It's like Nature/Nurture, Chicken/Egg, Great Taste/Less Filling

For a couple of decades or so I have ruminated over the mystery of inspiration and the creative process. At the center of this conundrum is a fork in the road with one sign pointing toward the sky that says "Wait, it will come". The other sign is pointed at your head and says "Get to work". I've always taken the first path since I have had the experience of creating things that seem to have fallen from the heavens. But now that I haven't seen much celestial light for many years I'm inclined to whistle a new tune.

Some of my recent reading makes the case for finding a creative path by combining loose rules and hard work. This kind wacky purposefulness is probably exactly what I need but it would be a very new trick for this old dog. I would like to belive that bringing the artist's view to the forefront could create new habits and pathways. Imagine if you had an ongoing project of building a book of quirky observations, rhymes, metaphors, and catch phrases - not for any particular purpose, it's just what artist's do.

When I was in high school I figured out how to make multi-rack recording by bouncing tracks on a stereo reel-to-reel tape recorder. I'd play something into the left channel, then the left speaker and I would play a duet into the right channel and so on. I remember having a blast doing this. Some years ago I learned enough computer-based audio recording to put together some decent arrangements of songs that I play. The results are OK but I noticed that the mental process involved in this work tends to kill any creative inclinations. It would be like trying to write a song while calibrating a gas spectrometer. But it's not just a right/left brain phenomenon. The fact that you have ALL THIS POTENTIAL keeps you from entering through the proper doorway. Instead of building a song from a rhythm pattern or catch phrase or harmonic idea you tend to waste time experimenting with tuba sounds becuase you can. This is a shame since the potential of a home studio is so great. So the question is can there a way to touch the potential but not the 440 volt buzz kill? There has to be a method that works.