I am about halfway through reading  

Joni Mitchell

In Her Words

conversations with

Malka Maron

Gaining insight into Joni's process is exciting.

Chew on this tidbit. 

And yes, do try this at home tonight.

Malka-What about the music part of the songs?

Joni- The music? The only time I really play an instrument is to explore it. Sometimes I have to play an instrument in order to rehearse material for a tour. That’s drudgery to me. That’s work. That’s the piano lessons as a child, that’s hammer and saw. Practice. Practice. Practice.

The time that I enjoy playing the most is when I’ll sit down late at night and tune my guitar into a tuning which I’m unfamiliar with, so I have the unknown in front of me, a combination of chords in front of me, a combination of strings, which I’m unfamiliar with the fingering. Then I would just pass my fingers, in sort of a mathematical fashion, fifth to the seventh, maybe back to the third, you know, to the eleventh, to get a really sort of strange colour in there. And just mess around with it, and then gradually introduce liaisons — the things that smooth from chord to chord, and then it gradually takes shape, and that … that’s also a magical process and sort of trance-like, takes total preoccupation with it. But that comes easier to me than words do. I think that you keep your writing muse alive as long as you’re open enough so that experience seems amazing to you and things continue to be magical. [But] the musical muse, in my particular case, is easier to keep alive, since it’s abstract emotion. It’s feeling and it’s the colours which transport certain feelings into you or out of you. I seem to be more prolific musically than I [am] lyrically.