I would have to disagree with straightmute by saying that too many options can cause writers' block. But that is only my opinon of my experence. I think that's a bit schoolish or beginnerish, if you know what I mean.
you can never have too many options - I say use as many things as you need to put your message across! That, to me, anyway is the most important thing. You have to take control and not let the music blow out of control - good planning makes light work later in the composition, structure isn't as important in music as it once used to be, but even somthing in free-structure is still structured. Composers use all sorts of tricks to develop and idea, things like Iso Rythms are great for greating intresting harmonies, you just have to learn to harvest the control of how to use ALL the devices YOU WANT TO USE.
In my own experence I would say that lack of practice and education brings writers block a lot more prominent to a composer - specifically education, for this is when you learn the real stuff of composition. If you want to write serialism/atonal - u never need to go near a piano or any other instrument - It's almost pure theory, especially when it comes to Intergal Serialism.
I think we can safely say that every composer get's writers block but I think as composers we need to learn to kick start the process much faster. This comes with practice. I compose everyday execpt christmas, newyear, etc, etc, even just to chuck it in the bucket, I learnt this from Debbie Wiseman! hehe :lol:
Naruco - if you're doing serialism (if that's what you mean by 'open key' in the atonal sense) then I think you'll find it much easier to start a piece, because it's all laid out for you, in the form of a note row or multiples of note rows and their inversions/retrogrades/inversions of the retrograde and all transpositions. blah de blah de blah............so go ahead girl! I'd certainly love to hear it!
Anhow, I think there is little we can really do to 'block out' writers block, I guess we just have to plod along no matter what gets flung at us.
I would just like to say that with this post I mean no harm or mean no derogatory meaning behind this. :lol:
