MikeRobinson

I write songs strictly for my own pleasure, and I've written a lot of other things too ... articles, an as-yet unpublished book, and (my bread and butter) computer software. Yeah, a strange mix, I know, but it's all "creative writing," and, it all takes time. Unless you are very experienced, you're not going to sit down at any keyboard and ... "presto!" ... like Venus popping out of the clamshell on the beach (fully formed and totally starkers ...) ... "there it is." Doesn't work that way. But what does work is ... "rough drafts, lots of 'em." Keep 'em all. Keep everything. Disk space is cheap. Drop it into various folders (call one of 'em "The Trashcan" if you like) but never actually discard it. First step: churn out material. Lots of it. Capture it. Don't necessarily try to go back and fix it. Later on, you can sort through what you've got and probably you'll begin to see a pattern emerging. Copy some of those sequences together (thus starting a new document, a new draft...) and see what might feel like it's working. You are likely to be surprised. Or you might feel like you're wandering. (You're new at this, remember?) In the same document, and with a short bit of space left between, try out different sequences and ideas, taking care to keep each one as you go. (So what if the document is getting longer and longer. The Delete key is not your friend.) When you've finally got what feels like "a good set of ideas," then you can start looking more closely at things like the Circle of Fifths. (Music actually is very much based on mathematics, as J. S. Bach and many other people over the years have realized. It's actually no accident why things sound the way they do.) But even so, still pursue the strategy of "always start a fresh new draft, and never throw anything away." (Thomas Edison once said: "Nonsense! I know of a thousand different ways not to build a light bulb!") (I suggest that when you are stringing ideas together, looking for something that works, leave a blank measure or a short bit of silence between each one so that they don't quite feel like they're "supposed" to be "finished" yet.) Always bear in mind that when you look at someone else's "finished" song, what you are looking at is finished, and nowhere to be seen is the actual process ("writing is rewriting") that lead up to it. The same can be said of any and probably every other form of creative writing or artistic endeavor. If you want to remain happy and interested in doing it, first be realistic about setting your expectations. Perhaps it's not so much that it is harder than it looks, but simply that the process is different than it looks.

Google this: orchestral instrument ranges.

When you're "just playin' ... just foolin' around ..." at some point in time, pure serendipity will kick in and "something will just happen" that will catch all of you off-guard. After you have properly enjoyed the moment, you might find yourself wanting to know how it happened. You want to be able to do it again ... "on purpose, this time." And that is where "music theory" quietly slips into the back of the bar and orders a drink, sticking around for a bit just in case you want to learn more about what he might have to say. You see, "music" is all about "mathematics," if you care to get as deeply involved in that sort of thing as, say, J. S. Bach once did. There is as much "depth" to the study of music as you care to find. "Okay, so does it have any practical benefit?" Uh huh, actually it does. The more you care to learn about how music works, the more conscious, deliberate choices you have as you try to develop "that germ of an idea" into a song. If you want to get "deeply" into that, I strongly recommend the book, Tunesmith, by Jimmy Webb. (He of "Up, Up and Away," "MacArthur Park," and many others...) I must warn you, though, that the middle chapters are a freakin' textbook, of which I am now in my fourth very slow reading. It's just a question of what you like. Since I am an unabashed "computer geek," I am fascinated (as Jimmy himself obviously is...) at taking non-physical things completely apart to figure out how they tick. You might be likewise; or, you might not. As for me, I find it extremely engaging. It's like watching a magic show when you know a little bit about how the trick is done. You stop doing quite so much "incredulous wonder," and you switch to a whole lot more of admiring skill and craft.

They say that the essence of poetry is to say something that has been said a hundred times before, in a way that no one has said it before. What "tickles the ear" is, "a turn of a phrase." Right now, "you've found one." You caught the interest of a lot of people. That's where it's at.

eww-w-w-w-w-w-w-www....

