The night before the first composition was due, I received a panicked phone call from one of my students.  The student had obviously been struggling with the assignment and he asked me, "How do you get inspired?"  It was a difficult question for me to answer, because up to that time, I had never been short on the inspiration to compose.  Here's the long answer to his question.

Composers are inspired by many things.  Through out history, nature has been a common source of inspiration for composers.  Bird calls have found their way into, among other pieces, Beethoven's 6th symphony, Dvorak's American String Quartet, and Messiaen's Oiseaux Exotiques.  Debussy's La Mer and Respighi's Pines of Rome are two 20th century symphonic masterpieces based on nature. 

Composers are also inspired by other artists.  Those great masters of German Lieder, Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert, were inspired to write songs based on the poems of Heine and Goethe.  Modest Mussorgsky wrote Pictures at an Exhibition based on drawings and watercolors of the artist Victor Hartmann.  In writing his seminal work, The Rite of Spring, Igor Stravinsky teamed with a choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky and painter Nicholas Roerich.

Late in his life Brahms became inspired by the playing of clarinetist Richard Muhlfeld, and penned four masterful new works that included the clarinet.   Similarly, Mozart was inspired to write several arias for the magnificent soprano Caterina Cavalieri.   

And composers are inspired by the works of other composers.  Hector Berlioz had an unfailing admiration for the works of Beethoven, The overture to Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde had a profound impact on the Austrian composers that followed behind him. And many American composers have found the piano rags of Scott Joplin to be a great source of inspiration. 

New instruments or sonic possibilities have certainly motivated composers as well.  After Adolphe Sax invented the saxophone in France a wellspring of new works were created for it - like Debussy's Rapsodie pour Orchestra et Saxophone, Ravel's Bolero, and Milhaud's La Creation du Monde. 

The idea of writing music for electronics caught the imagination of many a composer as well - with significant early pieces by Varese, Berio, Ussachevsky, and Pierre Henry.  To this day, many composers derive a large part of their motivation from the sonic possibilities afforded by a computer manipulating sounds or creating them from scratch.  What an exciting prospect to create something new from what are essentially new instruments!

Significant world events have provided many sources of inspiration for composers - both positively and negatively.  After the 9/11 attacks the American Composer John Adams was inspired to write On the Transmigration of Souls.  He was not alone. Benjamin Britten's War Requiem and Charles Ives' General William Booth Enters into Heaven are other works created in response to war.  

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the importance of money, or a commission in providing stimulation. Personally, I've found it much easier to answer a 5 am alarm clock to compose if a payday is looming.

However, money is not the primary motivating factor for creating something new. For me, inspiration comes from an emotionally strong  reaction to something palpable in the world.  Often, it's a reaction to significant milestones in my kids' lives.  I've received so many ideas for pieces based on things they've done or said, or even by something simple that sparks my imagination - like reading them an inventive story.  

So to that student whose name I can no longer recall, I would now say - "get off the couch and read a poem or take a walk; take some time to tour an art gallery or go to a concert; spend some time enjoying your family and friends.  In short....live life!"

Ashes represent death on the one hand, but they also represent repentance through out the Bible. The book of Jonah says, "the people covered themselves with sackcloth and ashes as a sign of their intention to turn from their evil ways." The book ... << MORE >>