Skill is a big part of the difference between an amateur and a professional.  Just because you use water pipes and electricity in your apartment or house, it doesn’t mean you can fix them yourself if you have a problem.  You need a professional – a plumber or an electrician.  Someone with skill.  Though writing a song isn’t quite the same as wiring a house, it still requires skill (not just inspiration or lucky guesses) to do it consistently well.

What creates skill?

Talent – It helps to have a ‘feel’ for songwriting; sometimes called ‘natural talent’.  This certainly exists, but it is so intertwined with Desire and Determination (see below) that in the long run sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.  Natural talent is a fact, and a few people have so much of it that it carries them quite a ways.  But many of the songwriters you most admire did not start out as prodigies.  They loved it, so they worked at it.  They learned something new every day.  Their songs got better as a result of this application; and their inner talent or genius began to shine through.

What you make of what you have is usually much more important than what you start with.

It’s often been noted that as a high school freshman Michael Jordan did not make the Varsity team.  He was a decent player.  And he was obsessed – he couldn’t stand not being the best; he worked and worked; and his genius began to emerge.

Now I’m not saying everyone’s a genius and that all one has to do is to work hard to be a genius!  What I am saying is that even Michael Jordan, generally acknowledged as the best ever in his field – or court – was not recognized as a prodigy.  Over time he outworked the competition, and from persistent application his genius emerged.  It wasn’t obvious from the start – except maybe to him.  (Oh yeah… and he also grew to be 6’6″ tall…).

Study – Learning from those who came before you.  This can come through books to some extent, but usually there’s somebody talking to the person who’s trying to learn, explaining and demonstrating how they do things and how other skilled people do them.  It can be a coach or teacher, it can be a peer who’s somewhat more experienced – a bandleader or band member, a fellow songwriter, etc.  Or all of these.

Then there’s the study you do on your own.  With music and songs, it mostly starts with Listening.  Again, a lot of this can be fun… if you find this sort of thing fun:  Learning, playing, and analyzing the songs of great songwriters.  Trying to figure out what makes them tick, what makes them great.  Trying to imitate them.  Deeply checking out Richard Rodgers’ and Brian Wilson’s melodies… Burt Bacharach’s and Lennon/McCartney’s chord changes… Bob Dylan’s and Eminem’s lyrics… etc., etc.  Also the grooves, arrangements, and tempos that bring songs to life…  Why do some things work better than others?

Repetition – Doing it over and over and over again – writing song after song.  As Robbie Kondor said to me years ago, “Songwriters write songs.”  Most songwriters have to write a lot of songs to learn their craft and find their ‘voice’, to incorporate all their influences into something special.

Learning from mistakes – or maybe this is better said as accepting that many songs will be failed experiments… they just don’t work out the way you hoped they would.  So you go back to the drawing board and work on the next one… Trying a lot of approaches, gaining some idea of what might or might not work.  Not that you don’t have to start the whole thing over from scratch again every time…

Desire/Determination – This is the X Factor.  Sheer determination can overcome many lacks, shortcomings, obstacles.  Most accomplished musicians and songwriters I know were not considered the ‘best in class’ in high school.  But they are the ones who stuck with and kept improving and learning, through the good times and bad.  They thought about quitting… but they didn’t.

(And don’t forget; some of us – like me! – are late bloomers.  For some of us all this takes more time than for others.)

It’s amazing to me how much a person with desire and the willingness to work can improve – it can be astonishing.  It’s also amazing how quickly a person of great talent without a lot of desire and determination can plateau… and never fulfill their potential.

I think I’ve been both of these people in my life.  I guess I still am.  I know how scary it is to challenge myself to get better and how exciting it can be to actually get pretty good at something I love… and I also know how tempting it can be to say, ‘I’m good enough now… my real work here is done.  Let the rewards roll in!’

But, to a creative person, the latter position is kind of a living death (and usually the expected rewards don’t exactly roll in on schedule either).

Finally, real Skill is the thing you have that no one take away – except you.  It’s knowing how to do something at a level with the best in the field.

There’s another part to this, of course.  That’s the part that’s beyond skill, beyond competence, beyond technique.  You know it when you hear it or see it.  You can’t teach this part.  You can’t force it.  You can’t fake it (for long).  Michael Jordan.  Muhammed Ali.  Miles Davis.  Bob Dylan.  Joni Mitchell.  Philip Roth.  Marlon Brando.  Judy Garland.  Martin Scorcese.  The Coen Brothers.  The greats.  All most of us can do is aspire to moments at that level.

Let’s face it: the majority of the most acclaimed people in any field are largely forgotten after a few years or decades.  Some of us ask ourselves, Will I create anything of lasting value, that people will appreciate as a real contribution decades and even centuries into the future?  And, of course, the answer is probably No… most of us won’t have a street named after us…  Even those of us whose work will be remembered beyond our lifespan won’t know that for sure when we go.  We accept (or not) that we’re just a small part of something much bigger.

So… ultimately I write because I want to, I need to… and because to me, while I’m here, creating something seems to be a more worthwhile activity than the alternatives.  And it’s worth it to try to get as good at it as I can.  That’s where skill comes in.

Two quotes come to mind:

“You’ll never know if anything you write is any good. You’ll die without knowing. If you have to know, don’t write.” – John Berryman

“I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying. I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment.” – Woody Allen

Please let me know your thoughts in the Comments section below.