Pitchfork website states that " Flow. Its the sense of freedom that comes when things come together smoothly and precisely that whatever you are doing wether that be driving from point A to point B or assembling the pieces of a new song out of thin sir-stops feeling like work and instead becomes something that simply a pleasure to do". This tells us that flow state is almost trance like state of being where you are simply acting out the task at hand and nothing else.

I have experienced Flow state many times when playing music.Usually it is when I am working on an idea in a calm environment by myself. I find flow state very useful as it allows me to only focus on the task at hand.  I am very productive during this time and have little concept of time. This, I also find very useful when improvising. If I turn on a backing track and start to play over it I will lose all sense of everything else that is going on in the room. My hands tend to become almost independent, where technique is forgotten and I can allow myself to let ideas flow and enjoy the experiance.

Authenticity

Shuker states that ‘Authenticity continues to serve an important ideological function, helping differentiate particular forms of musical cultural capital, and is central to debates around the use of studio musicians (bubblegum), sampling and other innovative recording techniques (rap), and lip-synching’ (Shuker, 2002: 21). This shows the importance of staying authentic in your music and putting a false image and sound out.

I have always tried to stay authentic when writing my own music. Being a finger style guitar player I believe that there is no room to put out a false image. For example, if I am recording a song there will always be small imperfections in the take, if I were to over dub or try and edit these mistakes out I would feel as if I am putting a false representation of my playing out. If you were then to compare a live version of a song and one that was edited to seem " more perfect" I believe there would be a difference in sound and standard. I have always found the imperfections in acoustic songs add to the track rather than take away, and to remove them would seem unnatural.

Likelihood

Toynbee skas that  likliehood "‘relates to the selection of possibles by the creator and the fact that some possibles are more likely to be selected than others (rock guitarist will use plectrum and electric sustain: un-likeliness – hit a diminished 13th chord, play a solo with constant ntonation, etc.)"(ibid:39). This tells us that depending on the genre there are certain styles, techniques and sounds you would expect to hear in a song. 

I tend to stick to writing in  the genre box finger style guitar with my own songwriting. Although there are those that step out of the box with effects pedals such as John Butler, I have always enjoyed a plane acoustic guitar with reverb added. I do sometimes use certain tunings that would typically be found in rock music for example, drop D but I have always played music in the context of finger style guitar. 

References