The Wrong Notes Are the Good Ones
Miles Davis once said: "If you're not making a mistake, it's a mistake."
He wasn't talking about typos. He was talking about the notes that feel wrong at first—the ones that make you flinch, that don't fit the pattern, that go somewhere unexpected.
Those are the notes that matter.
Because perfect is boring. Perfect is predictable. Perfect sounds like everything else that's ever been played.
Writing works the same way.
“It takes a long time to sound like yourself.”
– Miles Davis
Miles didn't wake up sounding like Miles. He played other people's music first. Copied their phrasing. Learned their tricks. Then, slowly, he found something nobody else was doing.
Same with writing.
You'll sound like your influences at first. That's fine. That's how you learn. But eventually, you have to stop imitating and start exploring. Play around. Take a left turn. Write the line that feels slightly off.
That's where your voice lives—in the thing only you would say.
“It’s not the note you play that’s the wrong note—it’s the note you play afterward that makes it right or wrong.”
– Miles Davis
A mistake is only a mistake if you panic and try to fix it.
But if you keep going? If you lean into it and make it part of the song? Suddenly it's not a mistake anymore. It's a choice.
Writers do this too. You write a line that feels strange. Instead of deleting it, you build around it. You let it change the direction of the piece. You follow it somewhere you hadn't planned to go.
That's not an accident. That's how good writing happens.
“I played the wrong, wrong notes.”
– Thelonious Monk
Monk didn't just hit wrong notes by accident. He played them on purpose. The dissonance, the off-kilter rhythms, the moments that made you think "wait, what?"—that's what made him Monk.
If he'd played it safe, he'd have sounded like everyone else.
Writing needs wrong notes too. The weird metaphor. The sentence that zigs when it should zag. The idea that doesn't quite fit but refuses to leave your head.
Don't smooth those out. They're the only interesting thing you've got. Two wrongs can make a right.
“To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable.”
– Ludwig van Beethoven
Beethoven cared about fire, not flawlessness.
You can write a technically perfect sentence that says nothing. Or you can write something messy that lands like a punch.
Which one do you remember?
Stop writing to impress people. Write like something's at stake. Write like you mean it. The rough edges won't matter if the work has a pulse.
“There are no wrong notes on the piano, just better choices.”
– Thelonious Monk
Monk didn't see mistakes. He saw options.
Some choices work better than others, sure. But none of them are "wrong." They just take you different places.
Stop agonizing over whether you're getting it "right." You're not solving an equation. You're making choices. Try one. See where it goes. If it doesn't work, try another.
The only wrong choice is the safe one you make because you're too scared to try anything else.
"Don't play what's there, play what's not there."
– Miles Davis
If you only write what's obvious, you're not writing—you're reporting.
The best writing lives in the gaps. The subtext. The thing you don't say but the reader feels anyway.
Leave room for people to complete the thought. Trust them to catch what you're implying. That space between the lines? That's where the reader starts to co-create with you.
And that's when writing stops being words on a page and starts being an experience.
Stop Aiming for Perfect
No one remembers perfect.
They remember the line that surprised them. The moment that didn't go where they expected. The writing that felt alive.
Miles said it best: "If you're not making a mistake, it's a mistake."
The work that plays it safe is the work that disappears. The writing people remember is the writing that took a risk—even if it didn't land perfectly.
So write the messy line. Follow the weird idea. Play the wrong note and see where it takes you.
That's the only way to sound like yourself.
