Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T05:44:46.215Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
Series:   Elements in Creativity and Imagination

Visions and Decisions

Imagination and Technique in Music Composition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2023

Bruce Adolphe

Summary

This Element investigates the balance and interaction of imagination (visions) and technique (decisions) in the composition of music and includes current scientific research on dreams, the hypnagogic state, emotions, and feelings. It also includes thoughts of composers past and present, and examines how works start from visions in a range of music, comparing musical ideas and techniques to models in other creative disciplines. The Element elucidates aspects of musical discourse by imagining how Haydn, Mozart, and other composers would order falafel for takeout. This unorthodox approach emphasizes parallels between music and theater that are central to this Element.
Get access

Keywords

composingimaginationimprovisationhypnagogiccreativity
Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements in Creativity and Imagination
Online ISBN: 9781009350518
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 23 February 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adolphe, B. (2021). The Mind’s Ear: Exercises for Improving the Musical Imagination for Performers, Composers, and Listeners. 3rd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Andrillon, T., Arnulf, I., Bastoul, C. et al. (2021). Sleep Onset Is a Creative Sweet Spot. Science Advances. 7(50). DOI:https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abj5866.Google Scholar
Barr, A. H. (1980). Picasso: Fifty Years of His Art. New York: Arno Press.Google Scholar
Beard, A. (2018). Life’s Work: An Interview with John Adams. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2018/01/lifes-work-an-interview-with-john-adams.Google Scholar
Beckerman, M. (2003). Janáček and His World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, K. (2011). Life’s Work: Wynton Marsalis. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2011/01/lifes-work-wynton-marsalis.Google Scholar
Bell, M. (2020). Daniel Bernard Roumain. Rockstar Violinist Podcast. https://soundcloud.com/rockstarviolinist/episode-51-daniel-bernard-roumain-dbr.Google Scholar
Berio, L. (1968). Sinfonia. Introduction by Composer. Vienna: Universal Edition. www.universaledition.com/luciano-berio-54/works/sinfonia-4672.Google Scholar
Bernstein, L. (1955). Lecture on the Creative Process. University of Chicago. Library of Congress online. www.loc.gov/item/musbernstein.100050003/.Google Scholar
Boulez, P., Changeux, P. (2020). Enchanted Neurons: The Brain and Music. Paris: Editions Odile Jacob.Google Scholar
Burns, K. (2001). Interview with Duke Ellington. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA4ZSrAYOkQ.Google Scholar
Caballero, C. (2001). Fauré and French Musical Aesthetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Callow, S. (1997). Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor. London: Fromm International.Google Scholar
Carter, A., Kashner, C. (2019). Life Isn’t Everything. New York: Henry Holt & Co.Google Scholar
Chen, Y. (2019). Truly a Wenren: Remembering Chou Wen-chung. New Music Box archive, on the New Music USA website. https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/truly-a-wenren-remembering-chou-wen-chung-1923-2019.Google Scholar
Chou, W. (2007). Whither Chinese Composers? Contemporary Music Review. 26(5/6), 501–510.Google Scholar
Cohen, H. (2010). Duke Ellington’s America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Damasio, A. (2009). When Emotions Make Better Decisions. FORA.tv: The World Is Thinking. Aspen: The Aspen Institute. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wup_K2WN0I.Google Scholar
Damasio, A. (2021a). Feeling and Knowing: Making Minds Conscious. New York: Pantheon.Google ScholarPubMed
Damasio, A. (2021b). Narrowing the Gap between the Body and the Mind. Finding Mastery. https://findingmastery.net/antonio-damasio-2/.Google Scholar
Damasio, A., Damasio, H. (2022). Homeostatic Feelings and the Biology of Consciousness. Brain. 145(7), 2231–2235. https://academic.oup.com/brain/article-abstract/145/7/2231/6594735?redirectedFrom=fulltext.Google Scholar
Desmond, P. (1954). Charlie Bird Parker Discusses Music. www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvsqYo9r_dE.Google Scholar
Dorfman, A. (2006). Afterward. Purgatorio. London: Nick Hern Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duffie, B. (1997). In Conversation with Sofia Gubaidulina. www.bruceduffie.com/gubaidulina.html.Google Scholar
Durant, Y. (2022). Interviews with George Crumb. Contemporary Music Review. 41(1), 123–125.Google Scholar
Einstein, A. (1954). Ideas and Opinions. New York: Three Rivers Press.Google Scholar
Emmery, L. (2017). Formation of a New Harmonic Language in Elliott Carter’s String Quartet No. 2. Contemporary Music Review. 36(5), 388–405.Google Scholar
Emmery, L., ed. (2021). Elliott Carter Speaks: Unpublished Lectures. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Esmail, R. (2022). Composer’s website. www.reenaesmail.com/catalog-item/darshan/.Google Scholar
Green, E. (2007). The Impact of Buddhist Thought on the Music of Zhou Long: A Consideration of Dhyana. Contemporary Music Review. 26(5/6), 547–567.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gubaidulina, S. (1988). Publisher’s Catalog. Hamburg: Musikverlag Hans Sikorski.Google Scholar
Gussow, M. (1979). Harold Pinter: “I Started with Two People in a Pub.” Interview with Harold Pinter. The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/1979/12/30/archives/harold-pinter-i-started-with-two-people-in-a-pub-i-started-with-two.html.Google Scholar
