Ask any great songwriter exactly how they do what they do, and they'll be hard-pressed to explain. True, the creative process is difficult to put into words, but the real reason may lie in the fact that successful songwriting relies on so many different ingredients—skill, to be sure, but also sheer inspiration and the willingness to hear the inner muse and to be open to new ideas. This may account for why many great musicians don't write great songs—and, conversely, why many talented songwriters have relatively weak musical chops.

But every songwriter knows that it's rare when lightning strikes and all the elements are in place. Most of the time, a basic idea has to be worked and reworked to come to fruition. This is where a collaborator can help immensely, offering fresh approaches and objective input. But if you've been unable to forge a great partnership with another musician (or even if you have), we're here to tell you that help is at hand from that beige or gray monster humming away quietly on your desk. Yes, this is the 90s, and Computers Are Your Friend.

Well, maybe not exactly your friend (though it's probably only a matter of time before we start seeing "Lennon/McPentium" songwriting credits), but the fact is that there are a slew of powerful software tools out there designed to aid and abet in the songwriting process, and many of them can at least help to get you over a hump—suggesting ideas and doing some of the sweat work—if the muse has partially abandoned you.

Everyone knows by now about the power of MIDI sequencers—in conjunction with a multitimbral synth or sampler, they let you create complete orchestrations out of even the simplest musical idea. They also allow key transpositions, timing adjustments, and basic editing of regions and/or individual notes. But many of them also sport features that can spark the actual creation of musical fodder. Some, for example, allow individual tracks to be played backwards or even pitch-inverted. Don't laugh—rumor has it that Abbey Road's "Because" was based on Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata played upside down—and it's entirely possible that an unexciting melody line played in one direction can turn into a dynamite hook when reversed. Others sport full-blown tools that allow recorded MIDI data to be radically altered using mathematical operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, scaling, and randomization.

The newest generation of MIDI sequencers take a more free-form approach than their predecessors, making it easier to get into that creative groove. For example, there are some that don’t force you to play to a click—just play away, and the program automatically creates a tempo map that follows your rhythms and sets the bar lines accordingly. Others allow you to record your own click track after the fact, using it to line up data that was originally recorded freeform. And most sequencers allow you to arrange short phrases into short "subsequences" or patterns that can then be chained together for playback—some even enable multiple subsequences to be played simultaneously, each triggered on the fly simply by typing a number on your computer's keyboard. This enables you to experiment with different combinations of musical ideas—a unique creative spark which can sometimes serve to fuel the songwriting process.

Computers can even make it possible for you to collaborate with live musicians who don't have computers. Most of today's MIDI sequencers offer notation features, translating your MIDI data into standard "dots on a line" which you can then print out and pass on to your partners. If you need to take things a step further, there are dedicated notation programs that can generate complete multi-staff scores from your MIDI sequences, with a full complement of engraver-quality features such as articulation and phrasing annotations.

What if you want to get into the world of MIDI but you don't play keyboards? Fear not—there are specialized software products that enable you to sing or play in a melody line acoustically (say, from a wind instrument) and then convert the signal coming from your mic into MIDI data. Other integrated hard disk recording / MIDI sequencing software packages perform this feat on prerecorded tracks, so you can hum a part into a cassette recorder in the middle of the night (when inspiration often strikes) and then convert it into a MIDI sequence in the morning (when the hangover usually lets up).

In the mid-80s, there were a slew of so-called "algorithmic composition" programs on the market that allowed a computer to act as a "ghost" composer (though one which wouldn't demand royalties). These were designed to spew out complete songs based upon user-defined constraints (i.e., "stay in the key of G minor for 32 bars, then modulate to F major and use a triplet feel in the melody but dotted eighth-notes in the bass line"). However, they never (to my knowledge) actually produced anything commercially successful and so they eventually faded away. Though you'll find remnants of these programs in some modern sequencers, their 90s ancestors are much less intimidating and much more user-friendly. All of these programs allow you to type in (or, in some cases, play in) a chord progression and can then automatically create complementary melodies, harmonies, bass lines, and drum parts, in any "style" you choose.

Successful songwriting requires not just talent and discipline, but the willingness to accept creative input from wherever it may come. The machinations of a computer, no matter how cleverly programmed, can never replace the endless complexity of the human mind—after all, they were created by us. But in the right circumstances, they can make a significant contribution to the creative process—and, besides, they make great spel chekers!