The Musician Struggles and Strives

Ian is composing. He sits down at the piano and "plays". He was doing just that earlier, and got very frustrated that he couldn't remember some particular pattern of notes that he had intended for his composition. I was rather surprised, because I hadn't realized that there was any particular rhyme or reason to the spontaneous outburst of inspiration. Finally, he announced his first piece: "Oh, Christmas Night."

Then we had the following dialog:

Ian: Do you think sometimes maybe I should do some music to help Madeleine go to sleep at night?

Me: That sounds good

Ian: Good! I'll work on it.

About two minutes later, he came back, quite frustrated:

"Daddy, I just snapped out of it and I forgot what I was doing, and I stopped doing a song that I was practicing for Madeleine.""