Some pieces go astray. It happens. It all sarts off with a promising idea and then it just goes nowhere. How does one avoid getting lost along the way?

I believe in inspiration, but it is an unreliable partner when composing. In any case, having a plan of attack, a method to your work does just as well or even better than inspiration.

The goal is control over musical ideas and the shape (form) they eventually take. There are many ways to achieve control and here is one.

Know Your Idea

Before rushing into the composition of the piece, get to know your initial idea. For me, that is usually a line, that's what I like to start with. I write until I get that line just right because it will be the backbone of the piece and once I get going I can't change it.

Once the idea is ready to go then here are some ways to get to know it intimately.

• Sing it
• Play it
• Analyze it: motives, structural lines, high note, low note, processes inherent in the material, and any other salient features.
• Explore the material by developing it strictly using inversion, retrograde, RI and everything else you can think of. Keep going for a while and really exhaust your possibilities. Seeing what your initial material can bring is part of knowing it well.
• Transpose it at the keyboard.
• Improvise with it.

The analysis part is important and the most difficult, because you need to really look and see what is there. It will provide much information that can lead to logical development of the material.

Also, a good way to really know an idea intimately is to sleep with it... I mean sleep on it. So don't rush into composing the form, fool around with it for a few days and you will have much more control.