important. What's important is engaging in the creative process as much as possible, even if you're not really producing anything, it's always a good thing to do because it gives you experience in working with your own ideas.

As long as you're writing frequently, it shouldn't matter how much you produce, just how good it is ;). Hell, I've only worked on 1 piece this semester, my piano duo.

Granted, it's getting kind of long, a single movement, 13-15 minute piece maybe, but still...

I agree that great composers can produce a lot of great music if they want to, though. Just a testament to their skill in writing, I think. My favorite part about Newman's quote? That great composers simply love writing music, and they do it a lot. I love writing music, but I still don't think I write enough of it, I get way too many ideas and just don't have time to develop them all into pieces. I'm just not practiced enough to do so (I started relatively late in life in music compared to the "warhorses", only playing piano for most of my life and not composing/improvising until late). Since starting college, though, I've learned a LOT, and have gotten faster, and have written progressively better pieces.

I remember watching Comedian, and Jerry Seinfeld put it perfectly. He said that one day, during a period of little new material created, he saw some construction workers outside or somewhere. He thought, "If those guys can get up and work each day consistently, why can't I?" Makes a good point, composition is work, and like anything, requires a good work ethic. I'm a lazy P.O.S., but I definitely understand the value of working diligently. I've been trying to rectify my laziness for quite some time, actually :(.

Just keep learning and keep writing, you'll be fine. I'm doing the same thing you are this winter, actually, writing a lot just because I can. Class takes up too much time, don't they :(?

The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. Beethoven, Wagner, Bach and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand with as much regularity as an accountant settles down each day to his figures. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration. - Ernest Newman

Bollocks. I don't work that way.

Spengler makes an argument based off that... that the classical/baroque composers were somehow better because they pumped out work after work, while later composers (specifically Wagner) spent their whole lives on a very small, but extremely well written, body of work.

I get it, but I'm not sure if it's a valid way to compare composers.

The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. Beethoven, Wagner, Bach and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand with as much regularity as an accountant settles down each day to his figures. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration. - Ernest Newman

that was also their livelihood. Bach sat down and pumped out music because if he didn't he was unemployed, so it is all formulaic. Plus, a lot of it is mediocre music, don't forget. Of Mozarts 627 works, how many are really really good? and he is MOZART... anyway yeah compose at your leisure, but i do admire a set pattern, so you cant avoid it.

"ill compose today" is much inferior to "ill compose today from 9-12"

if inspiration isnt going then, maybe stop at 10, try again at 2. take a walk or something.

Well, I'm just saying I KNOW my problem is just sitting down and working. I have plenty of ideas and works-in-progress I want to develop and I know what I want to do with them, it's just that I *DO* need to make a schedule for myself so I can force myself to actually get stuff done. I'm not worried about volume of output right now, just quality, especially when I have a few almost complete compositions in my head that have been fermenting for a while and just need to get out! I don't want to burn myself out, though. :p

It's interesting to see what everyone's process is.

The great composer does not set to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working. Beethoven, Wagner, Bach and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand with as much regularity as an accountant settles down each day to his figures. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration. - Ernest Newman

that was also their livelihood. Bach sat down and pumped out music because if he didn't he was unemployed, so it is all formulaic. Plus, a lot of it is mediocre music, don't forget. Of Mozarts 627 works, how many are really really good? and he is MOZART... anyway yeah compose at your leisure, but i do admire a set pattern, so you cant avoid it.

"ill compose today" is much inferior to "ill compose today from 9-12"

if inspiration isnt going then, maybe stop at 10, try again at 2. take a walk or something.

Bach's music is no more formulaic than other other great composer's music. All music is composed to a process - even 'random' works and decisions have an algorithm behind them, no matter how complicated or concealed.

But you seem to be implying that Bach only cared about the technical aspects of his craft, and thus churned out massive amounts of 'mediocre music'. I don't think this will be a popular assessment of his music here - it certainly isn't one I agree with.

well, i spend at least 4 months a year without composing. during these times i work, read, listen, write and draw/paint. from that i get as much ideas about composing as i get from musical things.

after these four months it takes me a month or so to get into rhythm. during this month i clean up, reboot and add different sounds to my palete. then i kinda start from zero again. slowly, little by litle getting into rhythm and during spring composing takes bout 8-12 hours a day.

after a long break, i usually spend like 4-5, sometimes 6 hours working with sounds.

well, as far as i know lutoslawski used to work 4 hours every day.

messiaen, if i'm not mistaken, said three months when he's on vacation during summer is about the only time when he can spend writing down his stuff.

i don't think there's a rule to this, but, i think, some discipline is required, some rhythm to get oneself into composing. one way or another it's still labour. it still takes hard donkey to go through.