There's no need to guess... http://www.copyright.gov Also note that you can copyright as many songs at one time as you like, as a "collection." Copyright persists, individually, on all of the works, exactly as though you had registered each one and had paid money for each one. (The "collection" idea is basically an administrative/paperwork-reduction convenience for the paper-pushers.)

For me, it is a wrestling match. Thomas Edison once pointed out that "he knew ten thousand ways to make a light bulb that didn't work." Maybe there are folks who are so experienced that they can "just sit down and whip out" a magnificent melody ... but I suspect that the process still consists mostly of trial-and-error. If you keep "trialing," though, and "erroring," a funny thing happens: you learn. You probably should try to focus on either the music, or the lyric, such that you can seriously concentrate on one without being too-sidetracked by the other. If you're trying to perfect a lyric, spend a lot of time listening to good songs and concentrating on their lyrics. If you're trying to perfect a tune, spend a lot of time listening to good tunes and trying to deconstruct how they were put together. The more closely you regard something "that has been sitting right here in front of your nose for many years," the more you see.

When Margaret Mitchell started writing Gone With The Wind, she was looking at exactly what every other writer was looking at: an empty page. It is hard to write. It is harder still to re-write. (And yet, all of "writing" consists of "re-writing.") When you look at the finished whatever-it-is, "it seems so obvious." When you are surrounded by other people's finished creative works, "they seem so easy." But you just have to remind yourself, and to keep reminding yourself, that nothing truly worth doing ... is particularly easy to do. The creative process has been endlessly studied. There's always room to improve upon your own craftsmanship. There's always something to learn. But as a friend of mine (who can do amazing things in pottery...) once put it: "it all comes down to you, the wheel, and the clay." You, and twelve notes. "And silence, artfully arranged."

Something else to consider is this ... "You fairly-understand the process of lyric-writing. You know when the paragraph you just wrote is a good one, and you know when to press the Delete key. You've presumably written enough text to be accustomed to how that process works." But... tunes are quite different. Your expectations, therefore, might be unrealistic ... and so, your discouragement comes much too soon. Text doesn't really change that much during its journey from the writer's pen to the printed page. Sure, it goes through a lot of revisions, but it's pretty intuitive, and when all is said and done, "it's all there." Every finished word, at the end of the process, is right there in front of you on the page. But the music that you hear, say, on the radio, is not like that. You might well be listening to thirty-five (or considerably more...) tracks of material, all subtly mixed together and mastered "just so," and not even realize it. We've all seen the photos of high-fashion models without the layers of makeup (and Adobe Photoshop...) in which we usually see them. They just look like anorexic teenagers, not the objects of fantasy that are supposed to make us want to rush to plunk down $250-and-up for a pair of deliberately stained and ripped-up blue jeans. My point is: when you strip a lyric down to "what the lyricist actually wrote," well, it's basically the same as what you see on the liner notes; and what you hear the singer saying. But, in the case of (professionally recorded) music, you've got a whole slew of processes at work which are not obvious... the songwriter, the arranger, the concertmaster, the recording engineer, the mastering engineer... (And that's not even considering "the creative process itself" ... all the "scrapped drafts" that wound up in the songwriter's wastebasket ... just like all the "scrapped drafts" of lyrics that wound up in yours.) It is very easy to become discouraged, if you compare (what is actually) a "spit-polished" music track, to what the original songwriter actually prepares. But... "that's not a realistic expectation, to begin with! It doesn't work that way!" Another way to think of it: if you can come up with a really good song, "we can Take It From Here." Players, arrangers, engineers ... all of these things can be procured (after the fact). But, "it all begins with a song."

