March to the beat of your own muse

My darling husband is a musician. Not professionally, but his whole life he's played one instrument or another and he just gets music. I do not. I don't get music to the extent that I can barely clap along to the rhythm of a song, much to my husband's amusement.

So yesterday, in the car, on a road trip home, we started discussing music. We started with him trying to explain to me why 6/8 time is different from 3/4 time, which I feel was a bit like tossing me in the deep end of the pool. I mean, mathematically, they're the same thing. Why is it different musically?  Anyways, from there he tried to teach me about the difference between where the emphasis is in rock music versus jazz music (For rock, on the 2 and 4 beats, whereas jazz is the 1 and 3 beats, traditionally).

And I can understand it. Intellectually. I can't feel it, though. And I'm never going to feel it. I'm just about the least musical person I've ever met, and I'm okay with that. Sure, I'd love to be able to sit down at a piano and wow my friends, but it's never going to happen. My husband, on the other hand, just gets it. Music is an intrinsic part of him and that's great.

But it got me thinking. In Greek mythology, there were 9 muses. Each one was dedicated to a different area of creativity. And I kind of love that idea. Sure, I got the muse for writing, but the muse for music didn't even make it into my neighborhood.

My brother is a professional photographer, and a damn good one. Sometimes I look at his work and feel deeply uncreative because he can produce images of such incredible quality and all I do is write down the words floating around my head. It doesn't feel creative to me. But creativity comes in so many different forms.

So remember that when you're faced with someone else's creativity. It may make you feel inferior or like you can't do your own thing, but just keep in mind, they've got their own muse. There's no reason why their muse is any better or worse than your own muse, but just different.

Well, except for Clio. I think we can all agree that a muse who inspires history is really only of use to a timelord.

Skye