Back in the day when I was making music, my favorite mode of songwriting was jamming. Start with some little riff or beat. Have others fiddle around and chime in, everyone playing around. At some point usually someone would play something that wowed us. We’d stop and have them repeat it. See what could work with that, how we felt about it. Maybe tweak it a bit. Iterate until we felt there was a groove. It’s not exactly like a jam or improv, that is all about keeping it going. It’s about building something new, improving upon something. But you incorporate the jam into it and the more skilled you and your fellow musicians are at jamming, the more pleasurablethat writing process becomes.
Some people prefer working alone. They write a song with full control over the arrangement. They have this vision they want to bring to life. I tend to get my best creative work done with others through some sort of play. Working on a whiteboard with others to crack a problem. Writing by discussing a topic over a drink and taking notes.
Maybe that’s why I fell in love with fighting. It’s about getting better at it, about learning new things, building up your game over years and years of practce. It’s very much play, testing, jousting. If someone pulls off something cool, or completely gets something wrong, you can pause for a second and explore or educate. It’s adversarial but also fairly collaborative. Like two musicians playing along with each other, but each working hard to come up with the beat riff to steal the spotlight. Creative competition.
The most fun sessions tend to be 30 minutes in the gym, after class, with some partner, just jamming. Sparring for a bit, noticing an interesting position or move, talking about, playing around with it. Borrowing, stealing, modifying and walking out with a new thing you can’t wait get back to play more with the next day.