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One Aspect Of Creating Music By joseexist in Musings On Muses November 2, 2009

One aspect of creating music happens around the clock. You don’t need to be locked away from the world and inside a studio for it to occur. There’s a world out there that has to have “you” in it. You might have to go to work, go shopping, take the kids to school, fix meals, or any number of things that comprise the actions we humans must be involved in, but the creation of music can never be stymied or constrained by these necessary activities.

You might be going thru an altogether uneventful day when, all of a sudden, inspiration strikes! Please remember to; keep both hands on the wheel, breath slowly, remain well aware of your surroundings, and above all, pull over as soon as possible! Write down as much as you can that conveys the gist of your newly hatched idea. If you’re lucky enough to have a handheld recorder of some type, then by all means pull over and “serenade” to it with all your heart. The sooner you get “something” either written or recorded, the more likely you are to maintain that ever elusive character of spontaneity all the way through the process and into your final product. On the other hand, if you fail to exercise due caution during the “attack”, you may well injure yourself or innocent bystanders. By all means, be diligently focused as all manner of injuries can occur, even all the way up to death.

There are those who take writing songs so seriously that they have developed rituals for the task. Eccentric fallacies that must be followed to a”T”, less the Gods chew up their ideas and spit them across the heavens. I prefer to take the opposite approach. There are no rituals to follow for me save for deep thought, when I can get any of that to fit into my day. Those rare moments of heavy cognition crash in from time to time throughout my day and where luck allows I pluck tidbits from my “cathedral of thoughts”. There are few moments in my day when there are no “ideas” drifting about my mind. When the electrochemical impulses line up just right, it’s like plucking a single grape off the vine. I’ve grasped the new idea and have only to commit it to some physical means of storage. Pen and paper will suffice until I get home. At any time later, sometimes even years, I can read the jottings and proceed to draw out the entire idea like a fresh pull from a glob of molten glass. The idea is always waiting there, molten yet in perfect stasis.

I compare my ideas to many things but molten glass and molten metal are my two favorite analogies. Swollen rain-clouds, un-struck lightening, and held breaths are some others. I have to be the glass-blower. I have to be the blacksmith. I have to “craft out” the full creation by whatever means I deem necessary. My signature has to be throughout the piece. I cannot simply sign at the bottom. With a painting the artist is present in every stroke, and then he usually signs the image. With songs the artist has to put themselves into every note, chord, and even the silence. There is no other place to sign save for the disembodied and intangible “copywriter”. How many times have you heard a song end with the words, “copy written by so and so year yada, yada?” With song, the artists’ “signature” is the originality composed into the work. If I can mentally see the sparks fly as I make new music, then I know my muses are being good to me. Trying to share those sparks is always fun.

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