Recognize What You Like to Sing

Don’t try to compose what other people want you to compose.

The most successful arrangements and compositions I’ve written are the ones in which I intentionally tried to write the sort of thing I loved to sing when I was in singing groups.

Too many young composers focus on writing not what they love, but what they thing is marketable, or what they think their teacher is looking for. They’d be better off writing what they love.

Whatever it is – lyrical, angular, simple, divisi, a cappella, with orchestra, English, Latin – write the music you love to make. It will make your music stronger, more from your soul.

Someone else will write something else; be happy that you don’t have to write that music. You’re too busy writing the music you love.