Being Creative

I do realize that my biggest challenge in life is being creative. I'm talking about composition (writing songs). To some people, the skills and talent comes naturally, and to others, it's a lot of hard work. In my opinion, composing is about documenting your creative thoughts and ideas on a medium (paper/webpage/audio file/video/etc). The key to a composition is idea. The crucial part is to execute the idea on a solid material. (that's what I think). 

Personally, I found composing is challenging because I'm rather worried of others perception towards my work. People might say, it's your own thoughts and ideas, therefore, there's no need to worry of what they might think. True. But, because I'm a trained musician and have gained some knowledge to make good compositions, I became rather judgmental. But this is of course a matter of taste. 

There are a lot of compositions out there that are rubbish (no pun intended). There are also the ones that are amazingly superb! To me, a good composition (in any genre) must have these criteria:-

1. Strong ideas.

2. Details in arrangements - melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation.

3. Evoke a strong sense of emotion.

4. Pleasing (meaning catchy).

5. Performed by capable talents - singers and musicians (if not capable, practice harder).

6. Shows a sense of individuality of the composer (it is acceptable to steal other people's idea but don't blatantly COPY it! - Listen to Siti Sarah's song and you get the idea).

Because of these criteria, I find it even harder to come up with any ideas. Because I don't want to just 'write a song', I want to make a good composition. Anyhow, like people always say, "Practice makes perfect."

-Tepuk dada tanya selera- 

I call myself a musician, but I don't compose. - Cranberry