Across history from bards to rock 'n' roll, leather trousers have also played a crucial part in turning incoherent mumbling into poetry or songs.
Bill Shakespeare and Jalal al-Din Rumi wrote romantic poetry, expressing in words the innumerable nuances and forms of love but who knows whether they ever talked about their feelings to their mates.
Their modern counterparts are Jagger and Richards, Chuck Berry, Dylan, Springsteen and Johnny Legend. They all use songs to tackle matters of love - the lack of, the losing, the finding, losing again, finding in unexpected places (just like car keys) the joy, the pain, even the "I will have you whether you like or not" - all in a glorious parade of feelings marching to a great tune.
Society happily condones this form of emoting for men and finds comfort in the way these songs dial up our own feelings so we don't have to find words for them ourselves.
These songwriters are talented, but we should not assume that only some people can do this. We all have the ability to write our own poetry and songs. The art world is to an extent built on the somewhat shaky notion that artists are special with a monopoly on creativity.
That is largely marketing hype. All people have the potential to be creative but the commodity model means that great art only becomes so when someone has decided that for us.
I am facilitating a series of songwriter workshops because I write songs, get creative satisfaction from this and find it rewarding to hear and share songs written by others in our community.
Songwriting, like all the other art forms, is about composing existing elements into something that was not there before. Whether that something is deemed to hold beauty or meaning lies with the maker.
A finished piece of creativity may be taken up by an audience of one, a thousand and one, or never be seen by anybody but that does not diminish the creative impulse behind it.
That is not to say people should not visit galleries, go to gigs or buy books.
These remind us of the power of creativity to shape how we see and hear the world.
Although art is not essential to the survival of humans, it is there in every culture, country and corner of the world. Perhaps it is because humans have always been fascinated by and, in earlier times, strongly bound to the earth's rhythms, rhymes and shades that we seek to emulate them visually and in music.
Creativity provides release no matter who you are. For many, a guitar, pen and paper are all it takes to talk about how they feel.
■Terry Sarten is a musician, writer and social worker. Feedback: tgs@inspire.net.nz
