Anyone can play guitar (according to Radiohead, at least) - but can anyone write a song? The Guardian's Jude Rogers went along to a songwriting retreat in the company of musician Brian Briggs and poet Paul Henry to find out. The answer seems to be "Yes", even if there's no guarantee that the song in question will be much cop. Ultimately, she found it a valuable experience, one that has profoundly changed her perspective: "[F]rom now on, I'll ... think about how people don't necessarily write songs to fit into trends, or around reviewers' assessments."
Rogers can boast a measure of musical proficiency, at least - whereas I'm a spectacularly unmusical music writer, and I do sometimes fret about rubbishing others' efforts in case the retort is "Well, I'd love to see you do any better". On the one hand, I'd maintain that a critic shouldn't be expected or required to be musical themselves; after all, you can legitimately pass comment on the quality of a meal even if you can't cook. On the other hand, though, it probably wouldn't do me any harm to gain a greater appreciation of how challenging the process of composition can be, and how much courage it takes to present your creations to a potentially uncomprehending audience, exposing yourself to criticism and ridicule.
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