Songwriting is a funny thing. You’d think that you sit down and write music that reflects how the writer is feeling at the moment. And that is what happens some of the times. But other times depending on where the fingers fall on the fretboard, music pops out totally different from what the writer is feeling.
Such is the case with this rather reassuring and hopeful riff. I was not feeling this yesterday. In fact I had a rough day, stressed, anxious and irritated.
It’s as if the music was trying to soothe me.
Recently I came upon this nugget from someone who mentors empaths. Great ideas are not all conjured up by brilliant minds thinking. They are given to the open and receiving minds. Call it inspiration, call it muse. We are not always the source, we may be recipients. With practice you can get better at listening and receiving. It doesn’t have to be all up to our own wits and ingenuity to create the world’s most brilliant innovations. We can get help from somewhere beyond, beyond our limitations.
Maybe the guitar knew I needed to hear this yesterday. Maybe my fingers knew where to fall on the fretboard to express optimism from deep within, beneath my conscious mind. How ever we see it, I find it comforting that my little mind isn’t all there is, the only thing I can rely on. Because, boy, some days I feel pretty small, immature and powerless.
I can sure use help from someone bigger and wiser than me.