General Music Chat

Latley Ive been in a writting mode. It seems like everything I do or feel becomes a song. I just wonder where that comes from for others on here. Might be an interesting subject.

Craig I know you had soemthing like this on your myspace.

When we get an original song idea where does that come from?

Ive started with a simple chord change or I have started with a vocal melody and just filled in the music behind it. I recently discovered an old piece of music I had recorded. My recording partner found the song and asked what I wanted to do with it. I listened a couple of times and a vocal idea popped in my head. I took 5 minutes to write it down and it fit the music. The mood the emotion I was after.. For me I just think there are musical ideas floating in the cosmos, waiting on someone with their minds open enough to reach out and grab them. These windows are open briefly for ones with open ears to grab. Its just a moment and when its gone the cosmos closes up and these things are gone forever.

I just wonder how others feel about this, cause Ive never been able to explain this process to anyone that asks other than the cosmos explanation and its sounds goofy to me. But it fits the bill for me for some reason.

I think that there are little golden darts of insight & creativity that randomly fly through the ether which can be attracted to our engrams like magnets at certain points in our lives. I thought I saw one out of the corner of my eye once when I was writing...

In other words, who gives a flying f*ck where they come from?

Don't analyze that stuff. Life's too short for that. Grab your lil pen & scribble scribble scatch! Write as much as you can for as long as you can. be as prolific as you can, for as long as you are able.

Some ppl (Mozart) are lucky & have it all the time. Some (Beethoven) get it in spurts. Some only get it once, & then it's gone forever, & they spend the rest of their lives trying to get it back.

The point is, if you are writing, then you are creating & producing something. This makes you feel great. Contributing new product, creating, makes me feel like god or something akin to it, & it fulfills my sense of self & validates my very existence like nothing else.

I used to be all superstitious about it. I only tried to write at night, cuz there were none of those daytime interruptions. Or I'd try to get myself into a particular state of mind, or use a certain setting, or I'd go to a "special place" to work...Eventually I discovered that none of that stuff mattered, cuz when I was in that mode, all seemed well in the world, I could handle anything, cuz I was WRITING, & that was the most important thing I could ever be doing. And I wrote some pretty good sh*t when those times struck.

I used the past tense, cuz I haven't written anything worthwhile for some time. I miss it, but when I try to do it these days, the muse seems to elude me, & I end up being merely frustrated with my efforts instead of fulfilled in any way, & the stuff I put out these days is pretty lousy in comparison to what I was doing before, imo. There is no genius to what I do now. I can stil be clever, but the heart & soul of it just isn't there like it was.

Some people believe that we are simple vessels for music via our soul to be manifest into the physical plane. That music originates from a divine source through us.

Music's ability to connect us with the Divine is unmistakable, the Sufi's insist that music is the only true Art we have, I agree.

Theosophy has discussed the Devachan world that imprints divine music upon our astral body when we sleep for us to use when we are awake.

Balinese Gamelan music is tied in with the dark occult of Ilmu Khodam, African drummers have always killed the animals that they made their ritual drums from for obvious reasons, the Whirling Dervish can actually be seen as living sigils of both audio & visual.

Musiq is a quality organized in sound - sound is vibration - vibration is the divine connection.

Music would be the only true art if we only had ears. But we see, touch, smell and taste things as well. Anything that can inspire those senses must be considered art.

Someone once said that art is man's triumph over nature.

Maybe I'm just a party pooper. I really think that all of the music I've listened to loved and embraced just effects the melodies and chord progressions I come up with.

Maybe I'm just a party pooper. I really think that all of the music I've listened to loved and embraced just effects the melodies and chord progressions I come up with.

Maybe so, but the lyrics come from somewhere too.
It's all part of the music, and the music is all part of you.

Music would be the only true art if we only had ears. But we see, touch, smell and taste things as well. Anything that can inspire those senses must be considered art.

Someone once said that art is man's triumph over nature.

"Why is music called the divine art, while all other arts are not so called? We may certainly see God in all arts and in all sciences, but in music alone we see God free from all forms and thoughts.

Who sees God in all art and in all science? This presupposes that all art and science, and of course music has God as a primary component. You speak as though these are facts, they are not facts, they are simply your belief.

In every other art there is idolatry.

There is no such thing, why do you make these all encompassing statements which are simply your belief. I know many artists who do not worship anything or any one.

Every thought, every word has its form. Sound alone is free from form.

Sound may be free form form but organized music relies on form.

Every word of poetry forms a picture in our mind. Sound alone does not make any object appear before us." - Hazrat Inayat Khan (Indian Sufi Master and virtuoso musician)

Philby, Im not really concernded with where it really comes from, Ive learned to follow the muse so to speak. My cell phone has a little recorder that I fill with sounds melodies and even lyrics, I always have a pen and paper with me, cause I have lost so much over the years that might be good to have.

