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.