The Mozart Report [PDF]

Zitiervorschau

Copyright © 2007 Geoffrey Williams http://www.genius-songwriting.com

We are going to do something very interesting in this report. We are going to go inside the mind of one of the greatest musical geniuses of all time. We are going to look at his internal methods of creating music and then see how you can adopt his method and excel in your music creation. Those that fully grasp the process in this chapter could very well be those who develop new and exciting brands of music, sending the development of music hurtling into the future! Who am I talking about here? None other than the great Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Now, whether you like the works of this musical great or not, there is a lot that can be learned from his music creation process. As you will see, this man was a true musical genius. With careful consideration of his process, and the flexibility to adapt his methods, you can put yourself in a position of similar ability. Now, some people will scoff at this remark, but there is growing evidence that every genius the world has produced doesn’t have different resources to the average human. It’s a growing belief that “genius” grows out of developing uncommon but highly effective thought patterns. It’s this that leverages the brain in a way that gets rare results, not having any type of “extra resources.” By undertaking the procedures and strategies outlined in The Songwriting Genius Within You, you are adopting the methods that geniuses before you have used to create musical masterpieces. In fact, in some cases the procedures outlined are even more efficient than the methods used by geniuses. Now in this report we are going to dissect a letter that Mozart wrote, describing his music creation process in detail. From this letter you will see many interesting strategies and methods, most of which align themselves with what you have learned in The Songwriting Genius Within You! After close examination it appears that Mozart’s method of music creation was a four-step process. Let’s go through these four steps.

Copyright © 2007 Geoffrey Williams http://www.genius-songwriting.com

Step 1 In the beginning of the letter Mozart writes: “When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer-say, traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not; nor can I force them. Those pleasures that please me I retain in memory, and am accustomed, as I have been told to hum them to myself.” This seems to be the time what Mozart created the initial ideas that would later become a full piece of music. This is step one of his writing process. Let’s take a look by going through the most important remarks and discussing what they mean. “When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer-say, traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly.” Mozart mentions a few interesting things here. Firstly he mentions that he is alone when this first surge of ideas occurs. He also says that he is of “good cheer.” He is talking about being in a positive state of mind. Being in a positive state often involves some sort of kinesthetic sensation or “feeling.” He also mentions that he is doing some sort of activity, such as “traveling in a carriage,” “walking after a good meal,” or “during the night when I cannot sleep.” He then says, “It is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly.” It seems that this positive state, coupled with some type of activity, feeds the creative spirit and allows ideas to bubble up in the form of sounds in his head, or using his auditory thinking modality. It also seems as though Mozart believes that the ideas come to him, not the other way around. This indicates that his ideas were driven by his unconscious mind, and not molded by his conscious mind. He then says…

Copyright © 2007 Geoffrey Williams http://www.genius-songwriting.com

“Whence and how they come, I know not; nor can I force them. Those pleasures that please me I retain in memory, and am accustomed, as I have been told to hum them to myself.” “Whence and how they come, I know not; nor can I force them.” This remark confirms that the ideas are indeed unconsciously driven. There is also a very strong indication in this opening passage that Mozart has a relaxed feeling, which is key to the creativity process. When he says “nor can I force them” this implies that he knows the importance of staying relaxed and having the ideas delivered to him, and not to try and pressure them to happen. In the next sentence: Those pleasures that please me I retain in memory, and am accustomed, as I have been told to hum them to myself. The word “pleasures” seems to confirm that a “kinesthetic feeling” is a very important part of his strategy in this initial step. It seems that it’s this “pleasurable feeling” drives the musical ideas, in some form of synesthetic relationship between his kinesthetic (pleasurable feeling) and auditory (musical sounds in his head). With his initial “positive state” (kinesthetic feeling) ideas emerge that fit the mould of this state. This is then fed back and if the musical idea enhances the kinesthetic feeling of pleasure, the idea is retained in his memory. The last line of thought in this sentence… “…and am accustomed, as I have been told to hum them to myself.” The way he says “as I have been told” almost sounds like he is unaware of his humming of the idea. This suggest that this is something that is occurring unconsciously also. And that concludes the first step of Mozart’s method for creating his music that touched and changed the world. Isn’t it interesting so far? There are already a number of things that you can incorporate into your songwriting. For example: 1. Discovering the state in which your best writing occurs, and putting yourself into this state regularly. 2. Using the kinesthetic sensations you get to “drive the musical ideas.” This idea is a little tougher to grasp, but just think of it like this. When you are sitting at your instrument and feeling Copyright © 2007 Geoffrey Williams http://www.genius-songwriting.com

