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One of my students asked an interesting question by e-mail, about the time composers take to write a piece. Why do some composers seem to write very fast while others take a longer time?

My reply is worth sharing, I think.

These days. I accidentally saw online interviews about Chen Qigang. He says everyone use different time to compose. He is generally 5-6 months to complete a work. Tan Dun may be used for three months to complete a work.

I doubt that the composer is usually to do with what most of the time.

Hi,

Time to compose is very personal, and very different for different composers.

In one of the lectures in Beijing, the professor (from America) talked about visiting a gallery in Xi'an. One of the paintings really impressed him, and the artist happened to be in the gallery at the time, so he asked how long it took. The artist said, "About two months to think about and 30 seconds to paint." (It's not the same artist, but see also Kazuaki Tanahashi's one-stroke paintings -- two seconds to paint!)

"Chance music" by John Cage is like that. It might not take much time to write down the instructions, but Cage also spent a lot of time meditating, and thinking about what music is and what music performance is.

Arvo Pärt is another example. Listen to "Spiegel im Spiegel" (Mirror within the Mirror). The violin plays slow scale passages, and the piano plays 3-note arpeggios and some long notes. That's it. Nothing to it, except... it's stunning. When I hear it, I go into a place of absolute stillness and peace. The music wouldn't do that if Pärt just threw some notes on paper.

Other composers (like myself) need to spend a lot of time working with the material -- less time "pre-thinking" and more time sketching, questioning, editing, experimenting.

Composing is not just writing. Thinking about what you're going to write is just as important. The time you spent relaxing, playing, being quiet also helps your mind to be open so that the ideas can come when you need them. Really, when you're an artist or composer, your whole life is composing -- everything contributes to the music.

This relates to your time problems. When you're playing bass in the jazz bands, this becomes part of your musical personality. It's not a waste of time! Computer games... the problem is, they fill up your brain with lots of activity, but to compose, you also need to have open space inside.