# Ideas/Motivational factors of composers



## TROOPER (Apr 12, 2014)

Hello fellow board members,

Greetings from India!!

The purpose for this post, is a query that sprang up in my mind while I was having a discussion about Classical Music with a friend of mine. We started this debate while exploring our options to listening to other musical genres outside Heavy Metal.

Long story short, my question to you all is, what is the motivational element that drives composers to create symphonies/pieces when they do??

For example, as in Heavy Metal music - things that urge the composers for expressing one's idea for the music, is that a rebellion feeling, to think outside the society/system, outbreak of emotions, a source of enlightenment through the music (riffs, deconstruction, lyrics etc.), an attempt to produce what has not been done in the past etc..

Coming back to the original question, I'm aiming to get an insight from all the experienced classical music listeners, as to what motivates a classical composer to create such masterpieces?? Does the state of mind (besides the creativity), such as aggression, frustration, despair, melancholy come into play?? The driving factor?? The reason?!?

Thanks for taking the time to read this!!


Regards.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I can't really speak for all composers I guess, but I believe one of the greatest motivational forces for composers to make music is just their pure fascination with the art. Composers love music and love coming up with new things for music to do. They love figuring out how to make music effective and considering all the possibilities. (If I write this what should I follow up with? How will this effect the rest of the piece? What are the other options?) Each new style brings a new set of problems to solve and possibilities to flesh out. In a way, composers are almost like scientists, using their toolset to try things out, see what works, what doesn't, how to expound on what has come before. And since we love music so much, the process of experiment, invention and discovery is very exciting for us.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

It's a great question, and the answer probably varies from composer to composer. 

I hope my fellow forum-ites here will mention a few composers that they find to be very rebellious, or to be motivated by rebellion....


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

violadude said:


> I can't really speak for all composers I guess, but I believe one of the greatest motivational forces for composers to make music is just their pure fascination with the art. Composers love music and love coming up with new things for music to do. They love figuring out how to make music effective and considering all the possibilities. (If I write this what should I follow up with? How will this effect the rest of the piece? What are the other options?) Each new style brings a new set of problems to solve and possibilities to flesh out. In a way, composers are almost like scientists, using their toolset to try things out, see what works, what doesn't, how to expound on what has come before. And since we love music so much, the process of experiment, invention and discovery is very exciting for us.


Bravo / very well said / Bingo!
I would only add that anyone creative who regularly produces feels _a need to do it_ which others might judge as near to an obsession... the feeling of need to do it is usually that great.

While an artist may love and admire already existing works, _they are *not content with the world as they find it.*_ They then make things which are more in order to their liking... i.e. _something did not exist which they want and need to exist._ *That makes of any sort of creative artist a kind of malcontent, motivated and acting out of being social malcontent, (a prime condition of being a rebel)* and this goes quite against the supposition of artists as being _socially motivated,_ i.e. that artists' primary impulse and desire is to communicate to others, I think, is false


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## TROOPER (Apr 12, 2014)

science said:


> It's a great question, and the answer probably varies from composer to composer.
> 
> I hope my fellow forum-ites here will mention a few composers that they find to be very rebellious, or to be motivated by rebellion....


Indeed!! It would be more interesting to know what many like minded listeners think and their take on this...


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## TROOPER (Apr 12, 2014)

Nicely described 'violadude' and PetrB. 

Like a brainwave that travels through time and space...

I think its what the artist's desire is to come with a result that brings out the determination of the composer, as passed along to the listener.
---

I would like to expand this further (if you don't mind) as in understanding classical music on a more deeper level...

As F.W Nietzsche said, "'Without music, life would be a mistake"


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

This near universal myth of 'self-expression,' and what motivates or "inspires" the artist is, I think, nearly impossible to dispel. 

