Inspiration - "In The Air"? Arthur
Butterworth September 2005
Composers are often
asked how inspiration comes to them.
When plagued with this question Elgar
is reputed to have said, perhaps somewhat
airily: "Oh, you just pluck it
from the air, it’s all around one. May
be these were not his exact words, but
the implication was clear enough ....
or maybe NOT clear enough to those who
are not composers. Creative artists
of every kind seem to have a
secret muse which visits then in some
mysterious way, but how this comes about
remains tantalisingly elusive to most
people. So, how do musical ideas: tunes,
melodies, harmonies, rhythms,
shapes, forms, structures arise in the
mind? Composers themselves are perhaps
vague about this. It is not that they
are coy or want to keep the technique
secret. More often than not we generally
just don’t know; it can be quite true
the way Elgar put it: musical ideas
do indeed seen just to float around
in the air; the imagination's inner
ear perceives musical motifs much in
the same way, one supposes, that inventors
have brain waves that lead to some totally
new concept, such as the brilliant notion
that one man had that led to the invention
of cats’ eyes in the road to reflect
the lights of approaching vehicles.
Or consider the way that one pensive
man - James Watt - perhaps being hen-pecked
for lazily sitting around the fireside
apparently doing nothing useful, was
inspired by the sight of a wisp of steam
constantly raising the lid of a kettle,
to see that this could be put to wider
use as a source of power.
Most normal young children,
when playing contentedly by themselves
have a creative urge. Generally this
exhibits itself when they scribble with
a pencil or crayon: seeking to reflect
what they see around them. The sounds
they hear can also be responded to,
although, unlike a pencil or coloured
crayon there is not quite so readily
available the means of making sound;
but they can use the voice to sing or
croon in a very basic way. They are
fascinated by the chinking of cutlery,
glasses, pottery and every other source
of domestic sound. So an awareness of
different sounds is soon acquired. If
a musical instrument - piano, toy percussion,
or things to blow - is around this provides
an even more tantalising stimulation.
This is how one, in Elgar’s words "plucks
music from the air". Once having
been experienced in this very basic
way, musical ideas come into the mind
of their own accord: more often than
not quite unbidden. To most people this
innate ability lies dormant or, as they
grow older and have other things to
think about, is ignored. Composers however,
for some inexplicable reason known only
to themselves (and often enough not
even to them) possess a mental ability
to garner such musical ideas; an inner
compulsion seeks to express them outwardly.
But what of "inspiration"?
This seems to be a higher manifestation
of the phenomenon of musical thought.
It is - perhaps - brought about by imagining
inner connections between extra musical
ideas and the symbolism created in sound
patterns. The shape of landscape? The
colour of some object? A visual picture?
A conversation with another person?
Virtually any kind of mental stimulation
might suggest a musical expression as
its symbolic counterpart. The word "inspiration"
itself is sometimes suspect:
It can become sentimentalised
or romanticised and perhaps it needs
to be treated warily. A more accurate
expression (though much less romantic)
is "motivation": The inner
mental driving force that seeks to express
what a person feels through musical
sounds, organised in a way that is somehow
able to convey intelligible emotions
or a sense of intellectual sense ...
of satisfying shape or sequence of well-ordered
sounds - a musical language - to other
persons. Motivation thus is a kind of
main-spring of invention. Inspiration
might be motivation on a higher plane
of the imagination and emotion.
Can it be bought and
sold? The answer is both "yes"
and "no". Ideally inspiration
only really comes of its own accord:
unsuspected, unbidden, a surprising
bolt-from-the-blue, sometimes even faintly
embarrassing, especially if one has
no opportunity, there and then, to put
it to good use; but for the most part
it is an absolute joyful revelation
that cries out to be taken notice of.
This is probably why composers are so
keen to foist their ideas on other people.
They think that because they have suddenly
been "inspired" that everyone
else must inevitably want to share the
good fortune. But this is so often a
great disillusion: How can other people
feel this? Indeed why should they? They
almost certainly have thoughts of their
own which are — to them —vastly more
important than the ideas someone else
has. This is lamentably illustrated
when we are puzzled by the ravings of
those who suffer some kind of mental
derangement: we cannot know what is
troubling them; how can we possibly
understand why they want to convey to
us what they feel is so desperately
important to them? Composers have this
yearning to share with others the inner
"sound-visions" they have.
It is not then surprising that, for
the most part, composers are NOT all
that interested in what other composers
have to express. Musical people - those
who "like" music but do not
themselves claim to be composers who
have a message of their own to put over,
have a wide appreciation of and can
impartially respond to a wide variety
of composers and differing styles. They
are not competing for their own message
to be preferred; but composers are not
really like this: it is true that composers
can admire and respect what their colleagues
do, but deep down composers really like
themselves most of all. This is human
nature; a mother in a collective group
of mothers inevitably thinks her own
child is the best. I am often asked
by my musical (non-composer) friends
if I have recently heard this or that
new work by I or Y. I am afraid the
answer is that I do not generally share
the impartial interest, much less the
boundless enthusiasm, that my friends
have for my rivals in the business of
writing music.
Can inspiration be
bought? In some ways "yes"
it can. The song-composer is primarily,
the servant of the poet, so that it
can be said that his inspiration is
a second-hand manifestation, as perhaps
is all vocal music. Only abstract instrumental
music is truly virgin-inspiration. Inspiration
can be bought - although that seems
an odd term - in the sense that a composer
can be commissioned to write music.
The commissioner in this sense "buys"
the inspiration and the composer "sells"
it. But he does not sell a commodity,
as it were, lying on the shelf waiting
to be sold. Even when invited to accept
a specific kind of commission: its nature
perhaps carefully specified by who is
paying for it: symphony for large orchestra,
chamber opera, little suite for recorders
for school use, or whatever else, the
composer still has somehow to invoke
or hope for the muse to descend. This
can be coaxed with ardent inventive
imagination, though there is absolutely
no guarantee that the result will be
a masterpiece. Some such hoped for visitations
of inspiration throughout musical history
have all too quickly been sensed as
utter flops, while other things have
turned out to be memorable and lasting
works of art.
© Arthur Butterworth
