ChangeThis.com has a few great manifestos on creativity and how to generate good ideas. 14 Ways to Get Breakthrough Ideas is a particularly helpful manifesto for the composer. Some of Mitch Ditkoff’s ideas are more applicable to the musician than others, but I found his 1st way of getting a breakthrough idea very useful in my experience:
1. Follow your fascination.
If you find yourself fascinated by a new idea, chances are good that there’s something meaningful about it for you to consider. Fascination, quite simply, is nature’s way of getting our attention. Well beyond seduction or attraction, it’s an indication that we are being called. Out of the thousands of ideas with the power to capture our imagination, the fascination felt for one of them is a clue that there’s something worthy of our engagement.
Don’t dismiss it as trivial. Give it room. Give it time to breathe. Honor it.
If you have any doubt, consider the origins of the word “fascination.” It comes from the Latin “fascinus” meaning to be “enchanted or delighted.” What enchants or delights us is sacred—or could be sacred—a clue that something significant is knocking on our door. Indeed, if we are willing to let fascination grow inside us—a kind of immaculate conception can occur—the illogical, miraculous becoming pregnant with possibility—the bodily expression of the phenomenon that you are here to birth something extraordinary.
The idea is simply the first “waaaaaaah” to get you to notice.
What new idea is fascinating you? What new possibility has captured your attention? In what ways can you honor this inspiration today?
When I was searching for what to write (compose) about for my Master’s Thesis, I kept remembering an experience I had a child that fascinated me. We went to visit a fish hatchery in Missouri and there was a cave from which the origins of that river originated. I remember learning about springs for the first time and I was fascinated by the concept of an endless supply of whater coming from who knows where. I have remained fascinated by this all of my life and I began thinking that this spring and my fascination of it was what I should write about. It’s a long story how I actually came to write the type of music that I did, and the piece came to be about a philosophical point that I was trying to make about pursuing the wonder that we experience as children. But Pursuing the Wonder, my master’s thesis for symphonic band, was a result of me following my fascination.
As Ditkoff says, “Out of the thousands of ideas with the power to capture our imagination, the fascination felt for one of them is a clue that there’s something worthy of our engagement.”
What is your fascination? How can that help give you direction for your writing?