The Art of Composition

Suppose you’re about to practice, compose, or improvise: Do you aim to restate past ideas or come up with fresh ones?

Assuming that deliberate self-copying makes you cringe, then, to be creative, you’re going to have to step beyond your known universe and toward an indefinite future.
Maybe your ideas will soar; maybe they’ll sputter. How can you know where your intuition will lead?

You can’t.

And that’s one reason why so many people don’t create: The uncertainty of the process sends them fleeing toward the familiar.

For example, musicians who dread risk will devise conventional programs, improvise with shopworn licks, shy away from entrepreneurial projects, and otherwise languish.
Creative artists, by comparison, love venturing outside of their comfort zones. They know that their greatest discoveries will be found in uncharted waters, and they fearlessly set off in search of adventures. For them, the thought, “I don’t know,” echoes, “Let’s find out!”

Becoming a fearless creatorHere are five ways that aspiring musicians can embrace the mysteries of the creative process and become fearless creators.

1. Refine your goals Your big and small goals will interact either to fire your enthusiasm or douse your potential. Authentic long-term aims and specific daily objectives will spur you to work. In contrast, vague aspirations – such as to “get better” – can leave musicians unsure of what to practice.

2. Trust yourself As W.S. Merwin states, your accumulated knowledge matters. Still, your know-how isn’t your art; rather, it comprises the tools you use to create art. To innovate, then, you have to trust your abilities, dive into a task, and let go of worry about how things will turn out. Although you can’t know where your creativity will take you, by believing in yourself, you can be certain you’ll arrive somewhere meaningful. For instance, a trusting songwriter will decisively start composing a new piece, confident that the simple act of beginning will stir up ample material she can craft into a song.

3. Generate copious ideas If you want to scuttle your creativity, tell yourself to come up with brilliant insights exclusively. Then, your wellspring of ingenuity will become blocked by an inner critic. Conversely, to tap your reservoir of imagination, let yourself churn out an unfiltered stream of ideas; then, toy with them.

4. Experiment & evaluate playfully With a cache of ideas in hand, adopt a playful approach to separating out the valuable nuggets from the raw material. In the practice room, let’s say, you might record some passages, listen back, make revisions, record again, and so forth. Take pleasure in the possibilities you open up, pursue the ones that resonate, and set the others aside.

5. Persevere Some days you’ll enjoy a cascade of ideas and a flood of accomplishment; other days you could be snarled in difficulties. Nonetheless, creative achievement is typically built on piles of discards. So bring a tenacious attitude to your work. Perseverance and mental toughness are as vital to the creative process as are artistry and technique.