The creative process (whether writing a song, story, poem, article, etc.) starts with an idea. I think with music that’s where the similarity ends. Unless the idea is a lyric, which you can scribble on a piece of paper, a napkin, even your hand) you need a recording medium to store your idea. In the “dark ages” that typically took a bit of planning – you had to have a tape (or cassette for the Portastudio fans) loaded onto the tape deck and at least a mic to sing the idea into so it could be recorded and worked on at the appropriate time. Hopefully it was a blank tape… it could be so easy to record right over a previous idea.
Today there are so many ways to capture your idea (even your iPod or smartphone) that you have no excuse to not be getting these ideas saved for later. One definite advantage to the digital revolution is the ease we have to record thoughts for later review. I still have my 4 track cassette Portastudio (and it still worked the last time I actually fired it up) and used to keep a blank cassette beside it, along with a ΒΌ” cable plugged in so I could send a feed from my mixer (which always has at least a keyboard and drum machine attached to it). I have free app on my Ipod with a piano keyboard that I can use to capture an idea.
Let’s face it, ideas come and go and more often go. In our busy, hustle and bustle lives most ideas are forgotten before you even realize it (that might be a good thing, but that’s for another time). Doesn’t it make sense to have one of these really cool and relatively inexpensive toys to grab that next idea? That could turn into something much greater? If you have a smartphone (Android or iOS based), you are just a couple clicks from an app, probably free too, that will get that idea captured so you can review later and decide if it has potential. It might not, but it might and it might spur better ideas from that little riff that came to you while sipping your morning coffee (probably from being up all night working on the last idea).