Issue No. 18: Three Creativity Prompts for Composers

Composers often get stuck, have writer’s block, or just need to get the creative energies flowing before a session. That’s precisely why I created these three creativity prompts!

The idea is to spend no more than around thirty minutes with each of these challenges.

I have used each of these prompts personally as well as with composition students in the past.

Let’s get writing!


Prompt No. 1

Harmonize the following succession of twenty F5s. You are not allowed to write any pitch above this completely flat “chorale melody.”


Prompt No. 2

For solo piano, begin a piece that has strict inversional symmetry between hands (mirror writing) around the C4/C#4 two-note axis.

You may continue the example below or create your own from scratch.


Prompt No. 3

Write a 16- or 32-measure melody for solo woodwind instrument wherein the meter changes every single measure. Bonus challenge: see how many measures you can create before repeating a time signature you have already used.

You may continue the example below or create your own from scratch.


That’s it! Let me know if you have fun and/or if these are helpful. I would love to see what you make with these three prompts. Feel free to email or DM your creations to me and perhaps I will include them in a future issue of The Theisen Journal (with your permission, of course)!