Developing your style as a composer

Most of the composers want to go further in developing their style and language (musical, harmonic).

It is important to do it and be armed with a couple of facts.

What I have noticed while analyzing pieces of other composers (comparing their pieces from early periods of life till latest) is that in most of the cases the development of a style is slow and gradual. Rather evolution, than revolution. Takes many months, years.

When myself I try to jump in to something new, trying to do what I have never done, being innovative at maximum, I usually… fail completing a piece. It is collapsing, not working. Redoing it by changing single notes, chords and bars doesn’t help.

I discussed it with one my former composition teacher. The result of the discussion was that: if one tries too many new things in a single piece at once, occurs a possibility of not being able to manage to keep the form and be coherent throughout all the piece. It starts collapsing. It’s like you try to build your own Eiffel tower without really knowing how to support all that nice, huge and complex construction. Similar is with composition. You have to go step by step learning and mastering basic existing forms and tricks. Analyzing structure and form of pieces by contemporary renown composers.

 
Slow and gradual. Evolution.