some kind of emotion (happiness, sadness) craft your musical ideas to fit in the realm of this emotion. If it satisfies this, you will feel this emotion become enhanced. If it doesn’t fit into this realm, it will decrease this feeling. 3. Never try and force your musical ideas. Just let them come to you. Find the state and situation where your ideas flow abundantly and let the ideas flow! So far, in Mozart’s “idea generating” strategy, it’s not about “forcing” ideas. His method involves using his unconscious mind as a sort of “musical instrument” that plays and creates ideas on it’s own. His job is not to consciously create the ideas, but to simply set up the physical and psychological conditions where the ideas effortlessly flow on their own. Step 2 “If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this or that morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it, that is to say agreeably to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of the various instruments, etc.” Step 2 seems to be the point when Mozart realizes he has an idea or group of ideas worthy to compose into a full piece of music. Or as he delightfully puts it, “turn this or that morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it.” The use of the word “morsel” and “dish” even gently hints at the possibility of another sysesthetic relationship between auditory (sounds) and gustatory (tastes). It is very possible that these words were just used to colorfully describe the method, but this new synesthetic relationship can’t be completely ruled out—especially since synesthetic relationships seem to be common or even mandatory to geniuses in any field. The next remark is this: “…that is to say agreeably to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of the various instruments, etc.” This seems to be the point in the process when Mozart invites the “editor” or his “left brain” back into the process. Now that Mozart has unconsciously generated the initial musical ideas, he can consciously manipulate these ideas using the “rules of counterpoint.”

Copyright © 2007 Geoffrey Williams http://www.genius-songwriting.com

SIDEBAR Counterpoint: the technique of writing or playing a melody or melodies in conjunction with another, according to fixed rules. In this step it seems that Mozart filters these musical ideas through what he believes and values about music. He manipulates it in a way that follows his “rules of counterpoint.” It also seems that he separates parts out and allocates different parts to suit “the peculiarities of the various instruments.” This concludes Step 2 of Mozart’s music creation method. This second step appears to be the “critical” stage in the “createcritical-create” cycle. He appears to have great intuition as to how the creative process works at its very best. So far in the process he has: 1. Allowed his unconscious to create the initial musical ideas “Whence and how they come, I know not; nor can I force them.” 2. And once these ideas have been created “it soon occurs to me how I may turn this or that morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it.” He invites “the editor” back to the fray to manipulate these new ideas, “by rules of counterpoint,” gradually building the initial “morsel” into “a good dish.” What can you learn from this second step? 1. Once you have created the initial ideas for a piece (and ONLY once they have been created) you can invite the critical side of you back to evaluate the idea. You can then begin to manipulate the idea to conform to what you believe music should sound like. Step 3 Step 3 in Mozart’s musical creation process is particularly magical: “All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodized and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it, like a fine picture or a beautiful statue, at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them all at once. What a delight this is I cannot tell! All this inventing, this producing, takes place in a lively dream. Still the actual hearing of the tout ensemble is after all the best.” Copyright © 2007 Geoffrey Williams http://www.genius-songwriting.com

Marvelous! Let’s piece this third step together. This is the step where many of the ideas are nearing completion. And it appears to be the part in the process where unconscious creativity is invited back to complete the work. Firstly… “All this fires my soul.” This sentence once again seems to suggest some kind of kinesthetic feeling, although it suggests a deeper meaning than simply stating the word “pleasure.” This powerful sentence seems to suggest some feeling of “deep pleasurable inspiration” that runs at the very core of Mozart’s being. Once again there seems to be a relationship between the musical ideas flowing through his mind, and the intense pleasurable feeling that “fires his soul.” This synesthetic relationship seems to be very important in his music creation process. The next remark is just as interesting… “…provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodized and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind.” Firstly Mozart discusses the importance of being alone, or at least, not being disturbed. I strongly urge you to also find the perfect environment where your best ideas flow easily. He also says, “…my subject enlarges itself...” which gives us the impression that he didn’t believe he was the creator. This highlights that the unconscious is once again doing the creating. Another interesting thing to note about this sentence is that Mozart has composed the entire piece of music inside his head. He has done it by using a “create-critical-create” cycle, and manages to remember every last detail of the composition, with no need to record the ideas on paper. In fact, there hasn’t even been a mention of getting on an instrument and trialing these ideas! This is a sign of true genius! Now, fortunately with modern day technology we can use simple recording techniques to replace the need to remember entire compositions in our heads before even playing them.

