MUSIC AGAINST THE GLOOM

Spring refuses to come, but never mind. My friend Steve came down this weekend and we challenged ourselves to see if we could write two songs in an afternoon. (This is because I've had musical writer's block for nearly two years.) Incredibly, we succeeded.

Both of us had bits of melody, a few fragmentary lyrics and chord sequences -musical junk - and then were pretty much swept along in the creative process for a few hours. First we wrote a throwaway calypso, which was OK as a start, and then a love song just came out from nowhere. Steve is able to take my rudimentary ideas and instantly transfer them to piano and develop them, and I can build on some of the things he comes up with.

Because I have no musical education at all and am a pretty rough player, it always hits me as one of the best things in the world to be able to produce passable songs.