Hal-Koch, J., ed. (1984). Arnold Schoenberg & Wassily Kandinsky: Letters, Pictures and Documents. Translated by John C. Crawford. London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
Hall, D. (2022). Iconic Jazz Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis Talks Current State of Jazz, Improv, & Role as Agent for Change. Glide Magazine. https://glidemagazine.com/278000/iconic-jazz-trumpeter-wynton-marsalis-talks-current-state-of-jazz-improv-role-as-agent-for-change-interview/.Google Scholar
Henschel, G. (1907). Personal Recollections of Johannes Brahms. California: California University Press.Google Scholar
Hitchcock, A. (1966). Interviewed by Truffaut. Hitchcock-Truffaut Episode 10: The MacGuffin, “Foreign Correspondent.” www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0kN4gcUp-kGoogle Scholar
Horowitz, A. (n.d.) Project Dormio. Interfacing with Dreams. Cambridge: MIT Media Labs. www.media.mit.edu/projects/sleep-creativity/overview/.Google Scholar
Huizenga, T. (2015). Fifty Years of Steve Reich’s It’s Gonna Rain. Deceptive Cadence. NPR Classical. www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2015/01/27/381575433/fifty-years-of-steve-reichs-its-gonna-rain.Google Scholar
Janáček, L. (1989). How Ideas Came About. In Zemanovà, M., ed., Janáček’s Uncollected Essays. New York: Marion Boyers. pp. 69–79.Google Scholar
Jeffries, S. (2013). Sofia Gubaidulina: Unchained Melodies. The Guardian. www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/31/sofia-gubaidulina-unchained-melodies.Google Scholar
Jenner, G. (2009). Johannes Brahms as Man, Teacher, and Artist. Trans. Susan Gillespie and Elisabeth Kästner. In Frisch, W., ed., Brahms and His World, 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 405.Google Scholar
Kapsis, R., ed. (2020). Nichols and May Interviews. Jackson: University of Mississippi.Google Scholar
Kassel, M. (2008). From Point A to Point B. London: Schott.Google Scholar
Kates, N. (2020). Style Curator Inc. Studio Visit: Jonathan Adolphe. www.nataliekates.com/jonathan-adolphe.Google Scholar
Kirst, F., Krehbiehl, E. (1905). Beethoven: The Man and the Artist. New York: B. W. Huebsch. www.gutenberg.org/files/3528/3528-h/3528-h.htm.Google Scholar
Quartet, Kronos. (2016). Fifty for the Future Composer Interview: Kala Ramnath. www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBw9zB5YJfk.Google Scholar
Kunitz, S. (2007). The Wild Braid: A Poet Reflects on a Century in the Garden. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Landon, H. C. R. (1992). Beethoven: His Life, Work and World. London: Thames and Hudson.Google Scholar
Marsalis, W. (1988). What Jazz Is and Isn’t. The New York Times. www.nytimes.com/1988/07/31/arts/music-what-jazz-is-and-isn-t.html or wyntonmarsalis.org/news/entry/music-what-jazz-is-and-isnt.Google Scholar
Nectoux, J. (1984). Gabriel Fauré: A Life through His Letters. London: Marion Boyars.Google Scholar
Nectoux, J. (1991). Gabriel Fauré: A Musical Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Oppezzo, M., Schwartz, D. (2014). Give Your Ideas Some Legs: The Positive Effect of Walking on Creativity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 40(4) pp. 1142–1152.Google Scholar
Orenstein, A. (2016). Reflections on Maurice Ravel’s Creativity. National Central University Journal of Humanities. 61, 231–268. http://lit.ncu.edu.tw/ncujoh/word/45231242018.pdf.Google Scholar
Orenstein, A. (1991). Ravel: Man and Musician. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Pinter, H. (1972). A Collection of Critical Essays. Ganz, A., ed. Hoboken, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Pinter, H. (1977). Betrayal. London: Faber & Faber.Google Scholar
Rilke, R. M. (1989). For the Sake of a Single Poem. In The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, New York: Vintage Books.Google Scholar
Rodgers, R. (1975). Musical Stages: An Autobiography. New York: Da Capo Press.Google Scholar
Rovelli, C. (2018). The Order of Time. New York: Riverhead Books.Google Scholar
Saariaho, , K. (1988). From the Grammar of Dreams. Program Note. https://saariaho.org/works/from-the-grammar-of-dreams/.Google Scholar
Sakovoskaya, Y. 2021. Anthropology of How Art Is Created: Kaija Sariaaho. https://yuliasavikovskaya.com/kaija-saariaho/.Google Scholar
Shelley, P. B. (2022). A Defense of Poetry. Chicago: Poetry Foundation. www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69388/a-defence-of-poetry.Google Scholar
Steinitz, R. (2012). The Study of Composers’ Sketches, and an Overview of those by Ligeti. Contemporary Music Review, 31(3), 129.Google Scholar
Stickgold, R. (2019). Creativity of the Dream and Sleep State. In Nalbantian, S., and Matthews, P. M., eds., Secrets of Creativity: What Neuroscience, the Arts, and Our Minds Reveal. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 143–144.Google Scholar
Stickgold, R. (2021). Why Do We Dream. TEDx Talks. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-gFISUDxPo.Google Scholar
Takemtisu, T. (1995). Confronting Silence. Berkeley: Fallen Leaf Press.Google Scholar
Tick, J. (1997). Ruth Crawford Seeger: A Composer’s Search for American Music. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vallas, L. (1933). Claude Debussy: His Life and Works. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Yeats, W. B. (1900) The Symbolism of Poetry. www.lyriktheorie.uni-wuppertal.de/texte/1900_yeats.Google Scholar
Zweibach, M. (2021). Anthony Davis Interview. San Francisco Classical Voice, February 6. www.sfcv.org/articles/feature/composer-anthony-davis-imagines-his-freedom.Google Scholar

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Visions and Decisions
Available formats
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Visions and Decisions
Available formats
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Visions and Decisions
Available formats
×