So, Karl and other composers here (perhaps I should start a new thread? Or there might be an old one on it? I've seen some comments around but I'm not certain where.) I'm wondering how you go about composing? Some possibilities that occurred to me:
1) A certain theme comes up to you...maybe when awake or when asleep?
2) Something inspires you: A work of art? A person? An event? A place? 
? Mother Nature/animals/space?? Something that you hear? A book? Or?
Someone commissions you to write a specific kind of work...and what do you do?
Also, how disciplined are you in terms of working say "X number of hours a day on it"? Or "X number of days a week"?
Just curious!
PD
I rarely dream musical ideas, and it is rarer still when an idea that came to me in a dream (which felt
great, in the dream) actually sounds decent when waking.
Inspiration really comes from everywhere. My mom-in-law once said, "you can get inspiration from a magazine ad for a toilet." Sometimes I am inspired by a piece I'm listening to, that I don't think much of ... I start thinking,
are there elements in this tripe which I could turn to artistic account?I have not been commissioned for many works, the
Kerouac piece being the latest. I find a way to discover the music.
As to work habits ... well I essentially was not a composer from early October, but if we stipulate that
what was once habitual can be habitual again, I find it pretty easy to fall into a habit of doing some work each day. And once my concept of the piece has well formed, the work comes pretty easy.
To explain the "homework" I mentioned: Some years ago, the cellist wife of a friend invited me to write pieces for four cellos. I sent her three pieces: one was an adaptation of a very old piano toccata of mine called
Lutosławski’s Lullaby, and I wrote two new companion pieces, a one-pager (that is, the four players would not have individual printed parts, but would all read from score ... called
Marginalia, and a concluding piece I called
Après-Lullaby. The three pieces together I denominated my
Opus 96, collectively called
It's all in your head (not that that's a bad place for everything to be.)However (and, as often happens) the piece was never played. Not even when I later adapted it for a standard string quartet.
So, now I'm writing a piece for string orchestra ... at one point, I decided to incorporate the
Marginalia from my
Op. 96. I thought then, too, that I would bring the piece to a point where I might incorporate the
Après-Lullaby. The thought naturally crossed my mind, "What about
Lutosławski’s Lullaby?"At the time, I dismissed that thought, but now I have decided to go ahead and allow the string symphony completely to cannabalize the
Op. 96. I'll let
Op. 96 stand, too (you never know, someone may see light and perform it) and there is ample new material unique to the
Symphony, that it is "more than the sum of its parts." So my homework is, that I want to make an entirely fresh rhythmic adaptation of
Lutosławski’s Lullaby, so I'm going back to the source and making a harmonic reduction of it to work from. It just takes a little juggling, which I may do this afternoon.