There might be another aspect to it, too... The professional-grade creation of music is, quite clearly, a craft that must take many, many years to master. And it is, I think, the fundamental nature of such crafts that ... those who begin to master it, do not fully recognize nor appreciate their own skill and experience. I am, by trade, a professional software designer of more than 30 years' experience, and I cannot fully explain (nor do I know myself) why it is "easy" for me to create the very intricate software creations that I do. (I've looked back at my own work, and marveled at it, and tried to figure it out as though it were the work of a stranger ... which, by then, it is.) Music, then, is an avocation. It is a pursuit that I choose to pursue intensely, as I pursue many things, but I have never seriously thought of switching my profession to it. I know that, if I were to walk into a recording studio or some-such, I would be a tyro. So I choose not to hold myself to such a standard, and I therefore enjoy music ... and the challenge of music-making ... at what might be called "a serious, Nashville-almost-resident amateur" level. And even so: "Music is the Universal Lady." She courts all men (and women, of course), but forever yields to none of them. We certainly do not want to close any doors, anywhere, to anyone. (Nor do I wish to imply any such motivations or thoughts, John, to you! "Obviously not so...") We want them all to experience the magic of music (and, perhaps, to overcome their youthful but painful music-lessons...) If they want to hold themselves out to being, or to becoming, music professionals, then surely they will have no choice but to reach as high as they can ... just to survive. Every profession, in the end, is like that. (Including mine.) I am now beginning my third reading of Jimmy Webb's Tunesmith. I am still amazed by it ... still struggling to understand it. Still challenged. Still lovin' it.

I don't think it stands a ghost of a chance ... and Wired's reviewers more-or-less said so, and said why. All of these "music games" offer the same, cheap, quasi-musical fantasy: "instant gratification." Nope ... no effort required ... just plunk down some money and ... ... ... pretend. But that's all that you're actually doing: you're pretending. You get the "gratification," as long as it lasts. Which, apparently, is not too long. What's the alternative? Reality. "Practice, man, practice." But, those who wanted that, pursued it and still pursue it, all without a fantasy to push them along. "The journey is the reward," you know. There's really no substitute for the real thing, even though you have to work at it. It's like sitting down at a meal that you prepared from scratch. Even if you burned the toast, or didn't get the spices quite right ... and even if that box in the freezer is starting to look really good right about now ... you did it. Or tried to, which is exactly the same thing. "Hand-made music." Live music. Nothing but you and a guitar on a cool night in early Fall (or Spring). I'm sorry, but you can never get that in a box.

Another thing to consider is that the electronic computer can, in many ways, "lift you over-and-above your music lessons." If you can write it, say using (free!) software such as MuseScore, and if you get a high-quality Sound Font (also free!) to go with it, then ... the computer can play it pretty darned well. Not only can it approximate the performance of an instrument that you know how to play, but also it can emulate an orchestra's worth of instruments that you (probably) never will. (Bassoon, anyone?) Therefore, if you really want to learn "how to write music," then there's really nothing stopping you from starting on that journey right now. (That journey will, by the way, never end . . . nor will you ever grow tired of it.) Sure, it helps, considerably, to learn how to play an instrument. It is a wonderful thing to be able to play well, if you've got the hand/eye coordination, manual dexterity and patience to do that. But "performance" and "song writing" are really two different things. Now, sure... there's no equivalent to having a good performer perform your work, because he or she will "go beyond what's written on the page" (and the computer can't). But, if you can write it, then you can always find someone else to perform it. Lots of the good music that you find on the Internet is the product of collaboration. One of the best books that I could commend to you is Jimmy Webb's Tunesmith: Inside the Art of Songwriting. (Fair warning: it's dense reading.) This title is "literally true," not only because it's written by a guy who's done some very well-known and complex music, but because it shows how music writing is a craft, and therefore, something that can be learned. Even if you don't play anything.

... your favorite XM channel is CineMagic.

