Elizabeth Gilbert on creative genius
2009-02-17
Last week I was at the TED Conference and saw this talk by Elizabeth Gilbert that really speaks to every musician and writer I know.
I promise the 19 minutes will be very well-spent. Then I'm curious to hear your thoughts, below.
- Do you feel songs come “through” you?
- Do you wait for inspiration?
- Or do you just work and work no matter what?
- Do you feel you've already achieved your “greatest hit”?
- Or is your greatest work yet-to-come?
I think other musicians would be curious to hear your thoughts on this too, since it's often a very lonely pursuit, so feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of this page.
I'm not a musician (although occasionally, as you can see via the above link, I play one on YouTube) but I identified strongly with Ms. Gilbert's message as a creative artist from a different segment of the creative spectrum.
Sometimes it's relatively easy to stay positive and focused, even you're not in the fame/acclaim/cash-generating funnel.
When I'm firing on all pistons and enjoying myself at my work, life is usually a little better. When I worry about what's coming (or not) or what happened (or didn't), life is usually a little worse.
Staying in the moment, in other words, is what keeps me on my game, making stuff, being sane. (Or just the good kind of crazy.)
This is one of my fave TED vids of late b/c it's so humble and earnest and still funny. Elizabeth Gilbert is a brave and generous soul.
I think when you arrive at the point where you can't imagine doing anything else and the universe has somehow aligned to allow that to take place, then to do anything other than create would be antithetical to the act of living. My instinct is that the creation comes through me but is often inspired by events.
This discussion resonated deeply with me. I have, for as long as I can remember, really taken the "mule" approach as well. It's really the only way to for me to work, and I actually don't really plan to change that much. I have worked and actually studied very hard put a lot of "tools in my songwriting toolbox" and I actively seek out ideas for songs--usually titles. I think ultimately I am too much of a busy body to wait for inspiration. That being said, how can you explain when a great idea comes? I can search and search and search and there will be nothing doing and then when I least expect it, I stumble on something really nice. One thing I do pretty often when starting something new is just think to myself "there's a really good chance this is not going to be the best thing you've ever written so just have fun." For some reason that takes off a lot of self-imposed pressure and allows me to just take that raw material and see what my tools can do with it. It's really hard for me to say if I've done my best work because it's hard for me to commodify my work. I know that I have a lot more work to do, and it will be very different from what I've done before. Better? Well, sure, to me it will be . . . Thanks for starting the discussion Derek!
PS - I got to meet Walt from the Future of Music Coalition last weekend at the Millennium Music Conference in Harrisburg, PA. What a cool group, keep up the good work!
I saw this one yesteray... Just perfect, poignant, powerful, revealing. I found myself relating to it in many ways.
Sometimes, I do feel like I'm channeling a song -- they just "arrive". A short while later, a whole song is just there. Done and done. Other times, I'm consciously trying to coax out a lyric with which to later create music for. Inspiration comes randomly, usually. I'm glad I have tools at my disposal so that if I get an idea, I can immediately start recording and getting it down - even if it's just a hook, or one line, or even just a beat. Otherwise, I have a notebook with my at all times for other insights and ideas.
I believe my greatest work has yet to come, definitely. I really don't feel I've challenged my potential musically thus far. But I've been learning, growing, struggling, and honing skills.
That being said, it's always an odd balance of inspiration and anxiety I suppose. You never know if anyone will like what you put out there... Even if I love it myself.
Yes, thanks for sending this over, Derek. I was definitely inspired by this, I have been dealing with emotionalism a lot lately and fear becoming "crazy"....this was a beautiful dissection of that. I feel like songs come through me, sometimes aren't even related to my life experiences as if they're a story about someone else told from a first person point of view. Thanks for sharing this, I've passed it along to the creatives I know and love.
I have written over 200 songs during a build up of recording equipment & know how.
Personaly Guitar is my inspiration, I love the feel of scales & phrazes & how the string positions & string guages give each chord a voice & the personal feel that your fingering style gives that is unique & recognisable regardless of electronics.
Once I have a guitar piece that realy gives me satisfaction & I have solidified the timing accents I transfer those accents to the drum track.
Being a Heavy Metal Musician my lyrics have to shock & normaly are accented vocaly like another guitar.
Avoiding long explanations is good & when you have something to communicate summerising it is worth while, or finding words that are a bit more substantial helps too.
I vocalise like I play Lead Guitar & thats my secret, you could work it out but then you would know anyway, hope this is helpfullin some way, getting a structured system is realy helpfull & gives a recognisable style.
Roy Stone
http://www.roystone.com
Hey Derek
Great talk, and thanks for the link.
When writing I'll always start with the music, a few nice chords combined or a nice riff, build to a climax then either taper or continue. This is always the basis.
Production of the whole song might take months but i can generally hear the finished product right away.
The lyrics usually come to me as I continually play the chords / riff etc.
Hope this is some help to someone.
Download 7 FREE ARNIOE SONGS by signing the guestbook at:
www.arnioe.com
Take care and thanks for your support
Cheers
Arnie
Well... first things first: GREAT VIDEO.
I never wait for inspiration... I go after it. All the time. I keep my "little bag of inspiration bits" always full by watching movies, looking at photographs, playing with my dogs, watching the clouds pass by in the sky and cooking. Oddly enough I try to stay away from getting inspired by other musicians... and back when I started doing that was when I started to sound like me. Because I was not inspired by chord progressions, tones, arrangements... I was inspired by sensations. You'll be surprised the great results you can get if you start searching for inspiration on people that are outside your field.
Are u a photographer? Get inspired by a musician or an actor. Are u a musician? Get inspired by a dancer or by the way your sister takes care of her kids...
And no... I am not afraid of not being able to top my "greatest song". That is actually what keeps me going... the need to search for something better. To top myself. That's where all the fun lies.
Sorry about my poor english mistakes!
Greetings from Brazil
Fantastic Talk!
This talk has really resonated with the music community online. This is the 4th site that I follow that has embedded this video on their pages. Including mine. When I write I am the mule showing up for my part of the job. But sometimes it's more as if I am possessed and the words come fast and furious My pen can hardly keep up.
Ronnie
Ronnierecords.com
The creative process is about allowing yourself to flow. Once you have the knack you will always flow. Second guess yourself and you interrupt that flow. For me a song is always there in my emotions in the little jams I play and then in those lyrics that run non stop just at the edge of my consciousness lining up for miles and miles around the block of my inspirations. Yes the song flows through me not in the sense that I am channeling it from some other source; it comes from within and is not content until it expresses itself without. I've learned to turn a tape recorder on during every jam since I can write an entire 3 verse chorus song in a single sitting all the rhymes in place and perfectly felt all along the way.
If it is a struggle it is because you aren't tuned in. Like I said learn to flow with yourself and trust yourself. That is when and where the song begins and ends and completes itself.
Now you may ask is it any good? Of course. Take the middle man out of song writing and keep the river clear so that your expressions will run freely through. Then you become merely an instrument for the song to sing through
Great speech. I totally agree with her. I just keep showing up for my job, no matter what. Sometimes songs did "come through" to me, but I believe most of the time I worked hard, like any other job. I've never experimented sucess with music, so I couldn't know about writing a "hit"...
Thanks for sending.....Nice to hear verbalized the real reason we all do what we do.
I think she's right on. Her talk really captures the nature of the ideal creative process and the psychological havoc it can wreak on the artist.
It's really shocking to me that this experience is so common - especially the anxiety part. I thought it was just me.
Her constructive approach to dealing with the anxiety by giving credence to the 'guru within' is fantastic insight. I know this is going to greatly change my work - and especially the *way* I work - for the better!
Thanks for sharing this, Derek!
Ole! - Great video - thanks Derek
Thanks for the video link Derek. I have spent many many hours thinking about the art and craft and sanity of writing songs and trying to carve out a life in music these past 15 years. Five albums and countless tours in US and Europe later, I think I've come closer to peace in my creativity. I don't believe you need to suffer to create...and I've had both musically supportive and non-supportive wives while living in this city of Bukowski, Los Angeles. When I was younger, songs seemed to fall out of me and I felt they came through me...but as I've grown older I recognize the real work and craft elements involved in really listening for it and making time for whatever the muse presents. I do believe each person has their own unique process to learn and honor while creating music. And I've probably already written my greatest hits if the accepted definition of this success is TV/Film placement money or iTune downloads...but I try to improve on these songs every day!
Hey Derek,
Honestly, when I watched her talk live, I was really saddened that at her stage in life she's already resigned herself to a life with her greatest hit behind her.
Jon
I think this woman's onto something: there's a bigger point being made here other than "work" and "greatest hit." And it's more a question of listening to that point than talking about it.
The point is how to embrace the paradigm presented as far as surviving the creative process and dispelling the pain = creative glory myth. Everything stems from that, even your opinion of your own work.
How many one hit wonders are we aware of who think their one hit is the worst thing they've ever done and refuse to play it (and objectively, how often are they right on the money?)?? There's a huge chasm between what the artist (singular) would call a good song and what the watering-down masses (collective) would call a hit.
I firmly believe that the majority of people out there writing their own songs see the process as therapy. I think the questions asked above are more about music marketing than actual music, and I think just about any other artist will agree that they are absolutely mutually exclusive.
XOXO...
Thanks for posting this, great talk, definitely thought-provoking. In my limited experience any kind of success at all (even just a few people giving positive feedback) can provoke the kind of anxiety Elizabeth describes, I still worry too much about what people will think and I've felt several times that I'd never be able to improve on a track. However I try to avoid this, keep believing that the best work is ahead and keep working at it. I think its always possible to get better. I think its very important not to try to force inspiration, its too much pressure and definitely unpredictable. The best thing is to try to get a balance between music and other stuff- I agree with the previous comment as I find my best inspiration often comes from things entirely outside music so I take a break if I'm not getting anywhere!
