The Creative Process?

I have never thought of myself as a creative person - and many of my friends would most likely agree with that ;-) I appreciate Art, Literature, Painting & good Music. I can do interpretations of these things, such as: copying a painting or photo, editing someone's story to improve it, sing a song with pretty darn good pitch - but as for creating, I don't know where to begin. I can't make something out of nothing.

So - this being my long-running mindset, I had a strange experience the other day. My husband is a musician & writes fairly decent songs. Well, he wants me to sing on recordings for some of them. A bit hard, because I learn how to sing by hearing the song sung - it almost has to be recorded already for me to be capable of it. Anyway- he said he wanted me to come up with some harmonies for the song & I just felt paralyzed. I told him that if he came up with them, I could sing them, but that I certainly couldn't come up with anything. Well, after 20 minutes of some friendly bullying, he did get a harmony out of me. But what a draining process. And, I would say he encouraged the notes that came out - I didn't really come up with them on my own. Definitely not 100%.

Later that evening, he played me a new melody for an old song of his & I had a weird sort of intuition that it was just wrong. I hummed how I thought it should go & he agreed and changed it. He basically said, see you can create music. It just takes work.

The thing is - it didn't take any work. It was almost like the tune was out there & I could hear it better than him. At least - if I were some kind of spiritual person, I might believe that... But it didn't feel like it came from me.