("A lot of forums" are managed by clods.) The thing I like about it (full disclosure: I am a computer geek who writes software for a living ... I actually enjoy it ... run for the hills as fast as you can ...) is that it moves you above and beyond "your music lessons." Although I am an earnest player, I am not a particularly outstanding one. When I try to make my fingers do what my mind imagines, well-l-l-l, let's just say that my third finger sometimes seems to have something (very unmentionable) to say to me. But, since I am more-or-less in the business of making computers do what people by themselves cannot, I somehow manage to write music that I cannot perform... but that a digital computer can perform in my stead. I have at my disposal a "music word-processor," an unlimited supply of paper, and an unlimited storage place in which to "throw away" (and yet, never actually lose) a mountain of discards. And if I want to put together a score for an orchestra and hear more-or-less what it might sound like when played, I can. (P.S. It sounds terrible. I have no idea ...yet... how to write for an orchestra! But I've got one, nonetheless.) Even though I do not (appear to) possess the mechanical aptitude to go straight from "an idea in my head" to "a sound in my ear" by means of an instrument in my hands, I have found a way to approximate it. I can "write it down" (a visual act...), press the 'Play' button, and hear what I have just written be "perfectly" performed by the computer. (P.S. It sounds terrible. I don't know ...yet... what to tell my players to do. But, I don't have to pay 'em union scale, either!) I know that a computer "performance" in this case is only a stand-in, but I also know that I am still just a hobbyist (albeit a very serious one). I live very close to Nashville and I have witnessed what these music professionals are capable of doing with a musical score. I am hopeful ... not for fame, but merely to interest them and to be ready with work that is competent. (And, y'know, even if that day never comes, I genuinely enjoy listening to my own work, and maybe that says a whole lot of good things right there. It's extremely cool to be able to do that. "We live in interesting times.") Am I having a helluva lot of fun with this, "regardless?"

I think that it is very important to learn about music theory ... partly because it tends to be "shrouded in mystery." This sense of "mystery" is unfortunately exaggerated by the use of obscure and obfuscatory terms. ("Myxolidian mode," anyone?) But, standing in the shadows ... just behind all that "this is Music Theory 102 and you've got to pass this class if you ever want to get out of here" claptrap ... are a few elegantly-simple ideas that are, indeed, extremely useful to know. (But first, repeat after me: "Screw you. I graduated years ago, and I don't play that game any more. I just love music, and I just want to know more about how it works.") There! Doesn't that feel good?! If you happen to have access to a keyboard, I'd like you to "just fool around" with it for a little while. Don't worry: I'm only asking you to play around with the all white keys. Totally ignore the black ones. As you noodle around with melodies, emphasize "middle C." Keep coming back to it, so it tends to be the (ahem...) "tonal center." (The "center" of all things... the emphasized note... the 'middle' note that is no longer middle 'C', but that is still somehow the middle.) (I am asking you to use a keyboard because you can "see it" on a keyboard. You don't actually have to have any experience at all playing the thing... "Just press the white keys, singularly and/or in combination.") Start your "fooling around" with the usual starting-position: middle C. But after you've done that for a while, shift you hands two places to the left. Start whacking on the "A" key in the places where you had been whacking on "C." Try to hit "A" a good bit more often than the other keys, instead of "C." But don't play any black keys. Try to ignore your fingers and just listen to the sounds. ... ... If you do that long enough, your ear will begin to notice a subtle change. The melody sounds different. In fact, it sounds minor. It sounds like you are, somehow, "in a different key," even though you are still playing "only white notes." And-d-d-d... "you are." But, never mind that! Shift your hands again and start whacking away again, still pressing only the white keys, but emphasizing some other white key as the "tonal center." You've obviously got a choice of seven "white keys" to center on (A-B-C-D-E-F-G), and, lo and behold, depending on which key you "park on" as your chosen "center," by gawd, they all sound very different. Congratulations. You have just played a tune in all seven "modes." If I gave each one of those starting-positions obscure names like "Lydian" and "Aeolian," you'd feel like you were stuck in College again. But you're not, so I won't. Instead, I will say: "that's it. That's the mystery. Really." Your observation, plain as day, is that they do indeed sound "very different." In fact, some of them sound positively exotic. Yet... they are all, "just the white keys." The vexing question, therefore, is "why?" And, theory can give you the answer. But never mind that for now. Let me get back to your question: chords. Press these keys together: C-E-G. If you have been playing-around such that "C" is the "tonal center," then these three notes, played together, sound like "C-Major." But, if you have been playing "all white keys" but centered on some other white-key, those same three notes ("in a different context," that is to say, "in a different mode") do not sound the same anymore. They are exactly the same three notes (C-E-G), yet they do not sound the same. The way that a particular combination of notes "sounds," depends in part on their context. It also depends upon the interval, or "gap," between the adjacent notes. ("E" is adjacent to "F," but ... think about it ... "F" is not adjacent to "G." There's a black key in the way.) Let me end on that thought. You played "all white keys" throughout, yet "it sounded different." There was a reason for that, even though you might never have considered it before. "Music theory" invites you "to consider it." It invites you to learn more about "how 'music' actually works." In the few dreadful times when I actually took a formal music-theory course, I found myself being obliged to memorize obscure things without explanation. And so I was, to be perfectly honest, incensed to later discover that they all had a very logical explanation. It turned me on to "music theory," but forever off to "music theory classes."

