Where Does Music Come From?

'Where [does music] come from? I do not know and have nothing to do with it!' - Mozart

Many songwriters feel the same - and while it's a common belief that music bubbles up from an undiscoverable mountain spring - to attribute creative ideas (any ideas!) to supernatural forces is both a cop out and a dead end.

But, yeah - that moment you first play the entire virgin song - the lyrics and music which simply weren't there until you brought them into being - that moment is transcendent, thrilling, awesome. It's easy to be a believer.

For me, it beats any satisfaction I get from my job, chasing women, getting lashed, writing my novel - or even eating a damn fine curry.

In fact, it even surpasses listening to others' music.

Just.

"Music so wishes to be heard that it sometimes calls on unlikely characters to give it voice" - Robert Fripp

Robert's suggesting here that you serve the music - that the arrangement and performance of the music, the music as an independent entity with a will of its own, is something out of your hands. It's another common idea. And yes - any music worth its salt is service. Not as an entity, though, but like Michelangelo feeling his way through the marble to where the ideal of the statue awaits. That's the impulse you serve.

And there are musicians who serve the song, and ones who don't.

As a simple test - get a copy of a song in the original (Behind Blue Eyes by The Who, for example) and compare it to any recent cover version. See what I mean? Philosophy counts.

Whether you're Machiavelli, Mozart or Michelangelo, there are many approaches to creating art.

Over intermittent blogs, I'll be mapping how it's done in music, with a bouillabaisse of participation, anecdote, theory, history, comment, gear and a love of the highest artform - music.

Tres