I'm not too sure how it happened but just into the first few minutes of our jamming session last night devoted totally to arranging ‘Violet’, we knew we had something going. As if by instinct, Ian had started playing a totally reworked riff floating on a digital delay effect. Before long, Boobop finds a perfect bass line. And Jerros' heavy and solid beat fit nicely in. Me, I finally found the guitar hook that I had long wanted this song to have. Pretty straightforward but it sure did work. It all reminded me of an acronym I'd come across before: KISS - keep it short and simple.

Without a reliable timekeeper, we ended up using more studio time than we had planned. A case of creative momentum pushing us on. Something that doesn't happen often. Tonight I think we all felt it.

Its uncanny but, from my high school physics, I still remember the equation describing momentum: rho (the Greek letter) = mv. Where rho is momentum and m is mass and v is velocity.

Now lets attempt a quick exercise in computation. If I we're to ascertain the mathematical value of our creative momentum basing on the formula, I need only multiply our mass with how fast we we're going.

Let's see. There were four of us in the room most probably accounting for our collective mass, which we can conveniently value at 4 times the average weight of a healthy Filipino adult. So, mass or m = 4x.

Now for velocity, which is how fast our creative process was running. Hmmm, a bit tricky. Should I express that by a crude estimation based on our heightened sensual acuity, linear floor movements, exaggerated speech, and etcetera? No, too complex. Maybe if I state the average time it takes us to finish arranging a song and relate that to the amount of work we actually achieved. Seems workable, so ok then. Off the top of my head, I’d say on average, we need about 4 full sessions to finish arranging one complete song. (To simplify my computations, I will disregard detailing and polishing work because in essence, it never stops therefore its value is infinity)

From the start of the session, we had agreed to arrange the song only up to it’s halfway point just before the chord pattern changes. So, roughly, we we’re able to arrange half a song in one session, a work that would normally take us 2 sessions basing on the average. So in summation, roughly one hour of actual jamming achieving a work that would have taken 2 hours on average. That’s 1 over 2. So velocity or v = 1/2.

Since Rho = mv, then Rho = (4x)(1/2), making Rho = 2x.

So, our creative momentum then was running at twice the average value. No wonder it took us half an hour longer to end our session. I guess it all adds up.