Copyright © 2007 Geoffrey Williams http://www.genius-songwriting.com

Although, this incredible ability that Mozart had to create, compose and remember gives us an important hint as to how musical genius occurs. The way that world champions of memory operate their brain is to use this “multi-sensory” method of association, or synesthesia. When you are involving all your senses in an activity, like Mozart does with his auditory/kinesthetic relationships, you are mobilizing more neurology or involving more of your brain in the process. When an idea is represented in this way, tied to other senses, they are not easily forgotten. If an idea is represented just in the form of auditory, it is much more likely to be forgotten than if it is represented as auditory/visual. Let’s keep going! “Though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it, like a fine picture or a beautiful statue, at a glance.” This sentence introduces yet another syesthetic relationship between auditory and visual. This sentence dictates that Mozart would form some sort of visual representation of the full piece in his mind, like a “fine picture” or “beautiful statue.” “Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them all at once. What a delight this is I cannot tell!” In this late stage of development you can see that Mozart has committed a large amount of his resources to hold this completed picture. The last two sentences show that Mozart could hold a visual representation of the completed piece in his mind, which was generated by the separate “chunks” of music in auditory form. “Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them all at once.” This complete picture seems to overlap back into the auditory realm, providing some sort of “auditory gestalt” (gestalt meaning complete) of the piece. And finally this reinforces the positive kinesthetic when he cries, “What a delight this is I cannot tell!” “All this inventing, this producing, takes place in a lively dream.” This sentence once again displays that Mozart is in the “create” part of the “create-critical-create” cycle. Saying that this “takes place in a lively dream” shows that it is indeed an unconscious process that he Copyright © 2007 Geoffrey Williams http://www.genius-songwriting.com

goes through, as dreamlike states or dreams are unconsciously driven and typically contain many synesthetic relationships. Whether Mozart was actually asleep at the time when this process took place is something open to debate. What can you learn from this third step of Mozart’s method? Well, this step is a little harder to break down and adopt, but there are still clear steps that you can take in your songwriting to incorporate this method. As we discussed, this third step was the create part of the createcritical-create cycle. And this step served as an advanced creative way to take his ideas and arrange them into a complete piece. This step is similar to a procedure later outlined in this manual, where you will learn to arrange your music in your imagination, by letting your ideas take you on a dreamlike journey. The good news is that with technology we can actually replace some of the advanced aspects of this third step. Mozart managed to remember entire pieces of music by simply looking at some type of picture that represented the piece. I encourage you to experiment with this strategy. The more you can tie your music in with your other senses, the easier you will find it to remember your ideas and it will utilize more of your creative resources as well. How would your music look if it were a picture? What colors would it be? Can you picture what would it look like? Try sitting and listening to your music, and see what images pass through your mind. This is known as “image streaming.” This type of practice will help you become aware of synesthetic relationships that you have “squelched” up until this point. Once again, experiment with this, but it’s not absolutely crucial with the simple and inexpensive recording devices that can act as your “musical memory.” The most important thing to grasp from this third step, is the way Mozart relied on his creative unconscious mind to complete the piece of music, in a sort of “dream.” You will learn a similar procedure a little later.

Copyright © 2007 Geoffrey Williams http://www.genius-songwriting.com

Step 4 “What has been thus produced I do not easily forget, and this is perhaps the best gift I have my Divine Maker to thank for.” “When I proceed to write down my ideas, I take out of the bag of my memory, if I may use that phrase, what has previously been collected into it in the way I have mentioned. For this reason the committing to paper is done quickly enough, for everything is, as I have said before, already finished; and it rarely differs on paper from what it was in my imagination. At this occupation I can therefore suffer myself to be disturbed; for whatever may be going on around me, I write, and even talk, but only of fowls and geese, or of Gretel or Barbel, or some such matters.” In Step 4 Mozart seems to be taking what he has created in his mind and putting it to paper. When you read the above paragraph you can tell that all the creative-critical-creative cycle has completed and all that’s left to do is take the creation and transcribe it for the musicians to perform. Let’s go through this last step in Mozart’s musical creation process. “What has been thus produces I do not easily forget, and this is perhaps the best gift I have my Divine Maker to thank for.” Mozart was famous for his ability to retain large amounts of musical information. As he remarks in the above sentence, he doesn’t forget his creations easily and he’s obviously appreciative of this fact! When you look at Mozart’s method of creating music though, it’s not surprising that he retains music easily. In each step he hints at possible synesthetic relationships where he is representing the music to himself with more than just “sounds.” In Step 1 there is a clear synesthetic relationship between auditory (sounds) and kinesthetic (feeling or touch). In Step 2 Mozart hints at the possibility of a relationship between auditory (sounds) and gustatory (taste), although this relationship is less clear and may have just been a colorful way to describe his method. In Step 3 there is an obvious relationship between auditory, kinesthetic, and visual. As you can see, Mozart has used many ways to tie his ideas in with multiple senses. When you represent any type of information to yourself, it’s not easily forgotten. The way that Mozart used multiple Copyright © 2007 Geoffrey Williams http://www.genius-songwriting.com