I know that all of the good stuff is a gift. I love the way she put it.
jc
I believe songs/ideas come through you and I definitely believe they be lost like the poet was describing. But I don't think there is ever a shortage of these ideas. There is only an unwillingness to follow through with these ideas. I believe we get so caught up what we WANT things to sound like that we don't just let them happen. It's like that movie Knocked Up when the guys father says, "life doesn't give a shit about your plans". Or something to that effect. I also don't think that we ever achieve our greatest work until our last work. Every successive piece of art is better than the last even if it can't be seen, which goes back to what we WANT things to be like. My greatest piece of art won't come until I die.
I've known this for a long time, and thought myself insane.
I believe songwriters are radio stations waiting for new songs to be played that they can tune into.
Brought tears to my eyes...beautiful...
Tirk Wilder
Hey Derek,
That was quite an amazing video that truely touched my heart. When I was a young child I thought I was a little crazy, little differnet than others because I could write songs, but have always said they don't come from me, they come through me. It is like someone else holding my pen, except there is no one there. This is very hard for others to understand and therefore you can be labelled as crazy, different etc. Now several years later I embrace this great experience, to a point where it becomes extremely overwhelming, but amazing at the same time. The message that Elizabeth gave was important for me to hear. I know that it would drive me crazy to stop writing, I don't even think that is possible. The sucess of where you go with it is the most difficult. I have just currently put my heart and soul on the line, once again, releasing my next single. Thick skin helps, but praying is my way of living it. And living what you were meant to be on this earth, not just working to survive.
That's right. Creativity find the moment. I do not serch, because I know I can create nothing I can only participath the moment of creation. Knowing where the true creativity coming from then I know how to give myself a break and join in at my honest time with friend's in this world. I take break when I realize it is my time to rest. I completly come untouchable. It is true surrender for the moment of rest. I know my destiny it will be out there even if I like it or not and it had been from the first moment creativity knocking on my door. Even if I failed it is not my fail. Is fail of sourse. The universe. When I first mention all this to my ex which is my best friend today we would not believe me but now he do.
We are all from nature within this universe. If I can not trust where I am from then how can I even say I live? I am fearless bulit up on one circumstance is Respect.
Anything goes in this life as a long as it is built up on RESPECT.
Respect for myself and other's and the universe. I can trust my life because I do not have a any expectation in this life.
Thank you very much for your sharing and your friendship at all times.
Have a wonderful journey in this life with the other's.
Your friend emily eunjue hayes
Nice talk. And always a bit surprising to be reminded that a lot of people don't know that.
A lot do, though. Henry Mancini
commented that The Beatles "had" genius.Hogsbawm in his "Age Of Capital" laid the emergence of "The Artistic Genius" at the feet of the industrial revolution inasmuch as it usurped the place of religion.
Pick your metaphor. She's dead right. Showing up is 99% of anything.
I found Elizabeth's point of view difficult to digest based on my own experiences...She seems to be rationalizing her own darkness and a medieval (and earlier) spiritual world view with a good measure of quasi divine inspiration...well, whatever gets you through the night. But, while consulting a spiritual layer in the air may (or may not) have spared or life force of the likes of Hemmingway, Foster Wallace, Kurt Cobain, Jerzy Kosinski, Sylvia Plath,Virginia Woolf Freddie Prinze and Van Gogh I do not believe would have allowed for the work...as it stands.
This speach is so great.I can here the tones and songs in the middle of the night right now.I always knew it wasn't me with no more schooling than I had,but I kelp on wrighting and singing.Great job my friend and keep the pen moving.God Bless!
nice "inspirational" video and a great positive way to look at continuing the creative process.
Do you feel songs come “through” you? personally, yes, i do. i like the concept of taking myself "away" from the norm or digging deeper within yourself. now i don't mean drugs or any foreign substance, but in this stage of my life, i love the sheer exploration of "self."
Do you wait for inspiration? Or do you just work and work no matter what? i don't try to wait, but i feel that inspiration is all around us. i wrote a song based merely on a conversation i had with my mother, bc she ended up crying and it killed me. And within a matter of minutes after our conversation, a song came right out of me.
Do you feel you’ve already achieved your “greatest hit”? Or is your greatest work yet-to-come? No. not even close. i've been told by many people in the industry to write, write and write and more stories that for every 100 songs, there is 1 hit in there. as a singer/songwriter, it's hard to swallow that pill, per say, but if you stay true to yourself and write what makes you happy, i think you will reach a niche in your career where all your hard work will come together. i feel like i have a lot more to offer, but am very happy with the progress i've made. i think we all live and learn, it's just how we perceive what we've learned that helps us continue on the creative path. thanks again!
Sure releaf,outstanding view and so, true.
From a songwriter's perspective (I discuss this at length in my upcoming book
("Songcrafters' Coloring Book: The Essential Guide to Effective and Successful Songwriting"):
A creative person in any field (music, theater, poetry, science, math, architecture, etc) can at any moment, be struck by a flash of inspiration, if they keep their special "antennae" out and allow themselves to be open to it. It does not matter what you have or have not produced in the past.
Nor does it matter whether one believes creativity to originate externally or internally (I've spoken to tens of thousands of songwriters -- creative inspiration comes in every way, shape and form; Many give similar descriptions to what Ms. Gilbert said about Ruth Stone and Tom Waits)
Creative inspiration, however does not in any way guarantee a resulting work of art that is great, good, adequate, or anything else. There are two distinct phases to most artistic endeavors (some more than others, but certainly in the world of contemporary music). These two phases are creation and craft.
Several of the great writers I've interviewed say that a difficult part of the creative process is keeping the "editor", the "critic", the craftsman, away while a creation is being born. It is a learned skill to keep creativity and craft separate from each other.
A flash of creativity is like a trip into a deep mine shaft, and you come up with a raw, uncut gem. It is rare and valuable, but to many people it just looks like a dirty rock. To get it to the point where people gasp in awe when they see it, it needs the fine crafting to cut the stone and polish it. That is not a process of creative inspiration -- it is the analytical, calculating work of a skilled craftsperson. Many artists simply stop when they have in hand the product of a creative spurt, and never come back to it wearing the hat of the craftsperson. It is of course the artist's choice whether to do this or not, but many artists find themselves wondering why people don't 'get' their work and why their artistic gifts are not understood.
Many creatively gifted folks have not made themselves aware of the difference between expression and communication (see article here: http://www.billpere.com/PDF/Express_Communicate.pdf). This would clearly lead a creator to feel increasingly isolated (note Gilbert's reference to Norman Mailer in her talk and the many other artists who self-destruct.) .
Expression comes from inspiration. Communication comes from craft. In the realm of songwriting, well-crafted songs are the ones which achieve lasting appeal, across styles and generations, to become standards.
When Ms. Gilbert says she thinks her best work is behind her because of her current success, she is suggesting that commercial success is linked to one's artistic "best". These are not the same thing. Success often distracts one from being in touch with their own creativity (public appearances, fan mail, interviews, teaching, material rewards, etc). No matter what one has produced in the past, it is always possible for the best to lie ahead, if the channel to one's creative core is kept open. As Ms Gilbert said, just keep on keepin' on.
Bill Pere
Founder and Executive Director, LUNCH
President and Executive Director, CT Songwriters Association
IMC Indie Artist of the Year
An Official Connecticut State Troubadour since '95
Director, CT Songwriting Academy
http://www.billpere.com
http://www.lunchensemble.com
http://www.ctsongs.com
http://www.ctsongwriting.com
"One of the Top 50 Guiding Lights of the Music Industry" -- Music Connection Magazine.
Many years ago I had a dream in which I traveled back in time. When I got there, I remembered all the songs I have already written, so, in the dream, I could really amaze people by trotting out all these finished compositions. Since that dream i have approached songwriting totally differently. I now imagine I have already written the song (in the future) and am only trying to remember exactly how it goes. It's a subtle difference, but I find, as I'm picking through the possible chord changes and licks, if I think they already exist, and I'm just trying to play them right (instead of making them up) that it makes it easier to recognize the occasional flash of brilliance and takes away the overwhelming multiplicity of possibilities we all face when creating.
Near the end of her wonderful talk Elizabeth talks about the artist/dancer being visited by the Muse, and how when the work is done, the Muse departs and may not return.
When I heard this I could not help but weep, for it brought to mind the characters in my novel in progress, and I realised that when I finish this book, my characters may leave my life and not return. I have this gang of delightful, funny imaginary friends in my head, and I will miss them. Thus are sequels born. But if we do not let them go when they want to visit elsewhere, and force them to stay against their will, thus are disappointing sequels born. How else could it be?
So when the time comes to say goodbye, better to release that which flows through us with proper grace. Perhaps those who suffer for their art were unwise enough to seek to chain the creative spirit and bend her to their wills, and she, desiring freedom, turned on them.
Better for all concerned that we accept that we do not own her, and she is not tame, and cease our clinging, and simply honour her in gratitude that she ever blessed us at all.
I certainly believe in inspiration and I always find myself wondering where a song I've just written came from after I've finished it, but I know that truly songwriting is a matter of writing and writing and writing whether you're inspired to do so or not. Songwriting is a craft. Not a job...a craft. If you are a songwriter, or want to be one, you must practice your craft as often as possible. I believe that "I have to be inspired before I can write" is simply an excuse for laziness. Just like anything else, the more you practice your art, the better you get at it.
Interesting; some of her talk was real cool, but I think there she is confusing commercial success with artistic writing- and the opening is backwards- the art isnt whats killing us- its everything else that led us here.
Breakthroughs usually come for me after letting some things germinate.
Wonderful! You were right, well worth the 19 minutes. Inspiration does not visit the lazy. Mostly I just have to plod away, despite the fear of absolute nothingness, and the lothful feeling of starting anew each time. I don't have a lot of time to "navel gaze" and try to judge myself, beyond a professional feeling of constantly striving to improve. Someone else will do the judging, some day. We don't get to judge. When my grandmother was asked which of her 11 children she loved the best, she said "Whoever was sick." I tend to love the works I am creating at the time, and not worry about them afterwards. Beau dommages!