People so love the idea that artists are "telling us what they feel, or how they feel about something," that 100 interviews with artists each saying something more like, "I dunno, it was a bunch of notes which struck me as interesting to work with at that moment." would just not be believed.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Composers compose because they can, they like to, and (one hopes) they're good at it -- just like peole in sales, business, or professional sports. Masterpieces are just incidental -- they come when they do, and 99.9% of works aren't.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

PetrB said:


> People so love the idea that artists are "telling us what they feel, or how they feel about something," that 100 interviews with artists each saying something more like, "I dunno, it was a bunch of notes which struck me as interesting to work with at that moment." would just not be believed.


Maybe because there are numerous sources that prove this "myth" to be true in some cases. The "composers" is such a varied group of people with such varied ideas and attitudes to what they did, that there is hardly any "myth" or "misconception" which wouldn't turn out to be true in case of some of them. So all this talk about what composers are/were like, how things worked for them or what was genesis of their art in reality and what is only some kind of romanticization is simply meaningless expression of person's preferred way of seeing things, meaningless until focused on one particular composer.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Aramis said:


> Maybe because there are numerous sources that prove this "myth" to be true in some cases.


Lay listeners, and those who do not read many a composer biography, do tend to wildly romanticize about: 
1.) composer's inspiration in general 
2.) what inspired a particular piece
3.) what feelings the composer had while writing the piece
4.) what feelings the composer meant to convey to the listener

It is rare that we have any of this information _from the composers themselves._
Of those who said next to nothing about the meaning of their works, what their inspiration was for a particular piece, etc, there is hardly anything from: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Debussy, Stravinsky, etc.

Sure, there are exceptions, but I believe they are few in number from all of classical music history, and of the few of those explanations none would probably be -- at least from the body of classical music and its composers -- about teen angst and rebellion 

When it comes to motivation, there are simply too many well-documented records of a composer talking about the income from commissions, or music written for a subscription series on speculation of making money, to need to go very far down the rosy path of motivation -- at least past the composer having a compelling need to become a musician and a composer in the first place.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

That wild romanticization is largely fed by wildly romantic marketing. The lemmings don't think this stuff up themselves.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

the story of Berlioz composing the Symphonie Fantastique is pretty well known - love (obsession?) and the desire to win over a woman who he had not met, but had only seen on stage

For Herbert Howells - Hymnus Paradisi - it was to release the grief caused by the sudden and unexpected death of his 9-year old son

there will be dozens of examples, ranging from the mercenary through to the 'had to release a tune' reasons


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Headphone Hermit said:


> the story of Berlioz composing the Symphonie Fantastique is pretty well known - love (obsession?) and the desire to win over a woman who he had not met, but had only seen on stage
> 
> For Herbert Howells - Hymnus Paradisi - it was to release the grief caused by the sudden and unexpected death of his 9-year old son
> 
> there will be dozens of examples, ranging from the mercenary through to the 'had to release a tune' reasons


Until fairly modern times, I'd guess the mercenary motive was most common.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Yes, now that composers are given generous payouts by the state and by altruistic individuals and organisations, they no longer need to think about paying their bills :lol:


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## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

PetrB said:


> People so love the idea that artists are "telling us what they feel, or how they feel about something," that 100 interviews with artists each saying something more like, "I dunno, it was a bunch of notes which struck me as interesting to work with at that moment." would just not be believed.


I saw this only a few weeks ago with a young composer doing a Q&A thing before the performance. Someone wanted to know what emotional state of mind he was in and what what he was experiencing when he scored the theme. His response was simply "Nothing really...just thought it would sound cool".


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Couac Addict said:


> I saw this only a few weeks ago with a young composer doing a Q&A thing before the performance. Someone wanted to know what emotional state of mind he was in and what what he was experiencing when he scored the theme. His response was simply "Nothing really...just thought it would sound cool".


Ya....people ask me that all the time. And my answer is always similar to the one given by that guy.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Couac Addict said:


> I saw this only a few weeks ago with a young composer doing a Q&A thing before the performance. Someone wanted to know what emotional state of mind he was in and what what he was experiencing when he scored the theme. His response was simply "Nothing really...just thought it would sound cool".


