My favorite way to create a song is not by committee, but to write a singable draft and then run it by a single collaborator. Often another verse or a slight shift in tune or time or a segue into another theme direction will result. It's much easier to judge the quality of a song when there's another pair of ears and eyes. Since my brother died several years ago I havn't had a collaborator, and I miss it.

In workshops I've been in, when they tell you to withdraw with several other people and come back in 30 minutes with a song- well, to me it's boring, unsatisfying, flippant... I don't like it, and it's not the way I operate.