composition
The art of creating music, or a finished musical work.
In Depth
Composition is the process of creating original music — selecting and organising pitches, rhythms, harmonies, timbres, and forms into a coherent artistic whole. A composition (the finished product) can be anything from a simple song to a four-hour opera.
Composing methods vary enormously between individuals. Mozart reportedly composed entire movements in his head before writing a note. Beethoven filled sketchbooks with rejected ideas, laboriously refining every passage. Stravinsky composed at the piano. John Adams works with computer software. The common thread is the creative act of bringing something new into existence from raw musical materials.
Mozart claimed his best ideas came to him in carriages, after meals, or during sleepless nights — never at the keyboard, which he used only for writing down what he had already composed in his head.