This is more routine than most listeners who do not compose think. I cannot count how many times I've heard a composer say, "I'm working on ______" and then... _"I'm trying to find what comes next."_ / _"I'm surprised at where it is going."_ etc.

A musical idea occurs to a composer -- sometimes it helps to decide if it has a particular emotional quality, or to think in terms of narrative _as an analogy_, but most important is somehow determining the overall musical character of the beast, and just muddling / inventing your way through. Few composers have a full idea of the entire piece when they start. Many start with a musical idea or premise which intrigues them, has caught their imagination, and the rest is, uh, _work_


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

PetrB said:


> This is more routine than most listeners who do not compose think. I cannot count how many times I've heard a composer say, "I'm working on ______" and then... _"I'm trying to find what comes next."_ / _"I'm surprised at where it is going."_ etc.
> 
> A musical idea occurs to a composer -- sometimes it helps to decide if it has a particular emotional quality, or to think in terms of narrative _as an analogy_, but most important is somehow determining the overall musical character of the beast, and just muddling / inventing your way through. Few composers have a full idea of the entire piece when they start. Many start with a musical idea or premise which intrigues them, has caught their imagination, and the rest is, uh, _work_


Common questions that people ask composers (and their disappointing answers):

*What were you feeling when you wrote this piece?
*
...preoccupied?

*What is this piece about? *

Well, this melody is the same backwards as it is forwards so it makes for a really interesting sort of palindrome. The harmony works that way too but the harmonic phrase is not the same length as the melodic phrase so it makes for a great combination of cool...

*No, no, no I mean what is it about? Like is it about love or does it tell a story or what? *

Oh, well I guess it could be about anything that you hear in it, but I didn't have anything particular like that in mind.

*Your music sounds like it would go so well with a movie! Would you ever work for Hollywood?
*
Well, if I was in serious debt and had no other option...I would consider it.

(btw guys, unless it's a piece of music actually written for a movie, do not tell a composer that his music would be good as a movie score. I know people who say this mean well and they think it's a compliment...but it's really not...)


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## TROOPER (Apr 12, 2014)

Thanks everyone for their inputs and time. On finding out what really everyone thinks, or their thought patterns...

One more question on the related subject - 
What exactly do YOU feel/experience when you listen to your favorite symphonies? 
As in, do you feel a burst of energy flowing through, a sense of solitude, to subside any sort of frustration inside, on the road to a conquest, a feeling of being rewarded in the end?

Also, does things around you get affected by involving yourself too much into this pattern of music? Does the balance of energies/forces surrounding you get disrupted?


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## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

violadude said:


> (btw guys, unless it's a piece of music actually written for a movie, do not tell a composer that his music would be good as a movie score. I know people who say this mean well and they think it's a compliment...but it's really not...)


...probably why Johann Strauss didn't reply to Stanley Kubrick's correspondence.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

I really hope that at least in some cases the composers' motivation was sheer beauty, the creation of something beautiful.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

violadude said:


> I can't really speak for all composers I guess, but I believe one of the greatest motivational forces for composers to make music is just their pure fascination with the art. Composers love music and love coming up with new things for music to do. They love figuring out how to make music effective and considering all the possibilities. (If I write this what should I follow up with? How will this effect the rest of the piece? What are the other options?) Each new style brings a new set of problems to solve and possibilities to flesh out. In a way, composers are almost like scientists, using their toolset to try things out, see what works, what doesn't, how to expound on what has come before. And since we love music so much, the process of experiment, invention and discovery is very exciting for us.


An insightful comment, violadude. (A healthy sign, too, that violas and their players should not be the object of musicians' jokes!)