synesthetic relationships in his musical creation process could well account for his amazing musical memory. Fortunately, with recording technology you will not have to remember entire pieces in this way! In The Songwriting Genius Within You, you will discover how you can use simple recording techniques to completely eliminate the need to remember every snippet of music. “When I proceed to write down my ideas, I take out of the bag of my memory, if I may use that phrase, what has previously been collected into it in the way I have mentioned. For this reason the committing to paper is done quickly enough, for everything is, as I have said before, already finished; and it rarely differs on paper from what it was in my imagination.” In this part of Step 4 Mozart simply “looks in” to his memory to transcribe what he has already created. As he mentions, at this late point in his process most of the creating is already done. And it “rarely differs on paper from what it was in my imagination.” “At this occupation I can therefore suffer myself to be disturbed; for whatever may be going on around me, I write, and even talk, but only of fowls and geese, or of Gretel or Barbel, or some such matters.” This final remark just solidifies that the creation process is already complete. Mozart says that he can still work with a little distraction, because he is simply copying the music from his mind onto paper. Almost like reading a book and copying it word for word. Conclusion Interesting isn’t it? In this description of Mozart’s method of music creation, there seemed to be clear barriers between creating and being critical. This highlights the importance of being either creative or critical, but not both at once. There were many clues that Mozart used his unconscious mind to create his music for him. He simply set up the conditions so the ideas could come forth on their own. Developing this type of intimate relationship with your unconscious mind and being completely aware and receptive to the ideas that are delivered from your richest resources is the best way to create music better than you can imagine. Mozart mastered this, and if you follow the idea generating procedures described in The Songwriting Genius Within You, you can too.

Copyright © 2007 Geoffrey Williams http://www.genius-songwriting.com

There were also many synesthetic relationships described where Mozart used more than just auditory to represent the music. This type of “co-mingling of the senses” is very common in geniuses and there is growing evidence that everybody is synesthetic at least at an unconscious level. It’s just that the majority of people “squelch” these relationships so they don’t experience them consciously. You can experiment with this by listening to your music and paying attention to the images that flash by, the feelings that occur, and anything else you sense or notice at the time. I have personally experimented with this and it has opened up a new world of possibility for me. I have always noticed the relationship between sounds and color, but learning about Mozart’s method has caused me to experiment with allowing my emotional state and kinesthetic sensations to drive the creative process. I urge you to experiment with this too, it’s highly rewarding! I’ve also managed to visualize my pieces as an internal picture, although it is very subtle at this stage, but I’m still working on it! Mozart’s description fits into the mold of the creative processes I’ve already described to you in The Songwriting Genius Within You. In the four ‘I’s, Mozart’s description mainly deals with the “inspiration” aspect, although the other three steps were likely involved. As Mozart was a musical artist who was always trying to create new and interesting music, he was always on the lookout to create new music. Also, Mozart played music from a very young age. It was his life. For this reason he was always taking in new “information” and creating a mass of musical knowledge that he could use to create new ideas. It seems clear that Mozart had a musical education, as in the letter he talked about “rules of counterpoint” which highlights that he did surround himself with music to learn from. Finally, there was no mention of an incubation period. Despite this, Mozart did mention that there were certain circumstances that his ideas “flow best and most abundantly.” If this was his creation time, then the time when he wasn’t in this receptive mood would provide as the incubation period. I highly encourage you to play with some of the ideas in this report. I’ve personally spent much time playing with these ideas, especially increasing my awareness for the synesthetic relationships that occur in my songwriting. Doing these things have really improved my results drastically, as well has increased my sensitivity as a creative artist. Copyright © 2007 Geoffrey Williams http://www.genius-songwriting.com

I suggest that you re-read this report multiple times. There is much to learn from this musical genius, and learning his methods and adopting them can only improve your ability to create inspirational music!

Copyright © 2007 Geoffrey Williams http://www.genius-songwriting.com