Too many ideas??

Ok, let me describe my situation:

I have started writing a piece to enter in the local orchestra's competition. For a while now I have wanted to set Edgar Allan Poe's short story, The Masque of the Red Death to music, so I thought this would be a good oppertunity to do it. I planned to make a type of suite out of it, with the music following the narrative. I've made a good start and have got several ideas which I really like.

Unfortunately, the rules are that the composition can be no more than five minutes long. This is where I am running into trouble, as I am already 1:30 into it, I need to get on with the story, but I'm still establishing my ideas for the introduction. You could probably suggest "just trim the fat off", but I feel I'm still building the bones of this thing, let alone the fat. :glare:

I don't want to establish my ideas and then move away as quickly as I introduced them, but neither do I want to condense the story down to such a level that I can't do it justice. Another obvious answer would be to write something else, but I think that would be a shame as I'm on a roll with this.

So has anyone else ever been oppressed by their time limits? How would you go about dealing with a situation like this? Comments are much appreciated!

PS, If you are interested in knowing the story of the Red Death, you can read it here: THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH by E. A. Poe (1842)

I once had an old composition teacher that advised me never, ever to compose music specifically for competitions. Better, he said, to write your own music in the style, form and instrumentation that suits you as it comes to you, and then if you happen to hear of a competition that would accept your work, you can send it off.

However. Sometimes that's not practical, or sometimes you just want to write for a competition! So. Allow me to address the more interesting topic at hand.

"Too many ideas!" This seems to be the bane of the existence of the young composer. We are all so full of energy, and motivation, and ideas, that it can be extremely difficult to confine oneself to a smaller number of ideas in a piece of music. The tough thing is that sometimes you come up with a half dozen or more ideas, and every single one of them is "good" in its own right. The trouble is decidind which one(s) you'll use for the piece you're currently working on; judging your own output and knowing what to throw away (at least, throw away for the time being) can be excruciatingly difficult. I think it helps to remember that ideas you generate can always be used in future pieces if you don't use them in a current one.

This issue is why I advocate taking a few days' break every so often when you're working on a piece. This way, you can gain a bit of perspective that allows you to resume work on the piece several days later and (hopefully) sort out your better ideas from your not-so-great ones...or at the very least, the ideas you'll use from the ideas you won't.

To improve your general proficiency with efficiency of musical ideas, I recommend as an exercise writing a few short pieces, each based entirely off a single theme. Of course no one else has to see these 'pieces' -- they are just exercises, after all -- but I think this sort of thing really helps you learn how to wring every last drop of musical potential from a given idea. Then the technique comes in handy when you sit down to write a piece that isn't an exercise.

Woohoo! An answer! =P

That's an interesting perspective your teacher had. It makes sense in a way, although for me, I find a competition deadline is something that helps in motivating me to finish!