Once again, thank you so much! this is right on time. Blessings from the Universe!1. Yes songs either come through me, or find me. Usually befor some event take place. The event makes me understand why the melody + lyric came to me, or some times just the melody. Usually around 4-6am. I keep a noet by the bed. (smile)2. No I don't wait for inspiration. The process began for me as a child and still continues. I'm amazed to see it happening in some of my grand children. The geni is familiar, and I can feel it's presence. our new 16 month grandson has it.He turns on the key board (alone), plays, dances and sings, looking me straight in the eyes. Sorry, I drifted. I am driven it my life work. 3. I don't even look at the process with regard to having written my greatest work etc.. The process is a gift from the universe in all it's aspects. I happy to be a conduit in the process!
Excellent video! I enjoyed it very much. I write songs when they appear. Sometimes they need a bit of coaxing to come out and develop. For me the music is the easy part...and then the work begins trying to come up with the right lyrics. It's probably the hardest work I know...and it's like trying to solve a puzzle...a piece here, a piece there. But when it finally comes together it's so rewarding!
I'd like to believe that my best song is just around the corner...this way I know what I'm writing is good and I can continue with the direction I'm going in...to some unknown destination that the music is taking me....and just enjoy the ride.
Wow! Fantastic, thanks for sharing that. People have asked me so many times how do I write or what compels me to write. Ever since I remember I have 2 ways. One is when I see something, a situation, hear a conversation or even my own thoughts and they have a sort of rythmn,like a beat so I'll play around with it in my head and words just flow. Those songs are good and when I have finished I'm happy and content that I have it out there. The songs that are always my favorites are the ones that wake me out of my sleep. I'll be fast asleep and I hear the songs the words the music the instruments everything. If I jump up they pass and I can't remember a certain element and I'm frustrated because I feel like I really missed out on something. So I found a way to just lay there and listen carefully to everything then I get my dictaphone out (bed side) and sing along. When I have it in the dictaphone and listen the next morning I can still hear the music in my head. I tell people this and there is always a strange look on their faces so to just hear Elizabeth's talk was amazing. I have always believed that we are all joined so if I don't do it someone will. I think every idea out there is stored in our collective sub-conscious and some of us can dip in when we please and some of us (like myself) bump into it, and maybe some people ignore it or are unaware. I think Everyone has different ways of expressing it but it is something I believe we all share. I can write to order like if someone wants me to write lyrics about the birth of their new baby for example but it doesn't feel the same somehow, I will always pick at it and find fault. I can't imagine being told to go into a studio for a couple months and come up with a song because that just wouldn't feel right. I only go in a studio when I have everything locked down. I write when it comes and if it doesn't come I don't really panic as such because I know it's just like a cycle. I go through periods where I can only listen to music. And then I go through stages where I can't listen at all and I'm writing non stop.
Whadda talk! I didn’t like Eat, Pray, Love and was skeptical when I saw her on the TED list. After seeing so many Twitter posts about its greatness, I gave it a chance. I really liked the picture she painted of her ideas and to give voice to an experience I had. My friends and I went to see Hank Williams III & The Damned Band last year. I was front row stage right in front of Joe Buck on stand up bass. For a moment, there was no time or space, just Joe on bass and it was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I don’t know if that makes him god but it was a moment of perfection.
I love that she’s a Tom Waits fan and this talk changed my mind about who I thought she was.
She's right. Years ago, before I had developed much skill as a player, I would occasionally experience a transcendant performance that was far beyond my abilities, and during which I knew absolutely that I wasn't playing, but was being played. By whom or what, I couldn't say. Today, as both a writer and musician, I sometimes struggle to find the right lyric or melody or turn of phrase. At other times, it is simply there, and I just grab it. My most enjoyable work comes that way. And sometimes I think it's my best. But after the fact, sometimes years after the fact, it appears that much of my best work was the result of painful, uninspired struggle. I believe now that creative inspiration is always there, but I am only rarely, openly aware of it. It's my job to spend as much time as I can "mule-ing" my craft, making myself available to the real player/writer out there.
I feel like everything I write is already floating out there and my job is just to tune in and materialize them.
My favorite songs are the ones that come fully formed and the basic structure just forms itself ... sometimes instantaneously, sometimes much longer.
Recently, I recorded a backwards guitar instrumental section to a song I've been working on and it came out so incredibly well there's no way I can think that it came from me.
I had very little idea of how what I was playing would sound like backwards or how the different lines would fit together harmonically - I just kept laying down parts, flipping them around and putting them together in whatever way seemed to work.
It took quite a long time, but now that it's done, when I listen back to the track, I can only think that it arose of it's own accord. I was just the vehicle... if I was even there at all!
Skip
Do you feel songs come “through” you?
Sometimes. Not very often. They're mostly just a lot of work and patience. Like painting a picture..starting with a sketch and eventually adding the colors and textures until you've done all you can with the tools at your disposal.
Do you wait for inspiration?
Not really. I'm always writing and recording.
Even when I'm sitting around doing nothing, my brain is still working on music so the inspiration is always there.
Or do you just work and work no matter what?
You greatly increase the odds of coming up with something good the more work you do so on the one hand I do keep working no matter what. On the other hand I get really frustrated at the amount of work required to write and record something when you can already hear it in your head. Wish I could just plug my head into the computer and transfer it over instead of playing around with buttons and knobs all day.
Do you feel you’ve already achieved your “greatest hit”?
Not even close.
Or is your greatest work yet-to-come?
Possibly. Who knows. The music business kinda makes me feel sick right now the way everything is being homogenized for mass market radio. I literally have to plug my ears when I'm in a mall or a supermarket because the stuff coming over the P.A. system is so bad.
I gave up on getting a "hit" a long time ago. The requirements to follow a specific formula, stick with certain styles and basically homogenize your own work takes all the joy out of writing, so I do what I want and if people like it...great. If not, who cares. A great "hit" doesn't necessarily mean it's a good song. It just means a whole lot of people worked on it and spent a fortune advertising it and paying off radio stations to get it played. Plus the whole 'image' thing is just sickening too.
You can be the best musician and songwriter in the world, with the #1 hit of all time. But if you're fat and ugly... you don't stand a chance. The pretty blonde with the crappy song is going to get all the attention.
Enjoyed this talk.
Inspiration is great when it swoops in, but just showin'up on a regular basis is really important too otherwise the medium ain't ready.
We may open the doors and windows of the mind but that's no guarantee that the wind will blow through.
John
Compose music is like a necessity of my soul.
Without the act of compose there 's not life inside to me.
It means to construct a world, maybe I don't like so much this world.
Compose is to construct a personal idea of this world, of this humanity.
Compose is life, is joy, is love too.
There are pauses sometimes, it's not possible to see the sun always.
I'm always waiting for that earthquake. I don't know if my best stuff is ahead, or just undiscovered? I know my skills as a high octane shredder won't last another 10 years but interestingly enough, as my guitar riffs start to become tastier with time (code for slower)my songwriting skills are erupting like Mt.Vesuvius. Each new album is 7 fold better than it's predecessor.
Now it's just a race against time.
Ace out........
Thanks Derek this lady is a very genuine soul and obviously creative in the most special way. As a classical composer it I understand her mindset. No creative path is easy for you have to combine talent with sacrifice and continuous hard work and effort. I also work most days at my music and writing but also there is a second source that shapes our creative energy. I refer to it as the "Q" source identified by C. P. Lamb in "The works and words of Jesus". However I do disagree about the struggle element. Some of my most emotive work is a reflection of my experience of life both the good and the bad. The term she uses " A glimpse of God" is valid. It is the journey we all make to climb the artistic mountains some of which take a lifetime. I defined the message the lady is trying to make in an article I wrote in 2002 entitled "The Divine Aesthetic" "The right to be and in the being touch the source of the universe" For me that sums up my creative journey.
unfortunately, as in my case, ceativity is usually the byproduct of misfortune and frustration. success would only disrupt the process and hamper improvement. that said, i will continue to write and record to redirect the misfortune and frustration.
I didn't listen to it all and jumped forward to see if anything was different with a revelation. None. I don't think that negatively about my creative anything. I don't know anyone who does. Be positive and go forward. Don't dwell on the negative. The end was the best. Just do it and don't dwell on it.
Derek,
Thanks for passing on a great video.I have been performing off and on with my brothers for 43 years,with a decent amount of local success.I have written songs since I was about 17. Now, at age 63, I find I have written my best songs in the last three years.
Elizabeth seems to realize that the true measure of creative success is that only one other person need be touched by it. A million would be nice, but one is sufficient. Then the pressure to "out do" yourself lies with you alone, and not any previous success.
I often feel that songs do indeed "Come through me", but usually not without some prior hard work, which probably serves to open that elusive channel to wherever.
Bill Dooley
This is a great talk. I'm a musician. I also read her book which resonated beautifully with me during a period of my life where I was soul searching. I'd certainly recommend it.
I do keep at my work no matter what, but I also feel that music sometimes just 'comes through me'. These are moments when I forget all else... Then it's back to work (and eating and sleeping of course
I am comforted that every song i write is not a "hit" for lack of a better word. the important thing is to keep writing and hopfully growing and improving.
on the mystical elf helping you write idea, I'm working on my next album and I am convinced it will be the best I've ever done, maybe ever will do. and that's based on some weird gut feeling I have and nothing else! cool huh?
you can check some of my songs www.oldnumber7.net
I think creation can happen in anyway you are open to allowing. It's one of those odd things that doesn't seem to appreciate being defined. An artistic process should always be evolving and never clearly defined or eventually you're no more than a decent craftsman with a well oiled assembly line. Nuff said.
