On Apr 12, 2005, at 2:19 PM, Bob Florence wrote:
My intention was to learn how some of you get from point A (inspiration) to point B (nuts and bolts}.
The one answer I really liked came from John Howell.
I almost always start with the thought, "wouldn't it be nice if there were a piece of [x] sort?"--for example, a sonata for cornetto and fortepiano (anyone who wants to pick up on this idea, please feel free!) I often have these thoughts in the middle of concerts (that I'm hearing, not playing).
I then shelve the thought, sometimes for years. Next time it pops up, I might think "well, if I were to write such a piece, how would I go about doing it?" Which might lead me to a flurry of precompositional ideas, but nothing down on paper and no intent to actually write the thing. Then after another lapse, the idea, now in half-built kit form, may come back again, and if the time is ripe, I may actually sit down and write the thing.
I consider only the first step of this process to constitute inspiration, but as you can see, it's a very trivial form of inspiration indeed--one that anyone might have. The only difference between a composer and "anyone" is that the composer actually follows thru on the original vague idea.
The longest gap between the inspiration of any work of mine and it's actual composition was my _A Periodic Table of the Elements_, which I first thought of in 11th grade (chemistry class) and composed at age 44.
As I grow older--and I think virtually every composer is this way--I find that an increasing number of the "nuts and bolts" can be found in the handy bin of leftover nuts and bolts from earlier projects--also, gimmicks that worked once so why not do it again?
Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
_______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
