The way to compose for me is to have lots of time.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I find it very difficult to compose when I'm not playing.
I like to compose, but only for myself. I write my own lyrics and compose the music around them.
It is not hard to compose, but what is fabulously hard is to leave the superfluous notes under the table.
The more I compose, the more I know that I don't know it all. I think it's a good way to start. If you think you know it all, the work becomes a repetition of what you've already done. I try to make sure that I don't repeat my music.
You compose because you want to somehow summarize in some permanent form your most basic feelings about being alive, to set down... some sort of permanent statement about the way it feels to live now, today.
Composing is sort of an intuitive act. You have to put yourself in the right frame of mind.
I compose my own stuff. I've been writing songs with words. I've been playing more on the keyboard because I can transpose it to sheet music on the computer.
'Write' is almost the wrong verb for what I do. I think 'compose' is more accurate because you're trying to make the sounds in your mind and in your voice. So I compose while I'm driving or in the shower.
The process of composition, messing around with paragraphs and trying to make really good prose, is hardwired into my personality.
The only way for me to compose is intensively. To pick at it over a long period doesn't seem to work.