This morning after wrapping up breakfast, I had the urge to walk over to my piano and sketch an idea for a little musical theme. On the moment the urge took me, I had no particular idea in mind. I was certainly not thinking of a tune. I was not consciously thinking of anything, really. The moment I opened the keyboard of the piano and set my fingers on the keys, though, a little melody popped out: fully formed as an idea immediately.

I played it, decided I liked it, played it again to fix it in my mind, then bolted to the other room to grab my iPad and notate it down in Dorico before it got away from me. Three minutes later, I had done just that.

This sort of experience is what we name “inspiration”, I think. It is not, in its own right, sufficient to create a good piece of art — even if I also think most great art has at least a dash of this in it. What caught my attention as I reflected on the process was that some part of me did have the idea. I wanted to go to the piano just then, though I could not have told you why. I knew at some level that I had a musical idea, though I could not have hummed it. It was “subconscious” — perhaps pre-conscious.

It is not always this way. Sometimes a musical idea will first rise to the level of consciousness, and then I will try to write it out, whether with piano, paper, and pencil or with Dorico and a MIDI keyboard. Curiously, I am rarely successful at fully translating from my mind into notation in those attempts, but I think that is merely a matter of skill. I need to practice more!

When I do get the inexplicable, inarticulate urge to go work something out on the piano, though, I have learned to trust that feeling. Not every idea that comes this way is a keeper, but I want to at least give it a chance. The human mind is a strange and wondrous thing.