So he had a few guidelines in mind.

I'm going to write this symphony in the musical language that is quintessentially American, that started with Dvorak's Ninth Symphony, which was written in Iowa, all the way through the Copland era on into the film music era, guys like Elmer Bernstein, John Williams, and used that as the foundational musical language.

It's more nuanced than it is linear.

It's sort of more like an intangible sort of cloud or feeling that comes and goes with different aspects that might provide some mental images in the audience.

They might say, this sounds like an old Protestant hymn or something, or this part might sound like something from a movie, like an action movie or a Western movie or something.

Can you talk a little bit about that a-as, as a composer?

Yes, a-absolutely.

N-now this is a, a very, uh, uh, im-important for me, um, because I've been trying to pursue the answer to exactly what it is that's happening whenever somebody's creative or has an idea.

Um, I don't think it's a platonic idea that just is plucked out, an ideal version of it that somehow is inserted and you download it.

But there is something to be said about, um, what happens whenever, uh, somebody comes up with something new, something spurs the idea.

How often it happens whenever you're doing a mundane task.

That's curious to me.

What are you going for with this composition?