It feels good to pick up the acoustic and write when the mood strikes me. Sometimes, the melody or chords just pop into my head and I know if I don't stop everything and write it down or record it right this second that it's going to be gone forever.
Somewhere, there is a celestial room with shelves upon shelves of albums. Maybe this room is next to the one with the filing cabinets1. I imagine it looks a bit like a college library, only at the end of the row there's a record player and a set of headphones. The albums contain all the music I've written throughout my life. They're labeled by date, with specific notes on instrumentation, lyrics, inspirations, and the state of mind of the composer at the time. There are albums labeled "AS RECORDED," as well as cross-referenced versions labeled "HOW IT SOUNDED IN HIS HEAD." The albums labeled with recording dates and documentation are right along side many that read "NOT RECORDED OR OTHERWISE DOCUMENTED (DURING COMPOSER'S LIFETIME)."
My fear is that the "NOT RECORDED" albums already outnumber the "AS RECORDED" albums by a rather large ratio, and every time I have a tune in my head that slips away, that ratio increases. It's undoubtedly posturing to believe that I'm recording my music for "posterity," when I'm sure that no one else loves and hates my own work as much as I do. Nonetheless, it's really important to me that I not simply lose pieces every day to the music library in the sky when I could be saving them, remembering them, recording and sharing them with anyone who cares to listen.
Luckily, I work for myself and sometimes can afford the luxury of stopping everything at a moment's notice for reasons such as these. Here's a piece that I saved today.
1 Except if Jesus drops by, he won't read and judge, he'll just grab another pair of headphones and jam out to tunes with you.↩
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