Strings, piano and a church organ - written in memory of a good friend .
Put the words “Creative Process” into Google and you’ll get over 95 million results – maybe I should read a few but I’m inherently suspicious of patented 4 step systems, 5 stage cycles or 8 discrete states of consciousness.
Creativity is the Holy Grail for composers – at least it is for me. The idea that by the time I have finished, there will be something that hasn’t existed in that form before is both thrilling and terrifying. If I think too much about it I get paralyzed – for me it’s kind of like the late Douglas Adams’ approach to Flying.
So, I sit at the piano, often with a metronome keeping time in the background and I play; I play anything that comes to mind, whatever my fingers want to come up with, doesn’t matter if I’ve played it before or if it belongs to someone else – I just play – and then – I start to think about something.
Cassie was Charlotte’s companion and I wrote this for her after Cassie had passed away. Charlotte has far better words than I do – you can read about Cassie here.