Beethoven’s famous “Da Da Da Da—-n”, the opening notes of the 5th symphony was actually not created by himself.
It was originally thought of by his grandpa.
Beethoven’s dad was an alcoholic (and a musician) and did not get any respect from his son. Instead young Beethoven looked to his grandpa for his musical inspiration.
The four notes stated earlier were written in one of grandpa’s compostitions, but the composition apparantly was not successful enough to be remembered.
However, grandson-Beethoven thought “hmmm, I think I can make something better with that”, and used it as the main motif for the first movement of his fifth symphony.
Most likely no ideas that we come up are original. We all take in things externally and they get recycled in our brains and come out. Sometimes we are aware of how it got recycled, and other times we have no idea where it came from and it feels like it just flowed out from somewhere inside.
This composition is a good example of showing that quality in an art work is not always determined by its original source, but at times by how original or skillfully the material is developed.
Where do you get your inspiration?