I don't want to, and do not believe that an external presence shapes my creativity. I think it's escapist and irresponsible, leading ultimately the the atrophy of reason. It ends with the idea that a god is responsible for everything, and, being unknowable, the workings attributed the god are unexplored, and we descend into darkness. Very much like our last president censoring the reports of his climatologists.
Of course, we could look at everything she said as metaphor, but then, she didn't seem to be advancing that view.
I'm sure the poet she quoted has a nice little chuckle every time someone buys that story about the poem chasing her. I mean, c'mon, we all get blasts of inspiration that 'pass us by' if we don't record them, and certainly a poet will make a metaphor of it.
Or maybe that's just me. Anyway, it's the rationalist vs. deist thing again.
I am not a songwriter, but I am still an artist. I do not convey myself through words, but rather through visual media. I am an artist as well as an architect. I absolutely love this idea of an external force translating itself through your body, or residing in the walls of your studio. People have always laughed at me, but I cannot think without a pencil in my hand. Even sitting here now at my computer I’m looking around for a pencil to scratch my thoughts, or some random sketch, down onto paper so that I can then translate my thoughts into something mildly coherent to anyone who reads them.
Now I’m sure there’s something external to my being that is an inspiriting force, but when I know I need to draw or paint something there is this intense rumbling from the depths of my belly, to the point where I have to frantically find that piece of charcoal or stick of paint so that it can get out of me. Quite frequently though I don’t grab that medium quickly enough and lose whatever it was that was trying to rush out of me. Sometimes I get really frustrated when I lose that opportunity to get that creativity out of my system, and other times it doesn’t phase me at all. I suppose it just matters on my level or desire to express myself in that art form.
In regards to this idea of my greatest master piece having already been created…well who the heck knows! What I may think is that greatest thing in the world, others may see as a piece of trash, and vice versa. Maybe it’s just my outlook on life, or the fact that I don’t want to make my money off of my ‘art’ that others opinions don’t matter as much to me.
The same thing applies to architecture. I will still sit for hours at my desk, drawing away with my pencil, designing in my head, chugging away at nothingness until that powerful force finds me again and I do get inspired enough that those wondering thoughts collide and explode up through me. Architecture though I feel is a bit different from painting or lyrics because your goal is to create something for your client, it is not for you, but them. With that being said, if they do not like what I’ve done, then I truly have failed. But it is from that failure that often the most beautiful things arise…
…At this point I think it is time for me to stop babbling away on this computer…I feel something bubbling up again!
For me, having at least three areas of creative output in my life: my music, fine art and writing, it works slightly differently in each. As a musician/composer, I guess I don't do much unless and until I feel inspired to. The same goes for my writing, though I feel that muse more frequently there than I do in my music. The one area that differs from this is my fine art, which has also been that way, in the past, until I focused upon a strategy (the "daily painting" approach) that has caused me to work on a daily basis, whether I'm feeling inspired or not. As a result of this, I believe (don't know if anyone else shares this opinion or not, though) my work has become more focused and it has aided me in arriving at a style and "look" that is entirely my own. I'm thinking that, maybe I need to apply the "daily painting" regimen to my music and my writing, as well. If I did a song a day and/or an article or essay per day, maybe the same thing that has occurred in my artwork would happen in my music and my writing, also. Hmmm...
My writing process definitely comes in spurts. Sometimes it's all there, and there's no way to make a mistake. Othertimes it need rest. I often liken it to a growing or seasonal cycle. I'll write ideas for choruses down, just phrases. Then I'll get into a rhythmic thing, the meter of the words. The music will pop up in my head. Little melodic strands. I'll use this little voice recorder on my Mp3 player,invaluable. but i used to call my home phone/answering machine. Then when i got home I could grab that melodic idea again. Sometimes it's all is moveing together. Sometimes i try and force it, just because i feel should be doing SOMETHING. those usually don't fly. lately i've become enarmored with my left foot. playing off of rhythms that it naturally follows. using pauses, three chord flows, power chord sweeps. and choosing basically three different speeds, fast , medium slow. i'm trying to put the guitar to the rhythm, not the other way around. It's pretty enthralling.
in no way do i feel like i've written my best stuff yet. But i have to becareful not to dismiss my songs that I 've written in the past, because they have stood up over time.
First: thank you, Derek, for sending this and thank you for all the effort you devote in relating your contacts and seminars back to us. Much appreciated my friend.
I kept thinking, as I was listening and watching Ms. Gilbert in this video, that this was coming across to me as a corporate-like booster meeting.
I learned some history, which is wonderful. i.e. the Greek and Roman thing and the Moors Allah to ole' thing. But I kept wondering what was her point?
Why is she giving this presentation?
I take from it she is saying to never give up. The end.
As to her "best" book and people comparing what she writes next I say this: There will be the readers/followers of her books who will, likely, make a judgment.
But there will be a new audience just discovering her too.
The new readers might think the next book Ms. Gilbert writes is the best ever. Then they find she has a past book and another generation of "Gilbert book lovers" is born.
"The Best" of any artist is what?
I find it's always a debate.
So the best, in my opinion, can never be behind you until your behind has left this earth.
As to how and when I write/compose I have to say I have tried sitting down to compose music or write a song when not inspired or "in the mood" and have never, ever created anything.
I have gone weeks, months without writing, thinking it's over. I thought it was over in 1969.
I had not played any music, written any music or performed until 2005. This was an event.
I read a well written article about an Eminent Domain case in the Supreme Court and that very night I was playing my guitar again, writing lyrics, the best lyrics I have written and I, myself, was a bit shaken because I didn't know where it was all coming from.
In the following months I did write a song I thought was the best I would ever write, a four verse song, accounting my life.
Just last night I was walking, mumbling around the house saying to myself "I think I have written my masterpiece".
So 1. Yes. My music and composition comes to me. Once it gets off the bus I sort it out. Takes hours, sometimes days!
2. No and yes. I don't wait for "inspiration" to hit but I do have to be in the "mood" for music.
When "inspiration" hits it's a freaking all night party.
I have found I can not just sit down like I'm going to work and create.
Oh it's Friday! TGIF
The final two bullets I have answered.
I thought I did my best, but now I think I've done my best again.
And, as I said, your best is never done until your "behind" has left the planet.
If one thinks they have done their best, in this medium of the arts, why continue?
I say one continues because it's time to write the best piece you can once again. Why?
Because you love what you do.
Well i think talent is not made,talent is born and while growing up through life one could clearly see their talent growing stronger and bigger and also eager to let loose so people can see or hear of the talent which one posses.Some songs are naturally made and some songs comes from inspiration of some sort. A true artist has a burning desire for their art and that desire never dies.
Thank you for a truly uplifting talk,I do believe you have hit it dead square.I write songs some funny some with a real truth or meaning and some with a beat to make people dance, but I have never thought for one second that it was me in control of the words or music. Every song I've written and shaped seems to take on a life of it's own and goes where it wants to all I do is try to capture it and present it so other people can enjoy it as well.Call it what you like but to be blessed with a creative mind is being able to listen with a open heart. Thank you Norm
I don't think I will ever know what could possibly be my greatest work...well I take that back... my greatest work will have been to be compassionate to people...the piano is my love and the fact that I don't write lyrics is probably fate so that people can make what they want out of my music. I am always at peace, so is my music....I hope that I can pass that feeling on to others.
rada
1. Yes, songs often come "through" me. Mostly very slowly.
2. One has to often wait patiently for inspiration.
3. Yes, I work & work no matter if only a small diamond comes shining through the mud.
4. I don't think I have achieved my "greatest hit". Despite being a musical dinosaur. I am happy with a lot of my work, despite any low success achieved.
5.Is my greatest work yet to come?
I like to hope that wonderful "jewel" will arrive one day. It is certainly a lonely world out here.
frist must say thanks!
great video.
Every musician and writer
inspiration come to them
natural for this to happin.
actually creativity come through
inspiration really feelin this video.could feel the energy as she speak admires what she sed so much
seriously honored the knowledged
physical on spiritual.
When I was seven, I picked out tunes on a church piano. I have played piano for the fifty-five years since. It seems to me that it was not "me" that picked out the tunes, but some other agent, power, whatever it is called, "genius", "muse" etc.
In the process of writing my bio for a digital release, I started to see that I was not a child prodigy. I was a child star. This burning bright of talent cannot come from within I believe, else it would consume me. It must come from somewhere, somebody, something else.
I have had song or song ideas come to me with a melody,and i would keep repeating till i could get to some paper and my guitar if possable.But if i am not right there it never seems to be the way i first heard it in my head.I have some songs in the works with ideas and part melodys.Many times i have sat down with an idea and have written a song with melody in 10-15 min or less and they are good songs
.I have some songs that i think are very good, i dont think i have done my best as yet.As a one man band that is very busy i havent put in the time i should.I have many of my followers asking when my next CD is coming out,that they love my first one.I am 64+yrs and i feel i have a lot to give yet.
Yeah,
definately relate. Great stuff.
Although I occasionally write music, I also have other artistic endeavors (design, build guitars, paint, create). The word "In-Spire" in some circles means "God breathed". The word "Enthusiasm" comes from "En-Theos" (God in us).
So, perhaps there is something divine about it....Basically, if I wake up in the middle of the night,
I won't fight it. I'll either read or let creativity flow. If I lose sleep, I'll certainly zonk out the next night. No worries.
One thing, when one of my projects (Music, instruments I build, or?) is successful, I still feel my best work is ahead. My favorite project is always the one I am working on now.
If I am not "feeling" creative, I won't fight that either. Sometimes creativity flows when solving a problem.
Lately, I have been writing music by singing first then grabbing my instrument and working it out. (or if I have a chord progression I like I'll sing to that) I might chart it out in the rough (Chord progression and main melody) then go to bed. Give it another go the next day. I guess if this happens while driving, keep the radio off and keep singing it until you are home....
