One Day

Yesterday, when I meant to be practising chromatic passing notes, I ended up spending most of my piano time doing a setting of a Dorothy Parker poem.

This is how composing seems to go for me, so far anyway.

Something springs to mind. A mood. A poem I want to set. A feeling I want to capture. I then spend time. Varying amounts of time. The idea whirls in and out of my head. My subconscious does a little processing the idea.

Then when I'm practising an exercise or experimenting with a technical idea (for example translating a samba reggae rhythm onto the piano) I'll suddenly find something. And my subconscious sticks up its hand and says.

"excuse me, but I like that, it's this idea".

And then I have a beginning. And I ask - what comes next? And I try things. Sometimes what I try is intuitive. Sometimes it's more intellectual - based on the music theory I know. And my subconscious says one of three things about each thing I try.


No.
Nearly. 
Yes.

And I repeat that process (what comes next) until I come to what seems to be the end.

I don't feel like I'm 'hearing' tunes in my head. Not distinctly in an "I can hum this so I'm going to transcribe it" way. It's much more obtuse than that. More saying yes to an instinct of when something I try sounds OK or 'right'. If I can't find what sounds right I have to go away and let it settle. Let my subconscious work it out and suggest things to my intellect to try.

It's a collaborative process.

My subconscious is really bossy and demands the final say.

When the composition mojo visits - go with it.