Affective Intuition and the Emergence of Affective Form in Compositional Practice

Abstract

This article reflects on a process-led compositional practice in which musical form is not planned in advance but emerges through ongoing intuitive decision-making. I describe this mode of working as affective intuition, an embodied and anticipatory way of navigating compositional choices in real time. I then introduce the term affective form to describe the affective shape a work appears to take on through the accumulation and interaction of material over time. While this concept develops from Susanne Langer’s notion of feeling as form, it is re-situated here within the act of composing rather than the analysis of completed works. Through a discussion of Basilica for violin and pre-recorded sound, I consider how affective intuition and affective form operate at different temporal scales, and how emergent form may be understood as a precise, situated practice rather than an indeterminate outcome.

Key terms:
affective intuition; affective form; emergent form; compositional process; practice-based research; temporality

1. Intuition and process

In writing about composition, intuition is often invoked imprecisely. It tends to appear as a justification for decisions that resist formal explanation, or as a way of naming moments where making seems to proceed without planning. In such accounts, intuition functions as a remainder, something that escapes method rather than constituting one. This becomes particularly pronounced in practices where form is not established in advance, and where the work is discovered through the act of composing itself.

My own practice operates in this space. I do not usually design large-scale form prior to composing, nor do I work toward a clearly imagined endpoint. Instead, pieces unfold through a sequence of decisions made in relation to what is already present. These decisions are not random, nor are they purely reactive. They are guided by a felt sense of necessity that arises in the moment of writing, one that draws simultaneously on what has already occurred and on what seems about to happen.

I refer to this mode of working as affective intuition. By this I mean an embodied way of making judgements in time, oriented toward the unfolding situation of the work. It is not planning, and it is not improvisation. Rather, it involves an anticipatory attunement to material as it emerges. Erin Manning’s account of preacceleration is helpful here, in that it describes action as guided by a sense of incipience rather than retrospection (Manning 2009). Brian Massumi’s description of the thinking-feeling of the body similarly foregrounds decision-making that does not pass through reflective cognition in order to be precise (Massumi 2002).

In practice, affective intuition involves a continual negotiation between three aspects of the work. The first is the present state of the material, what is on the page or sounding at any given moment. The second is an affective memory of what has already occurred, including materials that may have disappeared but continue to exert pressure. The third is a sense of potential, a felt anticipation of what the material seems to be leaning toward next. These aspects are not ordered, and they do not resolve into a plan. They form a field of attention within which composing proceeds.

This way of working does not guarantee coherence or direction. It often produces moments where the work feels formally unanchored. Rather than resolving these moments through structural intervention, I tend to remain within them, allowing further material to arise through the same intuitive engagement. Over time, something like a form begins to take shape, although it is rarely clear how or when this happens.

2. From feeling as form to affective form

Susanne Langer’s concept of feeling as form offers a way of understanding how music may articulate affect without representing emotion in a literal sense. For Langer, musical form symbolises the morphology of feeling, its tensions, suspensions, and transformations unfolding through time (Langer 1953). This feeling does not belong to the composer or the listener as such, but to the work itself, arising from its internal relations.

I find Langer’s account compelling when thinking about how completed works are experienced. However, when composing through an open, process-led method, it does not fully describe my experience of making. In particular, it does not account for the distinction I experience between the act of composing and the affective character that the work appears to acquire as material accumulates. The feeling of a piece often becomes apparent only after a substantial body of material has been written, and even then it remains provisional.

To describe this, I use the term affective form. By this I refer specifically to the felt temporal organisation of a work, rather than to its sectional layout, motivic development, or large-scale architecture. Affective form is not something I consciously aim for, nor something I feel able to design in advance. Instead, it appears to develop immanently through the accumulation, erosion, and reconfiguration of material over time.

Affective form operates at a different temporal scale from the intuitive decisions made while composing. While affective intuition guides local judgements, affective form becomes perceptible only across longer spans, through repetition, persistence, and change. In this sense, the affective character of a work is not a direct expression of the composer’s intuitive state, but a consequence of how materials relate to one another across time. It belongs to the work itself, emerging through its internal logic rather than through expressive intent.

3. Basilica

Basilica is a work for solo violin and pre-recorded sound, composed in late 2024. The piece places a continuously unfolding violin line within a field of recorded resonances derived from violin drones. These recordings are triggered live at specific points in the score, but they do not align precisely with the live part. Instead, they create a relatively static sonic environment against which the violin moves.

The piece is built around a light scaffold. There are predetermined points where the live and recorded layers coincide, but these points do not define sections or formal boundaries. They function as anchors, holding the unfolding line in relation to a fixed field. Beyond this, the form of the piece was not planned.

While composing Basilica, decisions concerning pitch, articulation, pacing, and continuity were guided almost entirely by affective intuition. The violin material unfolds directionally, but without clear markers of arrival or departure. Gestures lengthen, thin out, or dissolve depending on how long they seem able to sustain attention. At several points in the compositional process, I became aware of a pull toward formal clarification, often taking the form of an urge to articulate clearer sectional divisions or to allow accumulated tension to resolve through contrast or arrival.

Rather than acting on this, I repeatedly chose to resist formal clarification, allowing material to persist beyond what initially felt structurally comfortable. This resistance was not framed as an aesthetic principle in advance. It emerged as a local decision, guided by the sense that clarification would prematurely stabilise the work’s affective trajectory. Over time, these decisions accumulated, contributing to an affective form characterised less by progression than by sustained pressure and delayed resolution.

The recorded layer plays a crucial role in shaping this affective form. Because it remains largely static, it resists the violin’s tendency toward linear motion. This produces a persistent tension between flux and stasis that gradually comes to define the character of the piece. The affective form that emerges was not apparent early in the process. It became perceptible only as the interaction between the two layers accumulated.

From the performer’s perspective, Basilica offers little in the way of formal landmarks. There are no clear sections to move between, and no obvious narrative arc to follow. Instead, the violinist must remain within a continuous present, navigating technical and perceptual demands as they arise. I do not pursue performer experience in detail here, but note it as one component of the work’s affective organisation, shaped by the same resistance to formal clarification that operates in the compositional process.

4. Implications

Thinking in terms of affective intuition and affective form offers a way of describing process-led composition without opposing intuition to structure. In this account, form is not absent or deferred, but arises through sustained engagement with material over time. Rather than locating coherence in pre-designed architecture, it becomes perceptible through experiential continuity, as materials accrue weight through persistence, erosion, and relation.

For practice-based research, this distinction provides a means of articulating compositional process from within the act of making, without reducing it to personal narrative or abstract formalism. It allows the work to be described as it unfolds, while acknowledging that the form which emerges may exceed the conditions of its production.

5. Closing

This article has described a way of composing in which form is not planned in advance but emerges through intuitive engagement with material. By distinguishing affective intuition from affective form, it becomes possible to account for both the immediacy of compositional decision-making and the slower emergence of affective structure within the work itself.

While the discussion has focused on a single piece, the concepts outlined here point toward further questions concerning performer labour, repetition, and memory in emergent form. These remain open, and are best approached through continued compositional practice rather than theoretical closure.

References

Langer, Susanne K. Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art. New York: Scribner, 1953.
Manning, Erin. Relationscapes: Movement, Art, Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2009.
Massumi, Brian. Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002.