Frist of all inspiration can come
from anything, Something that happens
too you, Good are bad, happy or sad.
But when it hit you stop what your doing and write.
Your at your best. Wen it's frest.
you can write the best peace.
if it don't sale.
it's not (( successful ))
you best work is anything you do before you die.
alter ego-incognito
http://cdbaby.com/all/jevan40
Thanks for the invite Derek. Elizabeth's speech was enlightening to say the least. We truly enjoyed it.
I find as a writer/musician, a lot of paralels.
I've had "Devine Intervention" complete the work everytime I've written a good song, and I believe my best work is yet to come.
Like most writers I know, we basiclly "write what we feel"..and as Elizabeth so eliquently put it, we should show up for our part of the bargin.
Again, thanks Derek. Great job my friend.
God Bless,
Barry & Teena
Derek, Liz gave a great talk, right up there with Willi Smits, Ray Anderson, etc..
But what I really want to know is: what did you talk about with Liz when you walked her back to the hotel?
It was interesting to follow this thought process. My creativity flows through and sometimes I'm just hanging on to the tail trying to bring it back. No matter how long I do this every time is always like a first kiss and every song is always for me my greatest hit.
Creating is always collaborative. Men and women have to get together to make babies. As far as music and literature, call it the muse, the muses (there were nine of them in the Greek tradition), and don't forget the collective unconscious.
Inspiration comes from the mystery/the beyond, and the grosser, denser elements we see are the instruments we channel through, and feel the effects with.
My writing gets better and better all the time, because I study great art, honor the mystery, hone my skills, and make myself available for inspiration. All of us are channeling all the time. We just channel different flavors of stuff.
You can try to guide your whole life with the little hunk of grey matter in your head--if you like prison--but there are more colorful dimensions in the universe. We're all creators.
Sincerely, from the land of Both/And.
HOW I WRITE
Every song I have ever written has come to me whole, in my head arrangement and all. I spend some time on the words but for the most part I just write down what I hear in my head. In fact if I pick up an instrument the song stops and I can't write anymore till I put it down. Ironic as I make my living as a guitar soloist, multi instrumentalist and textural player but I find an instrument stops the process for me. I don't know why it works this way for me but it just does. In fact my latest video "Ringo" is the best example of how I work. More so then any other song I've ever written. That song is EXACTLY as I heard but in my head. It came to me in the shower and just recorded trak by trak what I heard in my head. Usually I'll have to fine tune my original thoughts but this one came out intact. U can check it out at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggaCXHIbqTw
Peace,
Vinnie Zummo
I wrote my first song at 60 yrs. of age.I had gone to a songwriters showcase and I said "hey, I can do that" fast forward to 3 CD's and about 60 copyrighted songs. I think the talent is in more people than we can imagine and I also believe there is a "collective unconscious" that we tap into and the more we write the better we become because we learn it should really be called "re-writing" and that was harder to do when our first efforts were absolutely perfect. Ha. I think we writers just open up our minds or go to a place where words and ideas flow.I do believe there is a psychological aspect to writing and certain moods can enhance our creativity and possibly the reverse is true as well.
I agree with her in a lot of ways. The idea she ends her speech on "keep keeping on" is a huge part of it all. Pretty much every time I write a new song I say to myself "this is one of my favs" and it's stuck in my head, and shortly thereafter I then think to myself "wow, how am I ever gonna top that song?". None of that has changed for me, but as of late, I think I've lost belief in what I do because sales and gigs have been incredibly down over the past year...and that only makes me think I'm not doing something right after year and year of great success. I've tried thinking about everything I've been doing, haven't been doing, etc...and I've spent literally probably days and days thinking on this and have yet to find any real answer. Sure, possibly my best work could be behind me, and it could have been my 2nd CD. I don't think it was though, and I sure hope it isn't. But who knows, no one knows the future. And that's why I try and make the most of my time.
I was ready to give up about a year or so ago, but music and creating it is what I love to do more then anything else I've done. So how I could stop? Now I feel if I'm not making the most of my time, I'm wasting the time I've been given...as we all know, life is short...so why waste it doing something you don't love?
I liked most of her speech and esp motivation there at the end.
TW
Elizabeth... what a great real-time romp through wit, wisdom and humor to arrive home at the place we all seem to end up: do the work; don't take credit for it; believe the best is yet to come; stay here, now. And when we can manage to stay in the now, it feels so, so good!
Thanks for being such a good mixer, Derek
Dear Derek:
I listened. It was educational and entertaining,enthusiastic not overly enlightening. No, songs don't come through me. I don't believe in channeling. The brain can seem as large as the universe that we live in and creative ideas are born in the unconsicous and the writer works it in some magical way and reworks it and what forms as a song gets modified sometimes by the external environment. I don't wait I work and rewrite and rewrite. I don't get too worried that my "creative genius or less than that" will be accepted. Not much I can do about it except try like anybody else. Life is far too short. We are all April Snowflakes. Don't waste time worrying...write if you need to write. Inspiration is made up mostly of mental perspiration. I think of my songs as my little sonnet children that I sent out in the world to see what they can do. Each of them is my greatest hit.
Early on in this talk i found myself thinking about what i would comment, and thought i would write something along the lines that i feel that the best songs come easily as if they're just floating in the air waiting to be pinned (or penned) down. Then she pretty much said all that, making my comment redundant. Then my one-year old daughter came over bearing three words of that magnetic poetry stuff that she grabbed off the fridge. The words were "deep" "enormous" "mother". Seems to be a pretty good illustration of the principle in action!
That was a wonderful talk on creativity as expressed by Elizabeth Gilbert. I’ve been very fortunate in the way in which creative bursts occur - which is not very often.
I say fortunate because - at a few songs a year over decades - I’ve never labelled myself as a songwriter any more than I define myself by the work I’ve done which pays the bills. I am a human being first and foremost and if I’ve been good at what I do it’s because I put the effort into the task at hand - whatever it is. I hasten to add that I’m not totally focussed, I do get depressed and I do have times of complete inertia but the general trend is to do things ‘properly’ which allows a task to be done - perhaps a brief moment of acclaim and then - move on. If I don’t label myself as a songwriter then I don’t get anxious if nothing comes. It’s not writer’s block - I just have nothing to say.
Where does inspiration arise? I don’t know. I never sit down with the idea of writing a song. I understand that many creative people do work by searching out titles, musical phrases and ideas and do this as a conscious process. Many of the world’s finest songs have come out of song factories - almost a 9 to 5 process where ideas get bounced around among groups of people. It obviously works because we hear the results on the radio.
Ultimately, I write only if I’ve got something to say. The last song was written in mid December. It was a response to the birth of a child but the major trickle of thought in the background was the world financial meltdown and my feeling that Empires come and Empires go but that I will not allow for the fall of an Empire to be my personal downfall - in terms of giving up an ethical approach to life. When this idea is married to the new born child then ‘too much at stake’ becomes the key. The chord structure is one that I’ve used before with the difference being the length of time for each chord.
For the lyrics of this song the inspiration came directly from my mind - conscious or otherwise. The melody, phrasing and chord structure appeared from who knows where and that is both wonderful and awe inspiring. I do believe that creativity is a divine process and that we are all bathed in an invisible ocean of creativity and thus I’m happy to accept that it comes from both within and without. I hazzard a guess that if I had a Buddha nature I would see no difference.
Hey D,
I've written about 3 albums worth
of songs from 1984 up to now.
They come "though" me as U put it.
Sometimes I hear something or see
something & all the sudden, words,
melody, & all the instruments come
rushing into my head & I can't stop
them. It goes like that until a song is complete. Too Strange...
Ur Partner In Crime...TJ
Founder / Drummer
Shattered Image
PS. Put out the first album
on cdbaby.com while U still worked
with them! Working on the 2nd now.
Being predominantly a person who operates intuitively my creativity is always seemingly channeled-which is what I hear Gilbert talking about...channeling. As a matter of my daily concerns I actually really have to work at being disconnected from my 'muse' or 'genius' if I am concerned at all about making an impression of myself as 'grounded'.
However as I am older now I don't bother to disconnect as much and hence am generally happier, and a lot more confused about what part of life is not purely creative?
Is that clear as mud?
Sounds to me as though what she is talking about is what Californians in the early 90's called channelling.
I agree with her perspective.
The fear of being crazy with genius, inspiration or a muse often keeps people from creating.
For years I was paralyzed by my own fear of this.
This idea is explored by Julia Cameron in 'The Artist's Way' to help people un-block their creativity; her book helped me tremendously.
I think it egotistical to think of our creations as things from inside ourselves.
We each have a unique filter that the genius can come through, but it is ultimately something larger than us. Inspiration means filled with spirit, which implies that spirit is larger than the self/ego.
Personally, once I let go of my assumptions about what I am creating, when I fully open my channel, the songs come more easily.
Of course, I still have to do the work of showing up - ready with pen, paper, instrument, and or recording device.
And not everything comes out the way I imagine it - but this is part of the process, honing my inner ear, my listening.
If we are lucky, we open ourselves in the right way at the right time and receive the gift of a creation that is larger than ourselves.
We get to be the instrument that communicates this idea to the world and it reverberates loudly if a lot of people resonate with it.
As to my own work, I hope I am always improving my skill at listening to the genius/daemon/muse.
I might have written some good songs, but I feel there are still a lot of great songs to come - I just need make sure to show up, open and receive them.
I also liked her story about Tom Waits - I, too, have told ideas to come back at more opportune times if they really want to come through me. And it worked!