Y'know, Dan, the beauty (and, the curse) of "this creativity thing" is that it is a choice, and one that is completely up to you, the composer. There are no hard-and-fast rules, although we do have the comments and suggestions made by the many other people who have followed this same pathway over the course of thousands of years. First, you come up with ideas ... no one really knows quite where they come from ... and you write them down or record them (or else they slip away). In time, you accumulate "a whole bunch of random snippets," and you just sit down and try to craft them into something bigger. That is where the choosing begins. And, that is where a whole lot of pure experimentation begins. You really don't know where you will wind up -- you will be genuinely surprised, much more often than not. I seriously think that there is a whole lot to be said for ... "write each one of the phrases out," using a music-composing program like MuseScore (http://www.musescore.org ... most-excellent, and free!), or some other music-word-processing software ... and then, "copy and paste." Shuffle them around, swap them into various combinations, save copies of whatever seems to have some promise, and then just keep at it. (It is, as we geeks would say, a "breadth-first" approach, a "voyage of discovery," not a "depth-first" pursuit of an intended goal.) There are "things that you can try." We know that the ear likes "repetition, but not too much, and variation, but not too much." The ear is very sensitive to hearing again what it remembers hearing shortly before, and usually finds the experience pleasing. Most of all, there is what you find to be "pleasing." Gradually, you start zeroing-in on something that you think really sounds good, and that's when you try to apply more craft to it. It's the point where your "composing" starts to drift toward "arranging," and that is a form of creativity also, but "of a different sort." (I am, even as we speak, re-reading John Mark Piper's article, Adding Color and Richness to Common Chords, on this very web-site, and cursing that I did not pay more attention in music-theory class.) Eventually, you "finish it," which is to say, you decide to stop working on it (for a while, at least). What's left is the product of the myriad decisions that you accepted. If you took my advice, though, and "kept all of you lab-notebooks," then every one of the decisions you didn't accept [this time...] are still around, too. When you change things, and replace them, don't actually destroy them. I even do that line-by-line or phrase-by-phrase in the music software, keeping many different versions of the same idea in the same [scratch...] file from which I'm copying. ("It's only ones and zeroes, and we have room for hundreds of billions of 'em...") Any song can be re-worked, at any level, at any time. You can "improv" against a line in a fake-book. You can re-arrange or re-orchestrate an existing melody. You can add to it (e.g. Paul Simon's additions to Scarborough Fair.) You can come back to your own work, on a different day in a different light, and say, "hmm... let's try this instead..." It's never truly finished.

(blink...) Re-reading my music-lessons . . .

