Experiance or Imagination

[livioguerra]

Experience is the canvas - imagination is the colour you put on it. Both are required to complete a picture that someone can appreciate.

the reverse might also be true ... even though it comes to the same ...
something similar can be said for a piano performer ... really great pianists play with the mind, the heart and the hands ...
in both cases if one of the elements is missing the song will appear to lack truth ...

[lewisrg99]

Experience is the canvas - imagination is the colour you put on it. Both are required to complete a picture that someone can appreciate.

Great answer, I must write it down

[xtian]

I think Imagination can be more great when writing a song. because there's a lot to imagine, whenever what can your eyes see it is possible to write a song. when you tackle your experience it is much little or small ideas that you can get because not all the things is you've done already or experience. But as SteveO says, you imagination and experience can be both useful in writing a song in different genre.

Goodluck to you.

[Bellini48]

Lovely, Jerome. I won't even express my own opnion, 'cause you've done such a thorough job of it. I subscribe in full.

[JamesRLogan]

Hi all,

Hope you are all well?

Im not a song writer and in all honestly doubt i have the skill to ever become one, however i have a strange question. Which is better? Imagination or experiance? Please leave reasons behind your ansawer and i would be interesting to hear/read both sides of the argument.

Cheers

Syn

experience means absolute bollocks if you don't have the brainpower to make connections and truly understand and gain something from what you experienced. imagination doesn't require experience to be important, only the will to explore possibilities of making it a reality

[Gibsom Street]

When I was a kid, I experienced S.R.A....left for the road at 18....and years later was asked to compose film music for college students producing horror B type films. It seemed to come natural to me due to my horrific experiences. Although none of the films got off the ground..it was a healthy experience to face my fears and it developed my triggers to a even tempered level. I have also written instrumental music revolving around my personal fear of the ocean's life force. Miles Davis' Bitches Brew was like a teaching for me to expand myself in improvisation and writing. Although my music sounded nothing like his, he influenced me to not allow barriers of the unknown to prevent my expanding in the arts.

[Gibsom Street]

The imagination aspect to writing is based on the natural flow of life and how you personally are connected to it. If you were John McLaughlin from the Mahavishnu Orchestra, you might base your imagination around a guru..or if you were Billy Joel you would feel compelled to write songs about relationships between men and women in an intelligent "read between the lines' way ..while bringing overall points of interest not often mentioned on the subject matter of relationships within his lyrical content and it's a poetic and hospitable way of reaching others who feel the same way he does. That's actually very beautiful and meaningful. Imagination process connected more to lyricism and theatre ..for example The Who's Rock opera Tommy can be a very complex experience. Sometimes you're under pressure to use your imagination and that takes discipline for the musician/writer to mask he/she's feeling of forced art...but that's the music business and not so much the art. Yet...who can really tell one hundred percent of the time.. if any art was forced on an artist after hearing it time and time again..over the course of your life..when the musician has abilities to mask any indication of a pressured situation felt by the listener within the music to the extreme of hidden knowledge/practices which are not so revealing to a person who does not have talent and not by any means plays a musical instrument.

Imagination is used in a process of thinking, dreaming, pondering, and fantasizing to compose instrumental music revolving around a concept for a subject matter. This means that the main writer has a personal interest in nature surrounding them for example...like Billy Cobham and Crosswinds.... to take the sound of nature and literally place that sound between tracks to develop a visual affect on the listener. This is part of the first connection with the listeners. It's usually the fringe aspect to the composition in that it draws you in immediately , but much later the music Cobham has composed around the effects..creates a theatrical vibe.

Experience is an aspect to a musician's life that must be molded into a universal level of playing in order for the artist to experience the ultimate. When a musician spends 12 to 15 hrs. a day studying theory, practicing scales, learning Classical music, ..they may desire to compose music of their own directly derived from the knowledge obtained in study. This is perfectly natural when a musician experiences this...however..the most vital music you can give to the world is the music that contains originality within it's expression. Let's say that you've played many Paganini pieces on the Classical guitar, Pat Metheny, Johnny Smith, George Barns, Bucky Pizzarelli on electric guitar, Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix for Rock guitar, Joni Mitchell, Sandy Denny,for Folk...the question is what are you going to do with the music? After learning Asian tunings and producing Chamber Rock are you adding reflections of other people's playing as a clone or are you adding it to your own vocabulary and expressing it with individuality? This is basically education pleading for you to educate yourself. Think for yourself. The imagination process will not come natural if the musician hasn't experimented on he/she's own and perhaps instead spent more time playing reflections of icons. You can always break from the 5 hour a day practice of Segovia's book of scales...to wonder out to the lighthouse and compose a piece of your own.

[xample]

You cannot have one without the other, both are pretty significant in creating a song