The Muse

I took a tiny step in the songwriting direction this week. During that precious hour between when my husband goes to sleep and my own bedtime, the Muse made a brief appearance.

I was in the shower (where the world’s most brilliant ideas are born), and a Jimmy Hendrix style riff came to me. The riff itself is rather unremarkable. What was interesting was the source of it. The inspiration came from the rhythm of a particular expression that I like to use to describe myself. And I had this epiphany. I always expected the Muse to bring me melodies. But my forte is language, so it doesn’t make any sense for me to approach songwriting from a musical direction. I should use a lyrical tactic and let the music follow from there. I remember hearing an interview with Stevie Ray Vaughan where he talked about how the original bluesmen came up with their riffs. They were inspired by everyday sounds in their environments: cars driving over a manhole cover, people walking down the street, etc. As a technical writer, the sounds of my environment are linguistic. I am constantly tuned into word choice, phrasing, nuance, and the like. So the most obvious source for me to draw from is language. It so terribly obvious, but somehow it never occurred to me until now.

When I got out of the shower, I took my cell phone and whispered my little composition into the memo application. The last time I had done something like that, cassette tape recorders were still a viable media format. Yes, it’s been that long. Just recording was an enormous achievement for me. But then, I took it a little further.

During band practice two nights ago, B left the room for a few minutes. For some reason, I felt the urge to share with H, our songwriter, my little ditty. He’s my friend and I know he wouldn’t cut me down. So, I let him listen to it. He didn’t say if he liked it or not. He just told me that I needed to at least develop it into a verse.

I wasn’t at all discouraged by his reaction. Motivated, actually. But alas, the Muse has not yet returned with the rest of the song. I will be waiting every evening during my quiet hour.

March to the beat of your own drum

I’ve always wanted to be a musician. Not just someone who tries to make music, but a bona fide, professional musician. I’ve always wanted to be able to express myself through music. No other art form supplies the same level of emotional release.

But alas, this dream has always been thwarted. When I was a teenager, my idea to become an opera singer was very quickly chopped down by my family. In my twenties, my own realization that I didn’t have the technical level to hang with the professionals lead me to give up music altogether -- for 10 years. I’ve tried to replace the need with other things: an engineering career, journalism, linguistics, marriage and family, etc. But nothing has ever worked. I’ve always come back to music.

The birth of my son pulled me out of my long moratorium. In the last year, I have gotten my guitar playing back in shape and started collaborating with a couple of colleagues who have since become great friends of mine. Already, this project is a dream come true as I had never before found people that I was comfortable making music with. But still, I don’t feel like I’m expressing myself artistically.

H is a decent songwriter and during our weekly band practices, the three of us try to put together something that resembles his vision. I’m a little jealous of his ability. For me, the ultimate artistic self-expression is creating new music. And I’ve never felt comfortable doing it. I’ve always found my compositions lame and contrived. I’ve never had the guts to write soul-bearing lyrics.

I thought about getting back into music journalism. Writing is the only art that I’m talented enough at to do professionally. But after a few steps in that direction, I’m beginning to think that I’m once more cutting down my own dream. I want to be a songwriter, so I need to do whatever it takes to become one.

All this stems from an encounter 14 years ago when I met my favorite songwriter, Z. Ever since, he’s been my idol. He’s no virtuoso, but his music is catchy and his lyrics are genuine. His personality comes through, unfiltered. And I’m fascinated by the person I see there. He is uncompromising in marching to the beat of his own drum. I admire his courage and aspire to be more like that. He’s the whole reason I want to be a songwriter.

Just by chance, I discovered that Z is taking an online course in improvisation. So I looked into it and found that the same website offers a class in songwriting for beginners. It really piqued my interest. After perusing the site, I realized that songwriting still scares me. But this is also the perfect opportunity to overcome that fear. Because this time, I’m not going to let anyone convince me that I’m incapable of being a true musician; especially not myself.