There are two kinds of people who can make or break your creative spirit. The first is the editor who thinks he is a writer because he knows grammar. The second is the piano player who believes he or she is a singer because she can read music.
Both forget one important truth: grammar and notation are tools, not talent.
An editor who knows grammar but not the heart of writing is like a surgeon who knows how to hold a scalpel but has never learned to heal. Words have rhythm, tone, and soul, and that cannot be learned by counting commas. You either have the gift or you do not. And when such editors hold the red pen like a sword, cutting the very life out of a writer’s words, they destroy more than sentences—they destroy spirit.
Similarly, the piano player who insists on notes being followed to perfection but refuses to feel the music, strangles the song. I have seen this often.
The one with the best voice is told to sit down because he cannot read the score, while the one who can read every note sings with all the warmth of a refrigerator.
Some of the world’s greatest singers, like Pavarotti, could not read music. But what a loss it would have been if some self-important piano player had told him he was unqualified to sing because he did not know where middle C was.
Talent does not always come dressed in technical training. The editor may have studied at the best university, the pianist may have trained under the finest maestros, but creativity belongs to the one whose heart beats with feeling.
A born writer senses rhythm in words the way a musician senses pitch. Both deal with harmony, one with sentences and the other with sound.
It is time we stopped confusing ability with artistry. It is one thing to polish a diamond and another to create one. Many of today’s choirs sound mechanical because real singers have gone home, tired of being told they are wrong by those who only press keys.
And many newspapers sound dull because editors cut out the melody from the writer’s words, thinking correctness is better than colour.
I sometimes wish these self-appointed experts would realise that their job is not to compete with the talent before them but to bring it out. The editor should protect the voice of the writer, not replace it. The piano player should lift the singer, not drown him out.
Let us not allow the carpenter to think he is an architect simply because he can use a saw.
Let us not silence those with true gifts. Because when the editor and piano player forget their place, the world loses its stories and its songs.
And sadly this attitude also finds itself in our spirituality with the ones who follow rituals looking down at those who don’t, but worship from their hearts…!
The Author conducts an online, eight session Writers and Speakers Course. If you’d like to join, do send a thumbs-up to WhatsApp number 9892572883 or send a message to bobsbanter@gmail.com
