The Art Of Not Writing Songs

Over near my sofa, lies my guitar (not Jen's guitar). It's still in the case, because I hardly have time to play anymore. But I've been writing songs for years! Basically I would write a song or a snippet of a song, then forget it , then try to remember a little bit later on. This was frustrating because I would often lose some great music that I had written. (I once wrote the song "Billie Jean", but clearly Michael Jackson stole it, like he clearly stole some other songs.)

But then one day I had some writing utensils (not like these that you can eat with), and jotted some notes down. Months later, I actually remembered it from my written chords and lyrics. Normally my bouts of inspiration are random, so whether a song gets remembered is based on whether I can write it down and whether I am feeling lazy. I've got about 4.2 songs written towards my eventual album (one of my goals). Of course Jackson will just steal it anyway. So I always try to have pen and paper on hand... I eventually also figured out I should keep these inside the guitar case!

Earlier in my life, when I was a music student in high school, I thought that writing music that people liked was 90% the music and 5% the lyrics and 5% the person listening to it. Those numbers have constantly been changing, but now I feel its more like 25% style, 40% honesty, 20% confidence and 12% subtlety. (Numbers do not add to 100% due to rounding!). I also think its more important for music to have meaning than for it to be liked by others (okay, I'm about 65% purist and 41% populist).

If you had to put a formula to good music ingredients, what would it be??

Daniel [Music_]