116.199The deep compositional question

Not:

“How do I write an original song?”

That question is too large.

Instead ask sequentially:

What is my seed?

What does it establish?

What is the next structural destination?

What bass makes that destination convincing?

What harmonic world grows around those outer voices?

What should change in the contrasting section?

What remains recognizable?

What resource is being reserved?

What does the climax fulfill?

What does the ending remember?

Now the apparently enormous task becomes:

a chain of musical decisions.