Passing the ball: football, music and writing

 Yesterday I loaded my cello into the car and set off to play Haydn trios for an hour or so with a couple of friends.

That's not us in the picture - we were too busy playing to take a picture. It's the Duke trio, and they're playing Hadyn too.

Anyone who plays this kind of music will realise that my friends were being kind by choosing Haydn - they picked the simplest, most predictable music, the kind where if you get lost it's entirely possible to guess your way back.

Haydn's perfect for me because I'm not much of a musician - but even with my skills we could make good music together.

 I love making music with other people because of its immediacy. You sit down, tune up, and play, and there it is - music!

I remember talking to a wonderful cellist about creativity - and he said that he wasn't creative in the way that a writer is, because he simply plays the notes that someone else has written.

What he said is true, but there's more to it. When he plays, he stirs my soul - he brings his own tone, phrasing and understanding to the piece. When I play with others, it makes me happy to follow that route through the music together. We're creating something that wouldn't exist if we didn't pick up our bows and make a noise.

In lots of ways, playing music with others is a bit like playing football. You need technical skills, you need to understand the rules, you follow a pattern, and you have to play as a team - there's some room for stars, but mostly it's down to collaboration. Great teams have a sixth sense that tells them exactly what the others are doing and what they're about to do.

A game of football or a Haydn trio can be a mess of indivuduals failing to pass, or it can be a beautiful synergy - wonderful to play inside, and almost as good to watch. And it's a thing of the moment: when the players leave the pitch, it's over.

Writing, though, is different. I spent yesterday morning editing one story and beginning another. I'll spend weeks on each before I send them out. I  choose every word on the page afresh, one by one, every time I begin a new story. There are patterns, yes, and there are games I can play, but there's no one there to bounce the ball back, or play the harmony. I'm on my own. But when I've finished, there's a story. It's still in the room after I leave.

That's why I like playing trios, but it's also why I love to write.