Updates on my creative work
2024-07-07
I've been meaning to write more but I only have some loose ideas bouncing around. Nothing feels like a coherent story I can turn into a blog post. I don't want to end up not writing anything so I am going to throw these loose observations in one post and see how I like that.
The Artist's Way is amazing
Reading "The Artist's Way" has been a transformational experience for me. I understand so much better now how I get in the way of myself when writing music. I don't know where to begin to explain but one good example is that instead of trying to control and steer myself in a certain direction ("I want to make an XYZ kind of song that sounds like artist ABC") it works much better if I let the music happen as I write it ("I don't know how this song will turn out but I am going to bring it to life to the best of my abilities").
The book "The Creative Habit" is not for me
A friend recommended Twyla Tharp's book "The Creative Habit: Learn It And Use It For Life" to me. The author seems to be very hard on herself and she tries to shame and goad the reader into doing the same. An example of the tone of the book:
I hope you've been to the ballet and seen a dance company in action on stage. If you haven't, shame on you; that's like admitting you've never read a novel or strolled through a museum or heard a Beethoven symphony live.
Being talked to like that just isn't motivating for me.
The book "The Creative Act" has grown on me
I wrote about this book by Rick Rubin two months ago and I didn't like the tone at the time. Now that I have learned more and now that I have "The Creative Habit" to compare it with Rubin's book has grown on me. His attitude towards creativity and his observations about things that work and don't work align with what I now believe.
I found this book nowhere near as helpful as The Artist's Way but it's still nice to nod in agreement with the things someone with so much experience is writing.
Naming songs is hard
It is important to me to publish my songs in some way and to do that I need to give them names. But I write instrumental music; there are no lyrics in my songs. I cannot just let some words from the lyrics be the title.
It has happened several times to me now that a song seems finished (it's recorded and all), I want to publish it, but I get stuck for days just trying to come up with a name that feels good.
I don't even think the names I come up with are that great. But I wouldn't be comfortable using randomly generated pure nonsense either. I am bemused by the fact that this part of the process (naming) is so difficult.
I made a video showing how I write music
You can watch it here. In that video I am doing improvisational writing which became the first half of the song CKS is JSON. (Yes, it took me days to decide on that name.)
It was really fun to record this video and see what actually happens when I write music. It was also fun to sit down with the camera rolling and say to myself "I am going to be creative now" and then it actually happened. I actually did this twice that day. The first time the sound of the video wasn't good enough to share it, but the first writing session of that day became the second half of the song.
One of the lessons I've drawn from The Artist's Way is that creativity is essentially abundant. If you invite the ideas they will come. Even if you are recording a video of yoursef while being way out of your comfort zone.
Tags: music