There are many reasons for composing, of course. And many methods at a composer's hand. All the inspiration or "great ideas" in the world will do little good without some craft to bring the ideas to fruition. For the most part, there is always some calculation involved in music -- music just doesn't flow out of one's being. It must be worked on, deliberated about, edited, revised, hammered into shape, molded and finally tweaked into its final form.

There are some wonderful thoughts about composing at the website titled "22 inspiring composer quotes". Whether or not this was ever posted on this Forum I don't know, but quite a few of the comments pertain to this particular thread's initial premise. Please take a look: http://www.classicfm.com/discover/music/inspiring-composer-quotes/johannes-brahms/


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

violadude said:


> Common questions that people ask composers (and their disappointing answers):
> 
> *What were you feeling when you wrote this piece?*


Well, I was pretty busy trying to insure the content of the piece had some real (engaging) musical interest, and that it was cohesive... and that it had an overall integrity just as a piece of music. So, like I said, I was pretty busy during that time.



violadude said:


> *What is this piece about? *


A little cell motif of a half step and an adjacent whole step, popping out of triplets, each set of triplets comprising a different chord. Those two chords are bitonal, separate enough but still a 'gentle' sort of bitonality where they might be heard as one extended chord, or not. There are free episodes, the cell motif first presented in parallel fifths, then fourths, and other intervallic distances, the distance between the two harmonies sometimes shifts relationships as well, and the beat of the triplet that cell motif occurs on shifts from time to time. Rhythmically, even though there are a few bars of odd meter and one mildly polymetric senza mensura episode, it primarily moves in a manner strongly enough that it sounds as a gigue, so I titled it _Gigesque,_ On a whim I can't explain, the senza mensura episode made me think to subtitle it _Nostalgia for Sunlight._ I'm certain the style would be tagged as Neoclassical.



violadude said:


> *No, no, no! I mean what is it about? Like is it about love or does it tell a story or what?*


I couldn't say, really. It is not about _Nostalgia for sunlight._ (I recall it was bright clear days for the most part when I was writing it.) I suppose you could say its about that half-step with a whole step next, sometimes about the whole step first, then the next half-step, gentle bitonaily, or a Gigue.



violadude said:


> *Your music sounds like it would go so well with a movie! Would you ever work for Hollywood?*


Thanks, Violadude. (_Translation: I'll add that info to your dossier. You recognize this piece as 'contemporary classical,' music because more than likely the only place you've ever heard even a short bit of anything which sounded remotely like it was in a movie score._) I write far too slowly to think I could ever meet the delivery deadline schedule of film-score composing.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

It's clear from the responses that music is seen as a medium of expressing emotions. Nobody seems to think about the more explicit content of it, or the 'artistic' goals or message.

There is lots of implied meaning in different genres of music, such a heavy metal and rock music in general, which expresses adolescent concerns: rebellion, resistance to assimilation, physicality. These, however shallow, are 'artistic goals.'


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> It's clear from the responses that music is seen as a medium of expressing emotions. Nobody seems to think about the more explicit content of it, or the 'artistic' goals or message.
> 
> *There is lots of implied meaning in different genres of music, such as heavy metal and rock music in general, which expresses adolescent concerns: rebellion, resistance to assimilation, physicality. These, however shallow, are 'artistic goals.'*


*There is lots of implied meaning in different genres of music, such as classical music in general, which expresses adult concerns: soiubu, st'rliub to asulu;wle, aeiiuuluy. These are 'artistic goals.*'


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

...and some classical music is just there to dance to.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Couac Addict said:


> ...probably why Johann Strauss didn't reply to Stanley Kubrick's correspondence.


I think it is more probable that J. Strauss did not reply to Kubrick's correspondence because, in 1968, Johann Strauss had been dead for sixty-nine years.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> It's clear from the responses that music is seen as a medium of expressing emotions.


That is the perception of most of those who _listen_ to music. I think the responses from a spread of a number of composers would not be such a consensus of 'directly expressing emotions.'


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