As long as you're writing frequently, it shouldn't matter how much you produce, just how good it is .

This kind of feeling is why I don't produce as much as I'd like. But it becomess a vicious cycle with me. I hold off, waiting for inspiration that often doesn't come because I'm just sitting there on my hands waiting for a gift. Plus I've always been afraid that what I'm writing at any given time might not be any good, and the fear stymies me.

I'm trying to get away from that. Gradually I'm trying to work more every day, and write down more of my ideas as they come to me, whether I judge them to be of value or not (over the last few years, it's amazing how many ideas I've made use of that came to me years ago and I wasn't sure what, if anything, I was going to do with them). It makes no sense to dam up the creative river because not everything that floats down it is deathlessly great; that practically ensures that viable ideas won't come. So yeah, in a way, I agree with Mr. Newman. But everybody's different.

Oh, and I don't think I've ever heard a single work of Bach - even his simplistic notebook for his wife, Anna Magdalena - that was in anyway substandard, whether I personally liked it or not - and no, I don't like everything I've ever heard of Bach's, but I acknowledge the consistent greatness of it nevertheless. I can't imagine how anyone could call him formulaic, unless one considers strict adherence to the rigid rules, techniques and forms of his time formulaic, in which case every composer who lived and worked prior to the year 1900 is guilty in some degree.

At any rate, the perfect foil to this quote is Charles Ives.

But whatever, if that's his deal, it's not a bad one.

Ya the whole forcing yourself to write is a great idea. I go to an alternative high school where 1 week a year you take off for a week to pursue an interest. Last year I did composition and in 5 days I had read about 600 pages of music theory and written two duets and a solo. Its always a great idea to see how far you can get when you absolutely need to because it helps you tell if you can make deadlines.

^In five days, really? That's impressive. Or maybe I just work very slowly. But can you really fully grasp six hundred (that's a crapload of pages *laughs*) of music theory in only five days? I've been studying theory for years and in my Music Theory class this year there are so many nuances to the things we learn that I think if I rushed through it like that I'd miss half of the really important, meaningful, and interesting stuff.

That being said, I think my opinion is slightly colored by how I approach composition. While I don't just sit around waiting for inspiration, I tend to focus on something that inspires a certain feeling in me, and then just sit down and work. Once I have the basic structure, I take way too long going over and over the piece looking for notes that I dislike.

Perfect, and very recent, example: It took me a week and a half to write a very short piece dedicated to my girlfriend, of which I was writing for two days (perhaps an hour or two each day...school does take up a large amount of my time) and then the next nine days going over it and making minute changes. I'm a bit of a perfectionist like that.

Of course, that's just how I work. It may lead to a decreased output, and it may change as I get deeper into composition, but currently, that's my personal experience.

~Christian

I read the last harry potter in one day :P

But yeah, harry potter is not the same as music theory texts :X But it always depends on the topic, the familiarity of the reader with the topic, the book itself (the language it uses, the number of musical examples - for example, in Schoenberg's "Fundamentals of Musicals Composition", for every 10 pages of text there's about 4 pages of music examples), and how intelligent the reader is.

But yeah, I started and finished a string quartet for a competition between a Saturday and a Wednesday of the same week. I mean, the Wednesday of the next week, obviously, otherwise I'd be writing it while traveling to the past. But yeah, I slept only 6 hours the last 3 nights before the competition deadline, and I was almost constantly working my donkey off, because I also had to prepare the parts. I am not overly satisfied with the result (I sense it's very "raw" and I haven't processed it as much as I ought to/feel like), but I did write out 9 minutes of music (second largest piece so far) and the score was quite decent (but not as perfect as it would have been if I had one more day) (no, that's a lie - if I had one more day, I would have started to work on Sunday and finished on Thursday, because that's the way I have behaved in the past with almost all deadlines; I don't do any of the actual writing until I realise that if I postpone it a bit more it will be physically impossible to do so, or in other cases in the past, because I didn't know about a certain deadline until a few days before) (so the right phrase would be "but not as perfect as it would have been if the competition was postponed one day on the day of the deadline) (yes, that would give me an extra day of finishing up the scores and the parts) (which included two random "senza cord." in the wrong instrument and wrong pages which I had to find and correct by hand before handing in the score).

But yeah, it does seem unlikely that 600 pages and two decent pieces would have come out easily in five days' time.

