Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Composer's Lounge where does it come from?

A question has been on my mind for many years. And since this is the Composer's Lounge, I'm putting it to you.

Actually it's 2 questions, and rather big, so I need to explain, bare with me.

I have always been able to understand the other 'arts' in this respect. If I have or learn the necessary skills, I can watch a sunset, and then paint it. If I have or learn the skills of writing and have some imagination, I can write a book. If I learn the necessary skills, I can perform wonderful music on whatever instrument. Well, you obviously also need a bit of talent to create/perform something that anybody else would want to watch/read/listen to. This is all perfectly understandable, no mysteries here.

But where does 'new' music come from???

I love music. I lost my singing voice years ago, but I can hum and whistle with the best of you, and I do. All day long. If not out loud, then in my head. But, it's always somebody else's music, music I've heard played or sung at some point in time. At times a little piece will pop up in my head that I cannot pinpoint, but usually I know exactly what it is and who wrote or sang it.

I know there is a bit of 'borrowing' involved at times when music is written. It happened to me a few times, when playing a melody (and maybe not paying attention as I should) suddenly my hands will be playing another melody... and I'll go 'hmm, that's interesting, but you are right, that little piece is also in another tune'. Or maybe it's just that there's only so many different ways you can put 12 tones together, you're bound to get some repeats here and there?

But, where DOES it come from?? When I sit at my piano and look at the keys, the music that comes into my head is music I KNOW, never new.

Well, that may not be entirely true... I have actually 'composed' a couple of little things, that I use as warm up at times. Just 20 measures of a little back and forth on the basic major scales. I started to play that when I was first struggling with playing simple solid chords, so I thought I'd write it down, and play the same thing as practice.

But here comes my next question: I call it 'my' little warmup... but how do I know?? How do I know that I didn't just dig that little combination of tones out of the recesses of my mind, the dusty storage container of things long since heard?
How do I know that it's 'mine'? Given the small size and naivety of it, most likely it's anything but original

So, there you have it, WHERE DOES IT COME FROM, and HOW DO YOU KNOW?

Yea, I know, maybe it's like asking 'what's the meaning of life'? I have no ambitions in this direction, I just SO want to know. So if anybody has a clue, please share it.

Oh, and please remember you're talking to a beginner, so use 'little words'.

Define what you mean by new music. Radical innovation, or just writing something?

Are you saying you're incapable of devising an original melody? I know the melodies I make up are original because that is my intent. I don't (usually) modify some existing melody I create something new in my head. As for where it comes from, it comes from an intent to be original and that usually relates to the purpose I have in mind for the piece.

Here's a story that's atypical. I heard a recording of the Dupre fugue in g minor for organ, it a very spikey theme. I've always liked the piece and decided I'd try to come up with something spikey myself. So now I have a spikey theme that I like and it's proving difficult to use in a composition.

For reference Virgil Fox's rendition of the Dupre piece is here. The fugue starts at 3:59. The whole piece is quite marvelous.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikzFba5-sac

There are many thoughts on this. John Lennon was sometimes inspired by dreams. (Begs the question, where do dreams come from?) Paul Simon believed that his best work was due to long hours of nose to the grindstone hard work (and some might say borrowing freely from those that came before them). Joni Mitchell talks about the "blarney flowing," she just sits down and starts rambling and something comes out.

I like to refer to the "infinite monkey school" of composition. This is named after the idea, that if you lined up enough monkeys in front of enough typewriters (it is an old idea), that sooner or later some of those monkeys will bang out Shakespeare.

Now add a feedback loop where some monkeys get rewarded, some get punished and there is a creative process.

As for me, I rarely am inspired, maybe once a year, if that. Mostly, what I do is an imitation of the monkey thing. I bang away at the keyboard until I find something interesting. A "banana" appears in that I find it appealing, and I move forward.

Many of this forum have studied composition and their pieces tend to have more structure, more coherence than the musings of a "monkey." Studying music appreciation, and music history will give a person more perspective.

