Ok, I'm not just a little slow, I'm running out of time! I can't believe I barely have about one week and two days to finish my composition. Yet I'm not even up to the two minute mark, out of a 6-minute piece. DIE!!!! Hmm somehow composition is something that should be enjoyable, an outlet for expression, something that is created when inspiration strikes the composer. But I think that's just the romanticised image of composition. It has never been the case, at least for me so far.

In sec school and jc, compositions were always done last-minute, either cos there were other homework to do or it was just because I couldn't think of what to write and so I wait for inspiration to strike me. That's just another justification for procrastinating. Inspiration never strikes when you want it to. But working last-minute under pressure forces me to churn out something, no matter how ugly it sounds, just in time to meet the deadline. I hope this never fails, I dread the day when I'd wake up and realise that it's the deadline for some composition and I still haven't completed my piece.

Actually lots of composers didn't just sit around and wait for inspiration to strike, or they'd have starved to death. Especially those who had patrons. And worse, they had to compose according to the patrons' tastes. That's supposed to be the reason why lots of Mozart's and Haydn's works are in major keys, the 'happy' key. Hmm actually, it's not really true, there can be pieces in major keys that are sad sounding and pieces in minor keys that are happy sounding. Even worse, those composing under regimes. Like Shostakovich. Erm enough, I'm not going to comment on Shostakovich cos I never studied him in-depth, go ask Poot if you want, I'm sure she'll have lots to tell cos she did one of her essays on him.

I think I'm quite fortunate, at times I suddenly get ideas. Probably why my progress is so slow is because a lot of ideas are those on the bits I've already written. I will go back and tweak around a bit, change a note here, a rhythm there... sometimes I take a long time doing that, yet later I'd decide that the previous version sounded better. Or maybe I'm too fussy and critical. I often find myself looking back at what I've written and thinking of ways to improve it. I just wish I had more ideas on what's coming next. It's usually a forced continuation from where I stopped previously, and it sounds so fake. But so far I don't quite dislike the piece yet, maybe cos everytime I return to what I've written I'd rack my brains to improve the forced-sounding parts and when I'm lucky ideas take shape. Maybe by the time I finish the composition I will look at it with distaste though, that's always the case. I have never liked anything I've composed so far. Hopefully one day I'll write something I like.