Hi Derek,
My first three CD's were created over a ten year period... all done by what I came to call "conscious effort"... but I knew that there was another way for the music to appear. My approach was the inner spiritual work, and when the light that Elizabeth refers to in her talk... (where one is seen as Allah, or Ole') happend, all the paradigms of my existence shifted. Yes, in my experience, the light is very real. Incredibly difficult to explain, but very real. And, yes, you do get up the next morning and check out your mortal-ness and wonder... but once experienced, it never completely goes away. After this happened to me, I recorded 12 CD's of original music in 18 months. It truly feels as though the music is being created by someone or something other than myself. The supply is infinite, and there is absolutely no concern about the next album being better than the last one. Who's to say what "better" is?
The last of the 12 CD's from that 18 month period is The HeartSong of The Buffalo (which is on CD Baby)and the story of how it all happened is on the CD Baby page. This isn't about selling my CD... I just want to share my experience of the creative process with your readers. I am now working on my 20th CD, and I have yet to learn how to read (and obviously to write) music...or to know what music theory is. I haven't a clue about any of that, but for my purposes it has never been necessary to know those things. For me, it's about knowing how to get out of my own way, and to let the music come from wherever it is, through the hands on the ends of my arms, while the fingers move about on the keyboard recording a song that I've never heard. It's a fascinating process.
I did watch the video and listened to what she had to say. Her points were on the perifory of specifics.
I write songs and lyrics with ease without concerning myself with grasping for ideas for a song. It seems to me that she expends quite a lot of energy in order to create subjects for her imagination. Am I wrong?
My ideas flow simply and easily - so I consider myself lucky.
Thanks,
Great talk, puts things into perspective. Like most I've had songs come to me at times when I could do nothing but let them playout in my mind. I've heard that from others as well. It was nice of her to put that feeling into words. What I will take with me from the talk is "show up for work". That is the best anyone can do.
Well spoken!
"Portal," yes, I remember a performance I had in Killington Vt. many years ago. I don't even know how it opened, but both the audience and my humble self staggered through the protal,one was assisting the other to a greater and greater intensity until the performance elevated to another plain, where I was no longer standing on stage playing. I was standing outside myself thinking what other creative thing would appeal to me that I had never done before and might never play again, and then executing that particular thing as I had practiced it in my head so many times, when I had never even dreamed of this before.
I have lived thinking, that just one more time before I leave this world I would love to be that comfortable again. All of life seemed to be exactly right.
Hey Derek
Thank you for the link and the opportunity to write here. I facilitate workshops with musicians to rediscover our roles by amending what we have adopted from the business perspective of what musicians are.
When an artist is in her/his "aligned" state the creativity flows. It's those moments when we forget time and are fully present in the moment to create what we resonate.
From my understanding musicians are vibrational healers who utilize their life experience and commitment to their instrument to create songs that heal themselves.
People of like life experiences are drawn to this person because the song helps fans in their healing process. The spectrum of healing is infinite, we simply vibrate in this spectrum and reveal a key or method to heal ourselves through a recipe of rhythm, harmony and melodies. The listener receives this recipe via the dynamics of the music, the relationships of the musicians and the environment it's played in. For me I get the most from outdoor gigs, playing outside is where I easily "dial in" or align to my nature.
This is nothing new, the Beatles studied with Indian gurus the same concepts and learned to quiet the M.I.N.D. and practiced the art of allowing without judgment. If you overly criticize yourself and others then you will experience a decrease in the "creative flow". There is no mystery to it, it simply about M.I.N.D. management.
I utilize words in the form of acronyms to anchor this perception and cultivate a more accurate interpretation other than "song writer, performer, composer or the worst, entertainer".
Food for thought:
M.U.S.I.C.
Mathematical
Universe
Souls
Instrumental
Connection
M.I.N.D.
Musical
Instrument
Notes
Decided
S.O.U.L.
Source
Of
Universal
Lineage
From my understanding it's all math and the mind is our first instrument. Develop your M.I.N.D. to play Notes (beliefs) that are in harmony(symmetrical) with one another and you will experience song writing in a consistent and coherent manner.
It's time we step out of the dark ages and embrace what Musicians were born to do by first investing in the greatest gift human's are born with, freedom of choice.
I also teach Reiki as a state licensed Continuing Education provider for L.M.T.'s. Music and the healing arts go hand in hand.
If anyone is interested in reading an article I've written (it's a bit deep) you will read about how I morph these two fields together and how we utilize words that create our challenged realities.
http://sos345.org/articles_2008.html
click on the The evolution of the name lightworker link.
Love, Laughter and Abundance
Jack Barakitis
Thanks for referring us to this video. I am neither a musician nor a creative writer, but just finished my second solo book on a technical subject, and feel there is creativity in expression even in my area (food). In my mid-sixties, I still have a lot to do.
Wow-
I think a lot of genies are going to be found coming out of bottles! Thanks for sharing this- it is truly kind to hear that inspiration is a gift- I've never viewed it as a burden.
I wrote one song out as soon as I got to work on 9/11, hearing about the first plane crash, & completed the music to it when I was able to get home that night & pick up the guitar. It was that straightforward-- it was there- DONE, only minutes needed for me to channel it out.
I think I need to work for inspiration daily though, & that what comes sometimes is a wonderful gift.. and the practice makes me better for it. To speak to what is to come (best work), is not a place I feel I can do: fate, people's tastes, all the moments of time & chance are too elusive, but I think kindness is the 'genie' that helps to bless us and link us all.
I think it is in all of us to do great things, & judge for ourselves how satisfied we'll be, & count our blessings as we see & get them.
Derek, thanks for sharing this.
All though this isn’t entirely new thinking to me, she has articulated it more clearly, profoundly, and brilliantly than I think anyone could. I am not a man of religion, I don’t go to church, but I do take God, the Devil, Angels, and Demons very seriously. I also take Science, logic and reason just as seriously. I’ve never thought it was healthy or appropriate for people to think of themselves as geniuses or to think of some one else as a genius. Scientists seem to love to name laws after themselves when they discover something, when in fact all they’ve really discovered is another part of how divine architecture works and was put together. I’ll have a little more respect for them when they decide to start giving credit where credit is due.
As for my own experience with writing songs and music, I like to think of that something that’s me but not me as the help of Angels. When I refer to my musical instincts guiding me in some way with a particular song, that’s really what I’m referring to. I often say to my collaborators or band mates that I need to go with my instincts on this, and my instincts are telling me that we need to make some changes or do this or that.
I would like to add one thing about the whole work aspect of it that I truly believe. I wanted to learn how to be a good finger picker so I took some classical lessons because I figured that those guys are amongst the best. I worked my butt off for about a year on the classical stuff and then I took some lessons on more pop and rock oriented finger style. I wound up writing some songs in finger style that I personally think are amongst the best that I’ve ever written, and my band mates are of the same opinion. My point is this, whatever you believe that something is that’s in your room with you when you’re writing, the more skill you have and the more capabilities that you possess, the more opportunity you are giving that something to do something magical with you. If all you know is two chords on the guitar, there’s only so much those angels are going to be able to accomplish with you. So what I would add to what she said is this; work, work, work, learn, learn, learn, and give the angels as much help as you can in doing their creative job. You’ll make things easier for them, and you might find yourself happier with the results. I’m not some famous successful guy, but it’s working for me none the less.
While I found the talk amusing at times, I also find it rather tragic that someone would have to give up one's knowledge that a work of great art was their own in order to maintain sanity. Being able to "blame" some unseen, unknowable "genius" is hardly a way to manage one's life and psyche. I think Gilbert had it right in the beginning - by calling it a freak occurrence. Just take a look at all the books sitting on the shelves out there - so many that never see success but are just as, if not better, than Gilbert's work. Its not about it being "her best work" - its just being at the right time at the right place in time where the words resonated with the reading public. Its nothing personal.
Everything you ever do is potentially the best thing you will ever do. If you need a reason, THIS is why you continue.
With music, I don't need a reason and have never had a choice about whether it was something I did or didn't do...it was just always there. The process is all inside me, but like Christopher Prim wrote above, it IS collaborative. It comes from everything I see, everyone I talk to; what I hear and smell and taste and feel. It all strikes chords within me that create the music that eventually pours from my guitar and forms the words that leak from my pen.
But fairy dust? Meh.
I'd agree with the wind theory... many times, I wake up in the morning (or the middle of the night) with a fully composed song that had to have divine inspiration. Sometimes what I'm writing is so automatic and ethereal that I feel I am only an instrument that is being used to document that song. I also, of course, work by creating a cool chord progression or riff on guitar or keyboard that inspires me to complete the appropriate lyrics. (and no others will do). Other times, I write the Title or the lyrics themselves and have to mechanically figure out the notes and chords to accompany the words. It's always different and exciting. Yes, there are times when it's "work" when I'm trying to create a piece for film or television and even bits of it are inspiring and seem "beyond my abilities", but other times, it is truly a magical, spiritual experience that forces me to create a work and many times, I feel as an observer of this magnificent process and it unfolds before my very eyes. I do feel that there is a "Musical Muse" that brings new creativity and form to a songwriter and it is only for a moment and that moment must be captured or it is lost forever... The structured music and lyrics can still be inspired but in a fleeting moment, the truly great music only comes by us once.
It is wonderful that one can still attribute the artist's offerings, great or small, to that glimmer of the divine that has touched them in a unique voice. It is not whether it is your greatest work or the most popular, for who can tell until time has had its way, all the external promotion has stopped and the work stands on its own stripped even of the one through whom it came to the world. Despite having said this, the artist must hone his/her craft and be ever more sensitive to the inspiration that stirs within them while gently silencing the criticism of self that can interfere with that awareness or revelation. Maybe the result will not bring the accolades desired by one's ego but that does not mean that the offering isn't true or the next step in one's development needed to encourage, expose or bring to light some element of genius. At the end of the day the work, (music, a song, lyrics, a story, a painting........)the child, is released into the world by the one to whom it was entrusted where it takes on its own life. It too can becomes a source, part of the weave of the fabric experienced or reflected upon and sometimes even inspiration for others.
