The anatomy of a musical idea

I listen to a lot of music... I find that it gives me inspiration for my musical ideas. Growing up my brother and I would always listen to the classical radio station, the same way most people would listen to pop music on the radio. We did this, I believe, because of our early exposure to classical music. My dad, being a music history professor, naturally had many recordings of the classics. So as a result I became very familiar with the sound and style of classical music before any other form of music.  When I started composing, I noticed the style in which I would write was very similar to the style of music in which I would listen.  For example, when I wrote "Oh, Lord God Almighty", a duet for two sopranos, I was listening a lot to the Mozart Requiem. There is a certain aria in this piece that had a profound impact on me, and so I decided to base my melodic idea off of this Mozart aria. 

Now, of course, I'm not saying that I took his melody and called it my own, but the influence and emotional impact that it had on me inspired me to create my own music. Even though my melodic idea is completely independent of his, if it were not his influence, I may have never written that piece. 

So for me, listening to music is a critical part of getting inspiration for my musical ideas. 

The other part of preparing to write a piece of music for me is deciding on the instrumentation. This often times can be difficult for a composer, because a melody that is written for the piano could sound very different than a melody for voice. So most of the time I will decide on my instrumentation first before even searching for a melody. The other challenge to this is knowing what sounds good and what doesn't for each individual instrument. One thing I have often struggled with is writing in the optimal range for the instrument. By this I don't mean all the possible notes that instrument could play. I mean, finding the notes that the instrument "wants" to play. Those notes that make the instrument sound its best. I find that each time I write a piece I learn more about what the optimal range should be (I realize a composition class would probably help). 

Right now these are the things I am doing to prepare for these new compositions.  Believe it or not, this is how I come up with the inspiration to my melodies. I've gotta admit though, sometimes it's hard to have enough patience to wait for it to come, but it always does in one form or another.

Some music I have recently been listening to: Beethoven, Piano concerto No. 5 - Giuseppe Verdi (my personal favorite composer), Operas: Othello, Aida, Rigoletto & his Missa Solemnis.