Heureka! Heureka! These were the words of Archimedes after he had stepped into a bath and noticed that the water level rose, whereupon he suddenly understood that the volume of displaced water must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged. He is said to have been so eager to share his inspiration that he leapt out of his bathtub and ran through the streets of Syracuse naked.
I was always fascinated about the mystery of inspiration. What is behind this phenomenon? Is there a trigger for inspiration?
Perhaps it helps to find an answer if we have a closer look at what composers are saying about their inspiration. Composers face the challenge of transferring emotions into music and putting on paper their original ideas. During my “Fantasy Notes” interviews, I always ask composers about their creative process and how they find their inspiration.
Inspiration is a state of the increased energy that comes out of sudden and leads to some ideas or actions. Some people call it a spontaneous burst of creativity. It is a kind of mind stimulation that is colored by our emotions. Far from being a magic quality, inspiration has even a clear structure. Any stimulation starts with our five senses and our perception of the world around us through taste, smell, touch, sight or hearing. Inspiration starts when we perceive one stimulus through our senses and appreciate it as being important or bearing a meaning to us. Then we start dwelling on this feeling and letting our mind wander in it. We let our thoughts grow around this stimulus; we are mesmerized and preoccupied at the same time. The thoughts and feelings grow and give us the energy and power that is enough to start a kind of deeper fascination. Usually the outcome of this heightened state is the desire for something new to happen. It just occurs on its own; it is like a natural outcome after an initial trigger. No matter how many psychologists described this universal process, it still needs the following mindset.
Most interviewed composers shared these qualities: they are open to experience, have an active imagination, prefer variety and are intellectually curious. They are sensitive to beautiful things and their own inner feelings. They are putting their thoughts into music. They say that it helps to be honest with own feelings and they welcome the unpredictability of life as a chance to create more originality, novelty and beauty. Many composers learnt to use their intuition for better creativity. They are very fast and efficient in registering subtle changes in their perceptions that have not yet reached the thoughts.
All these behavior patterns are not new and there is no miracle behind them. The difference between artists like composers and a “normal” man might be that they make use of a brighter scope of inspiration sources; they are more sensible and go through the sources with a higher intensity and concentration.
This is a link http://movingclassics.tv/blogs/ where you can find 56 “Fantasy notes” interviews with contemporary composers from different countries; they talk about creativity and their compositions. Every week a new composer reveals us how to find creativity in the interview and we record and share one music video. It is fascinating to discover new music and the personality behind the notes. Join us on the musical adventure and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn.
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Country:Germany
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