With creativity, one must accept a certain amount of peril.
You are currently browsing the archive for the Explorations category.
The last month or so I’ve found myself not spending much time working on my own compositions. Sometimes it’s good to take a break and do other things like reading books I’ve been putting off, along with trying to get some things done around the house. Walking away lets me re-energize. Last night I sat down and began working on a couple of in-progress compositions. I’m well on my way finishing up another album of material. Still, I’m trying to take my time and enjoy the process of creating. There’s no need to rush it.
I’ve been using more guitar lately on my current in-progress recordings. Though I play and record guitar tracks on my music, I don’t consider myself a guitar player. I didn’t even pick one up until I began working on projects at Oddworld.
It’s an incredibly versatile instrument and, when used in conjunction with effects, the palette of sounds is almost endless.
I’ve recently felt myself drawn to creating music for my own artist releases that has a quieter tone. By “recently”, I mean for the last year or so. My upcoming release, Subway Meditations, is an indication of this.
It partially has to do with the soundtrack work I’ve been doing for video games. Usually game soundtracks require music that is highly dramatic and energetic. I love to write that type of material and get a lot of enjoyment from it, but I also want to explore areas of music that I have an interest in creating that I don’t always get a chance to do in soundtrack work.
That’s not the whole picture, really. A big part is my response to the world we live in, a world increasingly complex and intricate. Sometimes we have an overwhelming amount of information thrown at us. Reading the daily news can instill a sense of the need to be in an eternal state of high alert. It can be paralyzing if we try to digest too much of it.
Creating something quieter and simpler allows me to return a sense of balance. It also allows me to have something positive to share with others.
Coming up with good or interesting ideas is never a problem. One issue is not having enough time to develop all of them, but that’s me wishing for the impossible.
What must be done is to slim down the list of ideas to a key few and then to nurture them.
As I’ve said, good ideas are easy to come by. The difficult part is executing on those ideas. It’s much easier to fall apart and fail in the execution, because that is the part of the process that requires discipline, awareness and balance.
One of my favorite quotes is by 20th century composer Stravinsky:
“The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self.”
It seems contradictory but I’ve found it to be true. Having a myriad of options in the creative process can decrease focus.
The last couple of weeks have brought an interesting twist to my creative work.
Usually I do most of my work in my studio, but I decided to try a different approach by simplifying my setup. This setup wasn’t going to be for all the work I do but just for a specific group of work, which is some ambient-related music that I’ve wanted to create for a while now. For this foray, I’ve been using only a laptop (with Logic Pro music software), a small music keyboard and headphones. This setup is totally portable and allows me to work on the couch, on a park bench, etc. Pretty much anywhere, really.
The results so far have been positive. It has forced me to think and create in simpler terms and, in doing that, I’ve actually been able to create material that I’m happy with so far.
On a related note, I recently recorded material with a portable recorder I sometimes carry around. I’ve collected a fair amount of recordings of the subway in LA and I even captured recordings in San Francisco. These recordings I’m manipulating to work in more musical terms and this is what I’m using to drive some of the work I’m doing on my portable composing gear.
In my last post, I talked about “making room for the unkown” in the creative process. Doing this allows me more flexibility in exploring new ideas.
As I get closer to completing a composition, though, I tend to increase refinement toward the end of the process. While there is exploration even to the end, choices have to be made to finally finish the piece. Otherwise, it would be impossible to complete the work. A fellow artist refers to it as “closing the deal.”
Some artists are intent on creating exactly what they envision in their minds. Sometimes I’ll start with specific ideas, but more often I’ll start with a general idea of where I want to go and then explore from there.
I like the idea of making room for the unknown. It makes the process of creating more interesting to me and allows me to grow. Even mistakes I make in the process are potential opportunities.
Unintention is a hidden gem. It allows me to break into new territory and to try and avoid stagnent ideas that have been stated over and over.
Wow, time flies. Things change. I’m looking at my previous blog post (almost 8 months ago!) where I mention I was working on some new music. That was the truth, but soon after that I took some time from working on my own material to do things like catch up on reading a lot of books, hiking and some minor travel.
Mainly, I needed to catch my breathe and refresh before doing more work. Besides, the Red 5 project has been keeping me pretty busy so I’ve had my creative fountain running for that.
In the last month, I came back to the material I was working on releasing and realized I wasn’t really interested in the direction it was going anymore. So, that’s a lot of unfinished material down the drain. I’m not really disappointed, however, because I’m mulling over some newer ideas and have begun the process of creating new work.
Sometimes the creative process involves a lot of starting and stopping and throwing the pieces against the wall to see what sticks. Sometimes nothing sticks. Creativity is the act of balancing chaos and error against structure. What might result in the process is a heap of meandering or backward motion. It’s like feeling around in the dark with no idea where the cliff is. Creation is not a neat, boxed package.
It’s a kind of unfolding where I have to be patient and trust that I will pull something electric out of the ether.