In philosophy there's no original thought. It all comes from somewhere else...

The problem is being able to define it as your own before others do! For example, many use string clusters, but Pederewski was one of the pioneers and thus the sound stuck with him. Same with the idea of prepared piano. Cage came with the idea first and this stuck with him.

Now, the where the idea comes from... it really depends.

In my case I was trained on the piano rather poorly with a lack of anything interesting to play so I had to come up with my own tunes from a very young age, to keep enjoying piano.

some people are conceptionalists, while others are not. It just is...

Hallo all, thank you for replying.


I just mean new, as in not heard before. Just like a new pop song, some of which are really rather simple, but nonetheless new.

Glad you mentioned that, yes I've heard that before, and now it sort of clicked in my mind in relation to music.

'Being a monkey' was pretty much what I was doing back then. In 2009 I had been playing for a month or two, and trying to get my hands to do the combination of simple chords, C A F G, while playing something in the right hand. Impossible while concentrating on learning a melody. So I just 'fiddled' back and forth in the same scale range with the right, and this eventually came out: http://www.piano.christrup.net/PIANO/Fun%20with%20chords%20and%20scales.pdf
Sounded nice to me, so I wrote it down, and fingered it to make sure to play it the same always, and used it to practice, did the trick for me.

From what you said about Paul Simon, I guess this wasn't so very much different from what other people do, except I was just (still am) a beginner fumbling around without intent.

Still leaves me with the 'how do I know this is new'? To me it is, as I don't recall having heard it before. But maybe I have, and just don't remember where it's from?

It's the 'intent' that really puzzles me. But I guess it's because I don't know enough about the process of creating and playing music?

If I wanted to, I could sit down and write a crimi, may not be good, but I could make one. I could come up with some reason for somebody to kill somebody else, and think of ways of doing that, and then write it down. I have of course been writing all my life, from simple letters to articles and such, so I know how to put words together in a meaningful way.

So it's the same process in composing? And the reason for my not grasping it is because I'm not as 'educated in music' as I am in words?

Steve, thank you for the link. I had no idea what you meant by 'spikey' but listened to the Dupre piece, so now I do

It's a cool piece and one I've always enjoyed. You mentioned in another post that you know words, but not music. It seems to me there's a good analogy here. Knowledge of music theory is knowledge of the basic tools available to the composer. Knowledge of 20th and 21st century composition simply adds to the palette. No one has to use every tool available, a skilled carpenter won't always use a miter saw, but will use it effectively when it's called for. And no carpenter would allow an unskilled person to use a table saw without supervision. Composing music is certainly safer than carpentry, but the knowledgeable composer doesn't waste time reinventing the wheel.

Can you read music well enough to analyze a melody? If so, then do some analysis and see how the composers of the past have done it. If not, then learning to do so should be your first task. Finally, it takes practice and learning to be your own worst critic to get good. Too many young composers write something and because they've heard it many times and they know it backwards and forward it's genius, when that's simply not the case. The best composers come up with a lot of crap in order to weed out a few great ideas.

I'm going to take a moment to explain my process of melodic development in more detail. I like the term musings of a monkey. I even sometimes use that approach (usually out of boredom), but find I can create more original music in other ways. Melodies are composed of motives (snippets of melody) which can be repeated and/or varied. How does one vary a motive? Simply by changing some aspect of it, increasing/decreasing intervals or register or starting on a different note (changing the implied harmony) or inversion, etc. That can usually get you half of a basic theme, then you need something that answers or contrasts with what you've created and go from there.

One thing you haven't mentioned is what kind of music you want to compose. The assumption being made because you've posted here is something in a classical vein. If that's not the case then let us know because the answer may be different if you want to write new age or jazz or something pop (or something different).

Many flinch when I state my opinion that all the great melody lines have already been done, almost certainly so in all the major keys for tonal music. Yes, there are minor variations in rhythm, key and line. However, most great melodies can often be identified with seven or fewer notes. Many can be identified if transposed. Many can be identified if one note is changed.

