Bullshit.I used to be a very intuitive composer, until recently. It seems to me that being intuitive simply draws on your experiences, whether they be musical, emotional, a beatin', etc., and so the outcome of this is simply going to be the reworking of previously expressed ideas. It is the repacking of ideas and passions of other, maybe more progressive people. So, what feelings am I following? Are they my own? Are they feelings I have attached to other music? I am simply trying to convey a watered down interpretation of someone else's work? Or, even worse, of someone else's watered down interpretation? That's tradition, right?These are my basic thoughts whilst I walk around town. I often wonder how Arnold Schönberg felt about it. He was at one point an awesome intuitive "atonal" (though he despised that term) composer, but he felt the need for some type structure to his harmony. I wonder what prompted this change. Both periods are fucking great! Pierrot Lunaire and Suite for Piano Op. 25 are equally amazing. What triggered the need for change?A quote of John Kricfalusi's regarding emotions is often stuck in my head which, as I paraphrase, says that emotions are generally presented in their most simple forms: Happy, Sad, Angry, etc., but that these tend no to exist in the real world. Often people are angry/nervous/remorseful/a weird kind of happy/etc. however conventions make it hard to portray this. And that that was something he tried to do with "Ren and Stimpy" (1). This had a rather big impact on me and my approach to music. If a music seems emotional, to me, it is one of these generalizations (and often manipulative). Ex: Patch Adams or LOTR scores. These seem very one dimensional, which could be an issue with the fact that they are to accompany another source - but this is not true with Howard Shore's other work which typically stands on its own feet. I guess what the problem is is that what these types of music are trying to express is rooted in the convention of expression. The modern convention interprets minor keys as melancholy, movement of seconds (major or minor towards lower registers as depressing, string sections evoke remorse, etc. and that these ideas will be lost not only to other cultures who have not adopted these conventions, but also that the "emotions" will be lost on future cultures (2). This music seems instantly dated and hollow. Pink used to me a sign of manliness, then femininity, now somewhat in between. A stupid example, but there it is.Coupled with the Kricfalusi quote is another regarding emotions of John Cage, which says something to the effect of, "I have emotions, I just don't put them in my music." This is typically how I feel about my music except that I think it is impossible to remove myself from my music, there is just no conscious effort to place these types of emotions in my music.I guess the problem is my trying to hope that I am able to make music that exists beyond ME, which all just reflects my pathetic attempts to get out of society. Bullshit.(1) From either the commentary or the retrospective on the First and Second Season of "Ren and Stimpy."(2) Oh no? Tell me the emotional implications behind Bach's techniques. Or even those of Чайкoвский (Tchaikovsky).