0Once you start with the melody, how do you move the music forward? Where should it go? How does a group of notes become a composition? While there's no easy answer to cracking the Mozart code, it's good to start with small fragments called phrases and gradually build them up into full musical statements. No piece arrives fully formed.
- Try grouping phrases together in terms of the emotions they evoke. Guitar composer John Fahey, a self-taught instrumentalist and composer, wrote by combining small fragments by "emotion." Even if they didn't necessarily come from the same key or sound like they belonged together, if different phrases felt whimsical, or forlorn, or wistful, he would combine them together to form a song.
