Entry 12.

So I've come to a slightly daunting realization- I like my stupid mistakes better than I like my intentional compositional techniques.

It sounds weird, yes, but it's definately true at least some of the time. I'm beginning to find as well that about 50% of the little things I like most about my compositions are things I've done by accident. Usually I'll have made a stupid mistake, whether it's forgetting about transposition or writing a rhythm in wrong, and then when I get the computer to play it back I realize my error and often end up keeping it and changing the other parts to go along with it. I could go ahead and use a Machiavellian type of retrospect, I guess, and could say 'hey, whatever, the end justifies the means,' and shrug it off and I know I'm probably digging a hole for myself by admitting that about 50% of my pieces comes from the mistakes I make while writing them. This isn't alays true- sometimes I'll have a piece which is 100% intentional, but other times I'll fling notes on the page without realizing exactly what I'm doing, play it back and decide whether I like it or not.

It could be described as a careless or effortless way to compose, so I'm a bit ashamed of it in that regard. Some people put an intense amount of concentration into developing the right chords or melody while I occasionally find them by experimenting or by making some dumb error which could otherwise be seen as some type of a Freudian slip. I feel a bit guilty calling my pieces mine when even though I am the one fully responsible for all the errors, I still know that they weren't intentional and that I wouldn't have been able to play around with my errors if I didn't have a program which would play it all back to me. In this way, should I give 'Finale 2005' credit for my pieces, seeing as otherwise I might have realized my error before having my piece played and changed it to make it something completely different? This is confusing.

So...Should I go with Machiavelli and say that I don't really care how I compose, as long as it's what I want, or do I side with Freud and say that these mistakes are actually coming from my subconscious mind? I think I'm just going to go with option C and say screw the philosophers, I'm a composer, not a psychologist.