Yes, there are people that strive to write something different for the sake of being different. However, that also has been going on for several decades. John Cage's 4' 33" is over 70 years old now (for those that don't know it is a silent orchestral piece). Deconstruction, originality for the sake of originality goes back at least that far in academic music circles.

There have been any number of academical oriented "monkeys" writing for the sake of originality for decades now. Very few find any resonance with popular audiences. Let me add that it isn't appropriate for me, a mere "monkey" to pass judgement on what others are trying to do. Especially when those others often have years of schooling and training to back them up, and all I basically have is my "monkey brain" and a couple of courses in music appreciation and history.

There is software that helps determine originality. Some like Shazam are more oriented for commercial songs, but some packages are used by music companies to help avoid law suits. Back in the day, most songwriters would just play it for others and ask around. It is more refined now.

I may have told this story before, but most have not heard it. A friend of mine is a former concert pianist, who also does some composing. When he was 12 years old, he wrote what he thought was an original melody. When he became an adult, he heard a hit song on the radio, that was very close to his melody.

My friend felt bad, but of course there was no way the commercial songwriter had stolen the ideas of a 12 year old. My friend felt better, when about a decade later he stumbled upon the work of a minor 19th century composer, whose melody line was very close to his. Similarly there was no way a 12 year old had heard the work of this minor composer. The idea, the melody line was out there. It eventually got used in a hit song and when that song was popular, most would identify the melody line with that. So it goes.

Sand Tiger, thank you so much for taking the time for me.

I have a table saw, and use it without supervision, even I am pretty unskilled when it comes to carpentry. Never the less I managed to build an entire barn for my horse once, only needing help for the roofing (as I'm afraid of heights). But I do get your point.

I have no ambition in the way of composing. I just always wanted to know 'how it happens'. I love classical, but have also listened to pop, rock, country and what not through the years with great joy. And here they 'pump out' new tunes regularly, which has always amazed me. How'd they do that?

You all's explanations from different angles have helped me grasp part of that.

And now I will check out that Shazam. Maybe that can be used to identify where something that 'pops into your head' comes from?

Maybe you just were thinking about that thread on piano tone, but I don't think Paderewski/Pederewski was a pioneer in string clusters.

Maybe Penderecki is the composer who was referred to.

Some additional ideas, Ytta:

We are geared to seek and find patterns, and as children we playfully create patterns out of random objects (unless the toy industry interferes, which is a different subject). 2. Consider language - it has underlying patterns and structure, not only of grammar, but inflection of the voice, rhythm, pauses. A young child does not imitate adults like parrots: otherwise he'd never come up with "I runned." He instinctively seeks out and absorbs the patterns in language, and uses them. You get surrounded by the patterns of your native language. Years later in school you can hone your skills through the conscious training in spelling, grammar, and so forth.

Music is similar. There is an underlying formal structure that got developed over centuries; there are also natural things to this. You have been surrounded by music your whole life just like you have been surrounded by language. So you will have absorbed many of those patterns, and they will be "in you" to some extent. That is, they sort of poke out of the woodworks. You're not conscious of them so you can't do anything deliberate with them yet. More formal study gives you some of the other part.

I looked at your "Fun With Chords and Scales". What I say next depends on whether you already knew about chord progressions, or if you simply used a few familiar chords. If it was at random, then you instinctively used a common progression that works: [I vi IV V / I ii V I] for the first phrase (yes, there's a phrase in there) which in its first half has a IV V cadence that tells us "more is coming" and then a V I cadence that tells us "this phrase is done". Then you lead us to the 2nd phrase which mirrors the first one. Essentially you have the fundamental 2 phrase structure of 8 measures. In other words - playing with building blocks, creating something logical out of them, and also using absorbed formal structures of that "language".

That is part of it.