Etu, thanks for your contribution here! Its great to get different insight into the process.

Jimmy, I think you and I have a lot of the same roots musically and I have always dug your stuff.

Paul, I guess I agree that I always write songs to some sort of common form and thats just from listening to commercial music. I rarely stray away from common forms/

Thanks guys, this morning I was trying to get away form some of the themes in post that popped up over the weekend. Just want to get back on track and discuss music, instead of fighting(Ive tryed to leave that part of my life behind for years, but it sometimes raises its ugly head) guns and ammo.

Craig I hope you see this and add to it, cause I think I stole your tagline for the subject. Sorry man you know I repect the hell out of you musically, may not always agree with your politics or religion, but you are a very creative person that contributes so much.

It comes from Barry Manilow. He is music and he writes the songs...

The baker who creates a divine confection is an artist.

The poet who creates images with words is an artist.

The painter who leaves part of his soul on the canvas is an artist.

The writer who creates characters so real you feel you know them is an artist.

And the musician who creates beautiful, interesting, thought-provoking or even hateful music is an artist.

I know first hand because I dabble in all of the above.

No problem, I love talking about this stuff !

I'd like to add that I don't consider writing stuff that is contrived (like a 12 bar blues or formulated, generic music to be a creative task.)

Some of our most impressive, divine connection can be seen when we are in the middle of a smoking solo and all of a sudden you play 20 seconds of something where you have no idea where the heck that came from, you never would have thought of that.

Some pf the great Classical composers created their scores like this, with inspiration and uniqueness that, to me, can only be seen as a divine connection.

The baker who creates a divine confection is an artist.

The poet who creates images with words is an artist.

The painter who leaves part of his soul on the canvas is an artist.

The writer who creates characters so real you feel you know them is an artist.

And the musician who creates beautiful, interesting, thought-provoking or even hateful music is an artist.

I know first hand because I dabble in all of the above.

The baker is using a recipe, maybe altering it slightly, this is not art
The poet uses a pre-existing sequence of words to describe a setting or mind form, this is not art either
Painters, again are using images and creating impressions on your mind, that already exist within your mind
Same with writers, impressions

Music, real creative music and playing, comes from someplace else than our psyche.

Excuse me, but my chili, my hot sauce, & my spaghetti sauce are all high art! So is a good garden. Idolatry? I think not.

Of course, I often say I "feel like god" when I write something I consider to be good...yet I don't consider that in any way a sin.

Music & creating food are perhaps the most fleeting of the arts. One taste & it's gone, unless you've recorded it (or saved that recipe!). It's hard for me to equate the arts - painting, carving & sculpting, poetry, prose, gardening, cooking, music...they're all so very different, yet they can truly focus my attentions equally.

I've been told my massages are art, but I dunno how to equate that either. (I worked as a masseur back in the late 70's)

Music, having rules in the west, cannot be said to be as free form as pure sound. There is a structure to it, & patterns, as much as a building or a Celtic carving. I don't believe that it's greater or lesser than any other "art," & often it's created with far less actual work than any other art form, once the artist's skills are honed to a certain level.

One is communicating in any of the above, through words or sound or color or shape or smell or taste. Perhaps the ultimate art would be to combine them all...but then that would simply be life, would it not?

Where does it originate? Imho, it's man's desire to emulate his creator, yet man will always be limited by his medium. There are times when we are closer to the divine than others, & those are the times we can create the best & the most.

There's a bird around here (I dunno what kind) what makes a steady rhythm in its call. It goes "beep beep *pause* beep beep," & the beeps are 1/8 notes, while the pause is a 1/4 note, in 4/4 time. I've had some fun with that, whistling around this call & coming up with a basic blues thing, while walking around in the woods. Me & the birds, working together to make simple music forms.

The 4-note melody in Beethoven's 5th was also built around a german bird call, most likely. We create what we can with that which we have on hand, & call it art, as we attempt to be gods ourselves by creating.

It comes from Barry Manilow. He is music and he writes the songs...

DUDE !!!! ROFL!!! Fisherman Bob FTW!!!!!

The baker is using a recipe, maybe altering it slightly, this is not art
The poet uses a pre-existing sequence of words to describe a setting or mind form, this is not art either
Painters, again are using images and creating impressions on your mind, that already exist within your mind
Same with writers, impressions

Music, real creative music and playing, comes from someplace else than our psyche.

I disagree with all of that. Bakers do not always follow recipes. That is how we get new treats. Like when I soaked my pumpkin seeds in vinegar before roasting them. mmmmmm
poets make up new sequences.
Artists can do the same thing you described when going off in a solo. Happy accident is one way. And that applies to painting as well.