The intention of this study was to understand more fully the process of creating musical composition. As a means to to this I created a compositional model, "Maya's Words", a conscious experiment which utilised the techniques I discovered and codified from children's compositions. By utilising rhe model as a working tool and the information extracted from the children's works I was able to draw together my own theories and observations concerning the process of musical composition and how it works. Within this study I have also examined my own process of musical composition and drawn, in a limited way, upon my work on the methodology behind the compositional procedures of composer Elisabeth Lutyens. The way in which the children used their own musical ideas in a flexible and original manner illustrated a mental state that seemed to be able to grasp thoughts from anywhere, without reference, for example, to tradition or style. This dexterity brought to my attention the notion that the children were using fragments of ideas/music/sound and integrating them into their own compositions. In the compositional model for this study I chose to compose in a way that utilised information from this study in many manifestations but it also had to be an organic growth as a means to be real and for me to have a true input into it a sa composer. It also had to incorporate many of the study elements into it otherwise it would not be a conscious experiment. The two forces here, for me haave worked in tandem as the flexibility of approach used by the children has allowed me to work in a flexible way in this compositional model and yet the uncomplicated way in which the children evaluated their own progressions has had a profound influence on me too and provided me with a method of self-evaluation which does not create self-inflicted damage to my own feelings about my composition. I hope in the same way that this study will allow composers a freedon of perspective that will open for them a new understanding of musical composition.

Parmi les écrits du compositeur viennois Arnold Schoenberg, nombreuses sont les occurrences d’un concept d’idée musicale [musikalische Gedanke] dont l’emploi polysémique paraît problématique à bien des égards. Celui-ci peut en effet se rapporter à l’oeuvre entière aussi bien qu’à une simple partie de sa forme, mais encore n’être qu’un objet possible de la nature dont la forme historique est elle-même contingente. Or, au-delà d’un usage commun issu de la terminologie formaliste du XIXe siècle, l’idée musicale est manifestement portée ici par une démarche réflexive, ni résolument prescriptive ni seulement descriptive, dont la cohérence et la portée peuvent être révélés par une étude compréhensive des quelques manuscrits – rarement explorés et jamais édités en langue française – où se réunissent les observations d’un compositeur soucieux de déterminer les lois d’une pensée « purement musicale ».À l’époque de la Première Guerre Mondiale, toute une décennie durant laquelle se joue pour Schoenberg un retournement à la fois esthétique et idéologique, les bouleversements historico-culturels accompagnent la révélation de la nature problématique d’une relation de sons pour « qui attend mieux de la musique qu’un peu de douceur et de beauté ». Car en effet, si les premières oeuvres atonales avaient été vécues comme une libération, comme une émancipation vis-à-vis de contraintes imposées de l’extérieur et constituant autant d’entraves à un idéal d’expression, bien vite se fit jour la question de la com-position, de sa possibilité logique. En ce sens, si le retrait de la tonalité a pu se justifier comme l’aboutissement d’un processus historique, il s’est révélé a posteriori n’être que l’acte inaugural indispensable d’une véritable pensée critique en musique, celle qui entreprend d’accorder l’art des sons aux principes et limites de la raison humaine. L’emploi schoenbergien de l’idée musicale révèle alors une pensée universelle de la relation musicale – tonale ou non –, développée selon une stricte analogie avec les formes discursives de la connaissance en général. Loin de ne refléter alorsqu’un système compositionnel personnel ou la technique spécifique d’une école, celle-ci déborde largement du champ musical. Par ce qu’elles impliquent logiquement au sujet de l’unité, de la représentation ou encore du temps, les réponses suggérées par le compositeur manifestent une profonde affinité avec une modernité critique qui interroge le penser au temps de la crise de l’idéalisme / Many of the writings of the Viennese composer Arnold Schoenberg deal with an ambivalent concept of musical idea [musikalische Gedanke] whose occurrences seem problematic in many ways. It may indeed relate to the entire work as well to a simple part of its form, but it can also be a possible object of nature whose historical form is itself contingent. However, beyond its common use coming from the technical terminology of the nineteenth century, the musical idea is clearly driven here by a decidedly reflexive approach, neither purely prescriptive nor only descriptive, whose scope and consistency can be exposed through a comprehensive study of the few manuscripts – seldom investigated and never published in French – where are gathered the observations of a composer concerned about the laws of a “purely musical” thought. At the time of the First World War, a decade during which occurs for Schoenberg an aesthetical and ideological reversal, historico-cultural changes accompany the revelation of the problematic nature of a relation of sounds for who “expects better from music than some kind of sweetness and beauty.” Indeed, if early atonal works had been experienced as a liberation, an emancipation from external constraints, obstacles to an ideal of expression, promptly emerged the issues of com-position, of its logical possibility. In this sense, if the withdrawal of tonality may have been justified as result of a historical process, it has been only the opening act of an authentic critical thought in music, one that undertakes to square the art of sounds to theprinciples and limits of human reason. Schoenberg’s use of the musical ideal then reveals a universal thought of the musical relationship – tonal or not –, developed according to a strict analogy with the discursive forms of conceptual knowledge. But far from reflecting only a personal compositional system or the specific technic of a School, it goes far beyond the musical field. Through what they imply logically about unity, representation, time, the answers suggested by the composer show a deep affinity with a critical modernity, one questioning the thinking at the time of the crisis of idealism

Mental imagery is a common theme in research that clarifies how musical thought relates to musical performance. Unfortunately, minimal information exists regarding mental imagery and singers. The purpose of this study was to probe the role, if any, mental imagery plays in the conceptualization of pitch and vowel. By interviewing singers at differing levels of expertise, basic information was obtained about the mental processes used by singers. Through evaluations of the singers' mental processes, it was concluded that 95% of the singers in the study employed mental imagery. All singers described using kinesthetic imagery, while the majority implemented sensory and auditory imagery. Viso-spatial imagery was implemented among the more experienced singers. The majority of singers also reported: imaging pitch and vowel interactively; imaging from an internal perspective; and utilizing mental rehearsal. Less than half of the singers described using methods other than mental imagery to conceptualize pitch and vowel.