One strategy that seems to work well is called, "theme and variation." Now, at the risk of having the music-professors among us throw rotten apples at me, I'd say that you can think of this as: "First, do something. Then, do the same thing again, only different." Now, having fiddled around with that notion for a little while, try something else. Take another one of your existing set of ideas and ... drop it in. Maybe you've never associated the two before, but if they're in the same key (or a nearby key) and similar in rhythm and so on (or... can be made to be), well, "What the heck? Let's try it." (After all, the worst thing that could happen would be that you decide that it's a "clam" and so . . . you just pick another one of your existing brainstorms and experimentally drop it in.) Now, try a little variation on something, and drop that in. "Something smells funny?" Well, (after making sure that you didn't leave something on the stove...) switch a few of the sections around. Or something. "And so it goes." You might think that you're "just (!)ing around," but you're really not. As they say, "for quite some time before 'the lightning strikes,' you were probably playing around with sparks." Honestly... that is how the creative process works, whether you are writing music or something else. There are a lot of "rough drafts," and a fair amount of experimentation in which you have no idea what's going to work. (You literally might not know until you actually hear it ... and when you do, you just might be mightily surprised, yourself.) You might go through several revisions. The peculiar thing about "all that work" is that, when you're finally satisfied with your new baby ... the "labor pains" that produced it are totally invisible. As though they didn't happen, and/or were completely unnecessary. You just can't explain the necessity of it (or the difficulty of it) to your spouse, your family, or (you hope) your crowds of adoring fans. Uh... scratch that last bit... stars may have to deal with the "crowds of adoring fans," but the songwriters (who wrote their stuff!) never do. Now, P.S.: As you are working through this stuff, don't actually throw anything away. Disk space is cheap; pencils are even cheaper; notebooks are small and bookshelves are big. If you don't like something, neatly cross it out and, instead of crumpling it up and throwing it into your (real or virtual) trash-bin ... put today's date on it, and file it. You just might get your best sources of future inspiration from that "trash notebook." (In any case: "you created it, therefore, it's worth keeping. If it was worth your time then, it still is.") When the ideas absolutely aren't coming, spend half an hour or so poring through the stuff you threw away. As you work through a piece, trying different things, keep a notebook handy, and keep a tape-recorder (or iPhone "voice memo" or something) running all the time.

I kinda sorta think ... if your perspective hasn't changed, then "what's wrong with you?" When you join a community of people who are pursuing the same forms of creative writing that you are, it seriously helps you to put the whole thing in context, just as, for example, a stint at a publishing house might help you better judge what you read in "Writer's Market." Music is always one of those things that will stand on its own pedestal: it is "the unassailable mountain" that none of us can truly climb. But there are various paths that one can take to approach it, and various reasons for doing so. The folks who dream of doing it "to get rich," or for writing the perfect song that (fill in star-name here) will surely want to record, get a healthy dose of reality. And the much-larger group of folks who don't find the encouragement that comes from a group. One thing that the Internet teaches us all is that the true market for (and still-larger demand for) "music" is huge. Which is both a good thing and a difficult thing . . .

Something that pops into my head when I read that lyric is: "When you say 'I', you mean 'you.' Not 'me.' I want the song that I'm listening to, to be about me." In other words, I really like to listen to lyrics that establish, and then thoughtfully develop, a common ground that both of us can then share. You're pointing out things, and I'm projecting myself into the situation you've created and I'm nodding in agreement. (Or recoiling, as the case may be.) If the lyric is simply about you, and your girl, then I'm not going to engage with that nearly as strongly as I would with a lyric that draws a connection between your situation and mine. With this kind of creative writing, which is so very highly compressed, a tremendous amount of meaning can hinge upon a single word. A turn of a phrase... A metaphor... It's tough to do this.

When we use computers as virtual synthesizers, as we do, we are definitely "pushing at the limits" of our gear. It is actually quite reasonable (although unpleasant...) that a 32-bit to 64-bit transition would likely cause problems for something like a VST. I therefore heartily agree that you want to have a dedicated hardware/software environment that you can use for this intended purpose, but otherwise leave studiously untouched. "Unmolested by the winds of change." Microsoft eventually will make Win7 happen ... they're good, smart people (some of the very best in the business, actually), and of course, they have no choice. But it is going to be a rocky road for Windows users. (It's actually not a paper-smooth ride for anyone. It is a big change.)

