Hello everyone,
Here's a post about music composition, from my FB page. I decided to move it over here.
Adventures in Musical Composition, episode ??
would it freak anyone out to know that "Mr. Toad's Song" was roughed out as Person sat over a big Americano at the Starbucks in Crossroads Mall, live band performances roaring away in the background? Live, LOUD band performances :-) I find loud music from a totally different genre to be a most effective way of focusing concentration on the compositional task at hand. But, the loud music must be en plein air - - it cannot be delivered through headphones.
In one memorable interview, Glenn Gould confessed to practicing while loud household machines (vacuum cleaner, f'r instance) roared in the background. Or, a pair of televisions blaring different stations. That's where I got the idea...and boy howdy if it wasn't a great suggestion :-) I'd love to try that with piano practice - - I would create a looping track of roaring machine noise and play it /en plein air/ during the session. No headphones.
"Toad" was ready to be born, that Saturday afternoon/evening...I got off the bus with a copy of the poem, a stack of staff paper and a bunch of pencils, and a couple of interesting musical ideas. I left shortly after closing time, with "Toad" safely in the bag - - all over but the shoutin' <3
I didn't write out the piano part. I never write out the piano parts. I'm the composer; I know what to do. :-) I'm also a little bit lazy and I don't know how to use music notation software :- ) :-) I know a very fine local composer who writes directly on his tablet. How does he do that?!
Perhaps "learning a good free notational software program and using it to write this quarter's piece" could be a personal learning objective.
We'll see.
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And, this is interesting: I love to do improv handwork (knitting, crochet, wirebending, und so weiter) while "listening" to audiobooks or TOS episodes, things I already know that have already been stored in my brain via focused attention. But, not music. 
Unless I'm working from a written or charted pattern. Then, background music is okay. Go figure...
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Bach and charted crochet - - a felicitous combination!