Hi Keystring,

No, I didn't know about chord progressions, I simply used those simple chords because I recognized them as being part of a lot of pop music. Only to train my LH to 'jump' from chord to chord without me looking/searching. The WORDS of the rest of what you said in that paragraph just fluttered over my head. But I do sort of know what you MEAN. And I suspect you do absorb quite a bit of the language of music after listening intently to it for so many years. Not that I know what I know, but it's there inside, more of a feel.

The structure and pattern you talk about brings something to mind. I have been listening to 'western hemisphere' music my entire life, hardly any Asian, except enough to recognize it for what it is. Recently I watched a video on YouTube, with Ping An singing on 'Voice of China' ( here ). First I was captured by his singing (knew neither him, the song, nor the program before this) - I will stop and listen when I hear beautiful singing. Then I listened again, and got fascinated by the tune. It's not that traditional, but still Chinese. I happen to have a Chinese business partner (in China), so asked him if he could get me the sheet music. He did. Was too hard for me, so I wrote it 'down' a bit to play. I sent it back to China for verification, as I had to guess where beginning and end was (do not speak a word of Chinese), and oddly enough got it right. But then came the learning to play it. I have now listened to that song SO many times, and feel I know it, but when it comes to learning to play it.... it's VERY difficult. Because this music has (to me) strange patterns and moves in mysterious ways that I can't predict. That made me realize how much I depend on previous knowledge of 'my kind of' music that I didn't even know I had.

When I was 8, I was given a little air-blown organ, and was left to my own devices. In a first experiment, I put my pinky on E and then played the notes I could reach, and then had no choice but to go up again. I rather liked the sound of that E droning on and on. The result was E, C, D, B, A, B, C, D, E. Then with my limited ability I could do it in the RH, and the two hands together. Sort of like this.

https://app.box.com/shared/static/jrs1eeq535kh44q4va24.mp3

Some months later a melody came to my head to which I added notes that sounded good with it - the result was C major, where the first was essentially A minor. But when it already finished, a few more notes come in, and it ends in A minor - and that "E, C, D, B, A" "theme" is back. ---- And later, probably reaching age 9, there's a third bit - back in A minor, and the flourishy thing at the end again is this "E, C, D, B, A" --- I kept sticking in my mind.
Trying to pull out the bits I mentioned:
https://app.box.com/shared/static/rz0pklpjym6wtupl4qcl.mp3

I had no keyboard of any kind for 35 years. When I got my DP I still remembered that invented music, and recorded it at my present skill level, adapting it for piano - but these are the same notes that the 8 year old invented.
https://app.box.com/shared/static/kprt8fqftf563ltv16ew.mp3

In the meantime I have my share of music theory, and can actually go in there and see the formal structure in this 8 year old's invention. There's a fair bit of it, as well as some deviations since the child knew no rules. But the child did not have a clue that music had any structures: chord progressions, ABA, a Common Practice tendency to modulate to the relative minor or close key. So something else has to be at work - neither the "many monkeys" idea because it's not random; and not "you can't compose anything unless you have formal theory". At lease some of it has to be absorbed structure, like what a child does with language.

That was pleasant to listen to, 8-year or not.

I don't think it's limited to children. My grandmother would never sing, nor could she play an instrument of any kind, and certainly had no musical education. But she would hum continuously when in the kitchen. Many times I could hear what it was, many times not. When asked what it was, or where it came from, the answer would invariably be 'I don't know'. And as that would continue through my life, I knew a fair bit of music, but still found these 'unknowns' in her humming. She'd always get a slightly confused look when I asked her, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't conscious most of the time.

I wish I'd had notation skills in those days and had wrote some down. What a precious memorabilia that would have been

I have tapes from the age of 9 onwards with recordings of myself!

And I was "blessed" to have two tape recorders which would playback the tape at the same speed, so I was able to do additional takes, layering one take with the other!

And then I got to the age of 13 and got a yamaha PSR4600!