Who's your daddy, does white wine give you headaches, and do you really miss the Dewey Decimal System?

[MikeRobinson]

Okay ... if you completely did not understand the relevance of this topic post, perhaps you will now very-much enjoy this "TED Talk" post about songwriting:

 

 

... but it really does manage to bring out an important point about the creative process:  that it really is "the product of a series of choices," none of which may have seemed to have pointed to some pre-ordained conclusion at the time that it was made, but which arrived at a pleasing outcome nonetheless.

 

So ... next time "writer's block" seems to want to overtake and then bury you ... "enjoy!"

[MikeRobinson]

Although "TED Talks" of whatever flavor are, of course, "a staged media event," I nonetheless appreciated this presenter's en passant exposition of what the actual song-creation process looks like:  "thumbs up, thumbs down."

 

You're never actually trying to "find" some "foregone conclusion."  You embark upon the journey with no idea where it will wind up ... "this time."  Instead, you dream up an[other] idea and try it out:  "thumbs up?  or down?"  If down, you set it aside and try the next one.  Eventually you find yourself playing your brand-new song all the way through and now it's "thumbs up all the way."  According to who?  According to you.  Now, "this song is finished."

 

I really like that approach because it takes the pressure off.  (And yes, at the end of the presentation, he really had written a song about:  "who's your daddy," "does white wine give you headaches," and "do you really miss the Dewey Decimal System."  All three of which were randomly selected from cards written earlier by participants.  And, he had the audience singing along.)

 

"Write.  Just write."  Whether or not <<this_song>> turns out to be, or turns out not to be, "the thing that makes your fortune," at the end of your life(!) the only thing that you can truly regret is ... that you didn't write.