A Slave To Process

A lot of people wonder about the process of writing music. Do you start with the melody? The lyrics? The concept? The chord progression? The rhythm?

The answer is that you start with whatever is there. Sometimes it is a bit of melody that comes first. Sometimes it is the idea for the ending. Whatever it is, that is what you must hold on to and elaborate to create the complete work.

There is no one way to write music. As disciplined as it is, there is always give and take, improvisation and even fear about where the next idea will come from.

I had a teacher who used to say: "If you only have one way of doing things, you are a slave. If you have two ways, you have a choice. Once you have three or more ways, you start to have options."

And that is what being creative is all about - giving yourself options so that you can turn a disaster into a work of art.