Tree of Music, Source and Influences

In this article I will present how societal, political and family influences, shapes and directs an individual composer. These experiences over the years contribute to form a composers approach to life and people in general and of course will affect their relationship to music.

All these factors will filter in to the music that you write, or that I write and those have lived before us wrote.
I hope that I can present in these articles why composers write the styles and types of music they compose.

Source is like a seed, the composers mind and background contributes and influences them accordingly. In conjunction with their background, it is also the music styles they have studied and the opportunities they had during the course of their music career which will also influence their music styles.

So first and most importantly, we must have a source, that which causes the beginning or genesis in music.
What does source mean?

Simply defined it means to spring forth, or to rise.
It is a generative force, one that supplies information.

So we have established it as something that influences.Let's go on further.

Where do these influences come from?

For instance, a musicians style of writting may be conditioned and most times is conditioned and influenced by his social background, his temperment, behaviour, age and last but not least his Peer Group.

With this in mind, we have confirmed that influences as mentioned, mold and move Composers to gravitate towards certain styles and types of music.

Styles that will yield different results. I would submit then, that Source is that which inevitably produces a Stravinsky, Brahms, Mozart or a Chopin.

Each style is easily recognized by the message being transmitted via the composers music, that is known as his or her signature. Something unique and special that sets each composers style apart from others.

So the styles of an artists writtings are not only formed by his musical training and the talents he may possess. In conjuntion with this his-her mind has received imprints from a source or sources that will guide their taste in music.


So source is the motivator, that which causes the beginnings.

Source is the single most important underlying cause of the music of today, the past and the music that is to be.
To read more of the subject, the tree of music, click hereRhythm, the driving force in music

© 1998 Bryon Tosoff