i've played many different instruments, and I think everything has helped a little bit. But the best thing for me was DJing. When you're DJing, you gotta listen to the music and know your music. You need to know how tracks are built, bpm's etc to be able to mix really well. This has helped me a lot as far as producing goes. Helped me with arrangement, and technical sides of the music. It's also made me listen to more and more types of music which also helps. But as class said above, if you dont have a musical bone in your body, not much is gonna help you. Creativity is from the heart, and I think thats something that can be tuned, but not learned....