I'm in love with you, honeybuns, (I'd surely tell you if I'm not) But the way your cousin drools Really makes me hot!

There are, indeed, many online resources ... including "right here." In this age of the digital computer, you are no longer limited by your manual dexterity nor lack thereof (i.e. "your piano lessons"). The computer can be, among many other things, "a word-processor for music." If you make a misteak mistake you can fix it. If you are imagining a phrase that is too difficult for you to play, you can still "play" it. This has an interesting effect: although it's of-course "quite liberating," it also pushes you into contact with a level of musicianship that you had not previously been held to because "you didn't have 'the chops.'" You now have access to a machine that can execute your thoughts perfectly ... something that composers have not had since the player-piano roll. (And, in those days, a great many composers did "write for the player piano" precisely because they could create their original scores using a punch and adhesive tape.) When you said, "there's some connection songs can instill that poetry just can't touch, and I want to write songs to create that," I can tell you that I felt (as I am sure, many others feel) a visceral connection with that thought. This is probably what drives every single one of us, whether we pursue songwriting as a profession or as a passion (or both). Listen to songs that elicit these feelings for you, and then lean closer to your iPod. Listen to the songs again. This time, study them. Try to put your finger on just what "makes them tick" for you.

I rather-constantly refer to Jimmy Webb's tour-de-force, Tunesmith. Which says a lot about every aspect of songwriting including lyrics. But it also occurs to me that: "writing is re-writing." Whether you are talking about words or about music or both, it pays to remember that what we hear on the radio is always the finished work. The entire creative process that led up to it is now completely invisible. Therefore, it is tempting to imagine that the idea just blossomed into someone's head fully-perfect, like Venus popping up out of her shell at the edge of the sea. Stephen King's tour-de-force, On Writing, is also informative because he actually shows you the first draft of a short story. The writing is, to be perfectly honest, mediocre. And yet, when you read the finished version a few pages later, it's quite professional. So, the point is: the main determinant of 'the finished work' is not "what first popped into Mr. King's head." Rather, it is "what happened next." I don't think that "the great writers" of anything in this world have any sort of magic gift ... other than experience, craftsmanship, and perseverance. Their work is superb because they know how to polish it. (And, maybe, because "they put in all those hours of dirty work with a rag and a bucket of polishing compound (instead of just talking about doing it )... and we don't.") And... once again... we never see the "blood, sweat, and tears." Only the finished work-product, however it was derived. Creativity is hard enough without us posting ourselves to unrealistic expectations...

Here's a few things that I do ... If, say, your iPhone has the current software-version with its "voice memo" feature, then you are never without a good tape recorder. Use it whenever the inspiration strikes. Dig the thing out of your pocket and mash the "record" button even while you keep humming that tune that just popped into your head. Whenever you are doing any sort of creative writing, do not throw anything away. Ever. Always save "a new version of" anything that you do, keeping each and every copy. (If you want to create a "Trash Can" folder within the project, do so ... but never discard it.) Every now and then, set aside some quality time to re-review every thing that is in it. Do not expect anything to "pop out fully-formed like Venus appearing in her clamshell." That is an entirely unrealistic expectation. Always bear in mind that everything you hear on the radio (say...) is a final work-product. You have utterly no idea how it got there, nor how many revisions it has gone through, nor what technical processes have been applied to it. "(Of course it sounds great, now.) Duh." When you finally arrive at your destination and you look backward at your trail of bread-crumbs, "of course" it looks like the pathway should have been obvious. Hindsight, after all, is always 20/20. "But if it really was that easy, everyone would be doing it." That's why we call ourselves "the lucky ones." We are among The Creators. The luckiest people on earth.