I also read the latest Harry Potter book in one day, but as you point out, there is a difference. With works of fiction, one merely needs to grasp the overall plot supported by some minor details and description. However, with a music theory text, you really need to understand every point brought up. I often find that I'll re-read a chapter two or three times just to make sure I fully understand the concept being discussed, because if I just read it once, I'll get it, but I might miss some small little exception or rule or stylistic practice or something like that, and then when it's mentioned three chapters later, my brain will do a, "WTF was that?" moment and I'll have to stop reading and go back and find it and make sure I get it.

All I'm saying is that it seems unlikely that in five days one could absorb six-hundred pages of theory (call it 450 if you want to be generous with score examples) and fully understand it. I wish I could do something like that :P

~Christian

Yes - digesting a book is certainly much more time- and effort-consuming than simply reading it. I also have to re-read certain chapters or come back to examples of music quite a few times before I'm familiar with them so I can fully comprehend what the text is talking about. I wish I could digest 600 pages of music/week easily - I'd be going postgrad now :P

"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." - Groucho Marx

Classical music has changed in perception since the dissolution of 'stylism' - by that, I mean the overall social/cultural landscape that gives rise to musical language (conventions of style). It is the 'style' in which composers work, for example Mozart and Haydn, that makes their work similar; but it also, crucially, enables individual expression - for how can individuality be expressed if it is not relative to something (a kind of amorphous anonymous stylistic backdrop)?

However, stylism has been dismantled by modernism, in the sense that composers must forge their own language. By way of analogy, one can write in English because one has the necessary words, phrases, and idiomatic games that one inherits. Individuality is expressed through 're-arrangement' (or perhaps more accurately 're-articulation') of the socio-linguistic constructs of years of collective development. But Modernism, in music, created a whole new set of languages that were built out of old ones; and a whole new set of 'meta-languages' - ways to create new languages. Suddenly, not only do we have to reshape the music, we have to reshape the style in which the music is written; in some cases, create a whole new conception of music.

This transition has partly been to do with the development of the notion of musical 'works' (see Lydia Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works, Oxford 1994). In essence, since late Beethoven (or perhaps Berlioz), works become individualised, and not part of some overall fabric of style. It might be fair to say (although I don't know whether it's true) that in the past music might well have been like an expensive fabric; certainly these were the aristocratic (and perhaps liturgical, in Catholicism) functions of music. In this way, pieces of music might have individual character, but they are not 'individualised' as part of some 'repertory'.

This is the problem that faces most young composers who verge toward modernism. First it is a sin to compose in the style of another; but second, and more importantly, there is extreme emphasis placed on the notion of originality. Pieces must be absolutely original, unique, inspired. Perhaps this is the problem the first poster is facing; perhaps, although it may be more deep running. Noticably, composers who have solid stylistic boundaries (a compositional 'language' or vocabulary) often compose in a certain way for a while: Messiaen, Stravinsky's neoclassicism, Webern, Ligeti (in both his middle and late periods), and topically, Elliott Carter (who seems to have, once he found his style, sped up!), are but a few.

L.

This kind of feeling is why I don't produce as much as I'd like. But it becomess a vicious cycle with me. I hold off, waiting for inspiration that often doesn't come because I'm just sitting there on my hands waiting for a gift. Plus I've always been afraid that what I'm writing at any given time might not be any good, and the fear stymies me.

I don't know that's it's a particularly useful feeling, though. No one who creates anything consistently produces reliably "good" stuff. Edison certainly didn't and his inventing was every bit as creative, IMO, as composing music.

I remember reading some years ago that Stephen King, who certainly produces some pretty good writing, wrote every day because he wanted to keep himself in the habit of writing instead of getting in the habit of simply waiting for inspiration that might never come. Also, he said, in a round about way, that inspiration is frequently produced by hard work. I tend to believe that is true far more often than it's not. Writing regularly disciplines your mind to get on task more quickly (which, for an ADD-addled brain like mine is a real problem). That saves some valuable time, I'd think.

Fear is a big problem, but at this point in my life, I know I'm going to write some real stinkers. I also know that I'll write some good stuff, too. I take the stinkers with the good stuff, because that's just the way things are. You can't kick against the wind, right?

I am at fault for not pushing myself more on my own. Unfortunately I do best when someone pesters me to write something. This does not mean I don't have ideas that come about thru improv/play/ or walking etc .. but it is harder to attend to them properly - I either get bogged down in revising what is essentially a sketch which requires more ideas - or writing too many unrelated ideas and trying to join them. Though this tendency is fading and I am getting better.

One thing which helps me is doing counterpoint or little sketches.