In my own work, even though I write, play and sing daily there is an ebb and flow to the music and lyrics that come as a result of that effort. Inspiration can be fleeting at times or like the flowing of a never ending river. The process of the daily effort has allowed me to find several ways to harness the insight in some small way and carry it forward to properly develop it according to my sensibilities.
Regardless how it happens it is a truly amazing process and leaves me in awe, not of my own skill, musicianship or savvy but of the gift.
Thanks for the opportunity to share a few thoughts.
Elizabeth is a wonderful speaker. I agree and disagree with her. Yes, there is that pressure that non-creative people prefer to downplay the arts as a living as if it is a hobby. Parents, friends want to see you pursue a known means of success and livelihood. The arts is uncertain. When my kids were small I stopped telling the other moms that I was a singer because they would look at me with disbelief or sympathy. I also know that there are a lot of artists who are drawn or driven to the arts because they have too much emotion, desire, passion to express and the release is through the arts.
I am a singer/songwriter. As a songwriter I have experienced that my best works come through me via some inspiration. I literally hear the melody completely produced - horns, orchestra, band, whatever; a portion, maybe the chorus, maybe the first line of a verse. And I feel the groove. Most often it comes when I'm doing something mundane and my mind is wandering. I could be driving, dishwashing, ironing, up very late at night by myself or sitting at the piano just playing anything letting my hands go wherever. And I do have to stop what I'm doing and start writing or get a tape recorder. A Native American holy man described it as a plane where music is and you "go there" and get it. I guess like an antennae or esp.
I won a Billboard Certificate of Achievement Award for my song STONE COLD FOOL. That is a song that I feel wrote itself. I wrote it in 1993 and it is still timely, people love it and ask my band and I to perform it all the time. As a singer, when I am performing at what seems beyond my best it's as though I am a vessel opened, and as she said, you feel a glimpse of God. It's a high that's not high but you know it's all together and you've reached a point beyond what you have expected because you have connected to God. And I am grateful for that.
I feel all my work as described above is my greatest work and yes there is more of my greatest work to come. When I work on a daily basis and write just to write, it is not as good. Other people like it, but it doesn't have that WOW! Factor.
When I work on a daily basis I try to just go about my business and keep in mind that I have a song to write. I think about the topic and a groove will come and I start writing from there. Thanks for asking. Dawn
Elizabeth's presentation caught my attention and held it. It resonated with me as an artist, and I related to the "muse" concept. I believe inspiration comes through you, not from you, and I enjoyed listening to her presentation immensely.
We talked about it the next day at Seth's and discussed that perhaps she was using the wrong measuring stick to measure her success in the first place; maybe that's why she felt her biggest success to be behind her. Looking at the external benchmarks of success (critics and public acclaim), she undermines the importance of her own internal guideposts and hallmarks of success.
Interesting to take both points from it. No doubt about it though, it was one of the most interesting TED talks for me.
Well I love the idea that I am 'Divinely Madness' Read a saying I carry with me everywhere by once famous ice skater (rock star like fame of the iceskators) Toller Cranston.
"Artists are the tools of the Gods. They are driven mercilessly towards goals they are powerless to altar. Their lives are not their own." by Toller Cranston
Great presentation! Thanks as always for bringing us to new knowledge.
As an improviser, I have to take a different view. Although I am also a composer and songwriter, my main focus is spontaneous playing. To do this, one has to find ways of learning to "be in the moment" whenever you play. Some of this involves ending the verbal stream that most have going on inside most of the time; in other words, silence your mind. It also involves a kind of letting go that seems to allow this feeling of an energy or force moving through you. It is something I have learned to tap into when I want, which is whenever I play. I feel it like an energy or a state of being, or perhaps both. By the way, it also took a lot of work on myself that was not directly music related.
My suspicion is that we are, in fact, really that energy and state of being in our "higher selves," and that our constant erroneous beliefs and thoughts drag our creativity down and create false limits on beings who really are limitless. Because we are all connected, we will have to solve this problem all together; in other words, we rise and fall as one, and until we realize it, we will have to "open" to this creative energy rather than "becoming" it, which is encapsulated in the saying "the dance and the dancer are one," which is the culmination of the process we practice.
Writing music is a little different for me as well. I have never had "writer's block" or any difficulty writing when there was a need or an opportunity. Words ARE a different story, but I have known instrumental writers who also seemed to have this "block." I am very practical, however, and in my later years only write for existing projects unless some serious inspiration hits, which I then pursue with a vengance until it's played out. Then, as she says, it's back to work!
Thanks for sharing that...I'd like to remember this one for a long time. I can relate on so many levels.
I've kept recording devices near my bed for decades trying to capture those wonderful melodies and smart lyrics that float around me every once in a while. I've written on note pads in the car...and then I forget the inspiration that brought these notes on and the notes I wrote down don't mean a thing or seem lame. I write songs starting with lyrics, or chord progressions I think are interesting and try to find the words to fit. I also write after "hearing" neat melodies but I don't know where they came from. I've never heard of the Roman or ancient Greek thoughts on creativity but I like that idea. God knows how many musical, lyrical or creative thoughts have passed over, through or around me all these years that I couldn't remember later. I thought I was missing something and figured I really didn't have the time to make anything of it when it came anyway. And as I've grown older and more patient with writing songs I realized that I might be able to come up with a way to engineer a successful song by working it and fixing it and making changes that made it better somehow. I guess I'm at the Tom Waits stage now! I guess the fact remains that I can still do this songwriting thing I love to do (show up) because I love it so. The fact that I'm not rich and famous for what I like to do is really irrelevant. It would be nice however to have that "freakish" hit and pay for my kids college tuitions! So I'll keep posting songs on the internet and sell CD's on line just in case someone can give me a lift.
So her point is well taken...but I don't think being called a "genious" is a death sentence. But I suppose some folks feel too much pressure to produce and after all that is the point of this talk...love it!
I am a freestyle rapper and people always are always tellin' me to write. They don't seem content enjoying the art I have created, but more-so the need to make me do "what (everyone else is doing) is the right way" to make this super hit album or something.
To me it's all ENERGY!!!!!!!!!
If the Coronas are cold and the beat is slammin' -The shit goes down.....It gets recorded and sorted and some tracks are better than others...The point is.. It's just too big of a surge of energy to stop and write it down.
www.BIGCHINGS.com
Hi Derek!!
Happy to know that you are well!!
I was curiously watching the video, unfortunately, only 1 minute of the video would play...don't know why...so all I can comment on was what I heard, and as far as fear of becoming a nobody..well no I do not fear that or feel the need to excell beyond "greatness" or "success" so to speak. Every new milestone is nothing but joy to me..and I also know that fame is fickle, and so are the masses.. but if I work with integrity and share the art that I create from the deeper places of my mind, I am in fact giving you all I can and sharing something with you that is for you, and hoping that in some way I am touching your life with something to carry you through, on the journey..for me the essence is love...
As to songs..
Some times they wake me up in the night and I have to go and write them down or I will forget..or when the band is all together jamming it is easy to write songs..songs come easy but not all songs are good songs..
As an artist I need down time.. to restore myself, to enjoy the moment and not live for the future, but live now..so I don't work "no matter what" because I do want to smell the flowers.. for they fade...
We have some beautiful songs coming up on our next cd, Vol.2. I believe there are many songs still to come and art is never finished, just always evolving in us !
Love Rachel
Good to know we're on the right track. I always think the town of 'Inspiration' is not on the map but it's always there. When you try too hard it vanishes and when you follow the road it magically reappears. And of course the more you get in the driving seat the more likely you are to find it.
Award winning songwriter
John Harley Weston www.johnharleyweston.com
very interesting; for me i have always been a believer that songs will only "come through" you if you're at the place where that can occur; at the piano, in the studio or in an enviroment where creativty is the job at hand. in other words, show up to work, put your hands on the keyboard and allow things to just flow. for me, if i train myself to be in a creative mode, i find myself always open for ideas to foster.
I enjoyed the video. I think I dont pelieve in channeling or spirits living in the walls of my studio, but sometimes i wish i did. I understand where she is coming from, when something you do becomes that succesfull it is hard not to question if you will be able to do it again. So its just a way of setting up your thoughts and ideas so that all of the negative voices in your head can go away.
any way, thanx for the video
Good to know we're on the right track. I always think the town of 'Inspiration' is not on the map but it's always there. When you try too hard it vanishes and when you follow the road it magically reappears. And of course the more you get in the driving seat the more likely you are to find it.
Award winning songwriter
John Harley Weston
Hi Derek,
I watched this video, and had mixed feelings about it. Thought I'd answer your questions...
On Feb 17, 2009, at 3:49 PM, Derek Sivers wrote:
Do you feel songs come "through" you?
No!
They come from me. I've never really felt that inspiration comes from some spirit outside myself. I know the brain can work behind the scenes, so to speak, creating new connections and combinations of ideas. Sometimes a phrase or melody pops unbidden into my consciousness, but I believe it comes from the raw material I've feed into my subconscious through daily listening, observing, reading, contemplating, etc.
It has been suggested that the sense of self is an illusion. Certainly our sense of self doesn't encompass anywhere close to everything that's going in in the brain at any given moment. In that sense, I suppose creativity can be seen to come from "outside one's self."
But I do believe my own songs come from inside my own brain. Certainly the majority of writing I do is a laborious, very conscious process, shaping raw ideas into finished products.
Do you wait for inspiration?
No!
Inspiration does sometime strike on its own, and I grab it with a hand-held digital recorder when that happens. But, if have a writing assignment and I need to make progress on it, I don't wait. I brainstorm.
(If it strikes at an inopportune time, I don't freak out - I know I'll get another idea down the line, just as good or better.)
I also take advantage of some personal knowledge about when inspiration is likely to strike - in the shower, during a walk, or when I first wake up. In light of this, before getting into the shower, going for a walk, or going to bed, I review the progress I've made so far. I may even give myself an assignment, like - "I need a great title." Then I go about my business without thinking about it directly. Nine times out of ten new ideas surface before the end of the shower or walk, or when I wake up in the morning.
Or do you just work and work no matter what?
No!
If I'm stuck, I try to acknowledge that and take a break. I try the above method to get unstuck, or simply set the song aside and work on something else.
Do you feel you've already achieved your "greatest hit"?
Or is your greatest work yet-to-come?
Yet to come! If I ever achieve the kind of over-the-top success that Elizabeth Gilbert was dealing with, then I'm sure I'll probably freak out in the same way, thinking I'll never be able to match it again - at least for a moment.
Put it this way: I sure won't spend all the income at once!
On the other hand, a little perspective will probably help. A large portion of that kind of success is due to external circumstances. I would continue to put my all into my work and hope to leverage my new star status to retain that large audience, but if they eventually dwindle, which seems inevitable, I will do my best to chalk it up to external circumstances.
I believe in my work. I hold a very high, well-defined standard for my own songwriting. I continue to develop my skills, and improve over time. I know when something's good and when it isn't. I can observe when something works for an audience or doesn't. That won't go away.
Some long-time fans tell me my first song, from nearly 20 years ago is still their favorite! But what do they know! I'm way better than that now. Hopefully I have too much confidence in myself to really be brought down by success. Let's hope I get to test that theory!
I am a freestyle rapper and people always are always tellin' me to write. They don't seem content enjoying the art I have created, but more-so the need to make me do "what (everyone else is doing) is the right way" to make this super hit album or something.
To me it's all ENERGY!!!!!!!!!
If the Coronas are cold and the beat is slammin' -It goes down.....It gets recorded and sorted and some tracks are better than others...The point is.. It's just too big of a surge of energy to stop and write it down.
I saw this link posted by [WV songwriter] Kate Long on FB and was impressed and inspired by it. I think it's a must-see for all artists. Shared it with some of my songwriter friends, too. Thanks for putting it out there to reach even more folks.
Derek
Thanks for the link and very interesting.I work with a band and their inspirations comes in many different forms.Part of the inspiration comes from a driven passion and desire they have in helping out the extreme poor.I think if you believe that your best work is now them what do you strive for after that? Like she was saying you can write and write and then all of a sudden the light goes on and you have just created that hit or that piece of music that will make you shine.
You can check out some of the bands work at
www.myspace.com/whyy
I am a musician and composer. Used to be I'd feel like I'd been run over by a truck after writing a tune.
Then someone told me they were reading the poems of Rumi. I started reading and I didn't understand a thing at first, but I felt really different.
From that point on the music started to flow out much easier. As I continued to read over the years I came a realization. If I let go of my self and let myself be open, that mystical spirit will come through me to create the music. Sometimes I can be more open than at other times.
I don't worry about it, I let it happen when it's ready. I feed my ears with music, my eyes with literature and art and then step back and see what happens.
If I never have a hit, it doesn't matter. The connection with that divine spirit is amazing. What other people think doesn't really matter. I will give what I have to give and that is enough.
Kathy Kelly
vibist, composer
The talk gave me a new way to stay de-tached from the anxiety and fears that come with the label'artist' -where the ego is craving to be accepted and recognised by others. The "showing up" quote helped me to just get on with the joy of creating and keeping out the way for 'inspiration' to collaborate with me; and of course enjoying the whole process in the meantime!
Cheers, Sandy
I think the basic idea is this : the path is the destination.
Which one is more important : the amount of buyers for your new book or the fun you have writing it? Focus on your craft and do it as well as you can for its own sake.
Don't get tricked by your ego when it tells you that "you'd be so hip to this important person if you'd do this or that." Perhaps you will please others, but, will you please yourself?
Follow your intuition.
The closer I get to achieving genius, the more I realize just how far from it I really am.
lovely!
Just keep showing up, doing "our jobs"...celestial tape recorders stuck in mortal bodies.
Take the ego out of the equation.
Thanks Ms Gilbert.
Joshua Lebofsky
Elizabeth Gilbert is brilliant! Thank you, Derek, for sharing this with us. I feel songs come through me. I can feel when I need to get the recorder out and let the magic happen. Yesterday I felt this happening and I checked in with my inner self and wondered if I'd continue with something that had come through on a previous day or to start from scratch. My inner self wanted to start from scratch. The music that came out of me on the keyboard and the words that came to me, I could never have planned. It was sheer magic. I'm grateful for Elizabeth's perspective. I believe my greatest work is yet to come. Best wishes to all!
I watched the video, and here are my thoughts. First, I am a Christian, so my belief in 'other-worldly' beings is set. Call them what you will, they exist. When I sit down in my song-writing nook and begin to do little experimental finger-style things on my guitar and a song idea comes, is that an one of them whispering in my ear? Well, yeah, that works for me! Why not? I can honestly say that if I didn't have God as my inspiration, to let my focus be away from myself and my own petty understanding and feelings of self-worth, I probably would be some crazy creative dancing around miserably in a mental institution. Ha! Or dead. Not to be perssimistic, though. Maybe it would be different, I don't know. I just wouldn't and couldn't trade the peace I know now for the hell I remember then. But I'm not going to preach!! Suffice it to say that the songs do flow 'to' me, not 'through' me. Releasing myself from all expectations is important. "Nothing is set in stone" was a note I put at the top of my scratch pad when I started my current 60-song cycle back in January of 2005. And melodies do come at me when I'm driving my car, but they are usually ones I've already set down. Sometimes new ones. Thanks for letting me watch this video... it is good to know how others view the creative process. I'll definitely be thinking about this when I sit down to write again... (:
Hi everyone, and thanks Derek for this. My best songs are what I call receivings and they are usually connected to a healing or awakening experience that is sometimes painful and usually stretching.When I say "receiving", I mean receiving from God, or Allah,or The Creator, whatever you choose to call that Great Source.
I recall Leonard Cohen saying as he accepted a Canadian songwriter's award,"If I knew where the great songs came from, I'd go there more often." I don't know that one can consciously and deliberately go there;I think it is more about being open to receive.
I could relate to the Tom Waits story as I had a similar one.Luckily, I was able to pull over on the highway and write down what was coming.
I am at a point in my life where I am only interested in writing and playing from that place of calm,Divine inspiration, and mainly interested in listening to other artists who are doing the same. Kirtana is a singer/songwriter who continues to soothe and inspire me.Part of my problem is "showing up" on a regular basis instead of waiting to be inspired or jolted awake.
Poets who inspire me are Rumi and Hafiz-men who have had spiritual experiences and seem fearless with their words.
Thank you for this opportunity and the inspiration,
Lucas
Derek totally food for thought. I was able to relate to Elizabeth and realizing we songwriters go through a lot of simular feelings. Iknow I`m on the right track and thank you so much for being consistant in making sure musicians are recieving the right nourishments of music knowledge.
Be Blessed,
Madelynn Jones
Mad Jones Band
What a fabulous talk, thank you for the tweet!
I'm a hypnotherapist with a music background making self-hypnosis CDs in partnership with a musician friend. He says that mine is the driving creative force, but I say that it's a power greater than I am. Fortunately, healing work is pretty well based on being divinely inspired or Spirit led or channeled, or whatever.
Regarding my half of the joint process: What I come up with on my own, although usually decent, does not match what comes to me. My best work comes to me fully formed, usually as a picture, so that all I have to do is describe or transcribe it, polish it until it sings (there is a reason that we call them lyrics), and then set it to the music that my friend produces and I choose.
Surprisingly, I have far less fear around the CD creation part of my practice than I do about the rest. I am so completely and absolutely certain that this is what he and I are supposed to be doing that fear does not occur to me. Also, I knew at the end of my first hypnotherapy class that it is what I'm supposed to be doing. And yet it is as if in one half of my practice I am the vessel only, and in the other half I am the only mule.
It seems difficult to translate the creative process to creative pursuits that are not obviously creative... but the majority of my sessions are not scripted, they are guided, which makes them creative. Accordingly, marketing needs to be a creative process... although I suppose accounting should not be.
I'm with Oya above, and that as a primarily intuitive person, I am always channeling. In the past year or so, it's gotten so strong that in the first moment after picking up a guitar, almost every time I can write a song. Sometimes it takes a minute or two, but it comes. Not just a song, but a song good enough for me to label it a keeper. But then as I tinker with it, the moment is gone. I often manage to keep enough to work with, but it's never as good as when I'm actually in the flow.
But the flip side of the channeling is that I am always having a conversation in my head. There are 3 me's in there, one of logic, one of feelings, and one of what she calls Genius. And the last guy, well, he makes the least sense, so I've built up a habit of ignoring him most of the time. And that's perhaps one of the biggest mistakes I've made in my life -- and continue to make. I'm slowly unlearning that habit, to listen and surrender to the signal, and disregard all else.
That said, I also believe there are all kinds of artists and creatives. Me, an intuitive, works by channeling. Others can create art out of mathematical equations -- no inspiration necessary. Like some 20th century composers who used 12-tone technique to line up notes that form the music. That's valid, too, even if it probably doesn't speak to me personally.
Ari Koinuma
SelfSufficientMusician.com
I work no matter what because I enjoy it. Sometimes inspiration comes - it might be related to the project at hand or it may be something else. I try to use it, but sometimes I just have to focus on what I need to get done. That doesn't necessarily mean that I let go of the inspiration - sometimes I can redirect it, sometimes I can't. If I sat around waiting for inspiration, I'd spend a lot of time being bored.
The thing that's helped me the most is realizing that what I do doesn't really relate to me - it's what I do, not what I am or who I am. That thing "inside" called ego has become a tool rather than a master, and with it so have emotions. I have them and I experience them, but I can also step outside and look at the whole process. It's made my whole life easier, not just the creative work.
I don't think in terms of hits - that's not the area of music I work in. My work is a process and I try to grow with it, learning from the instrument and the music, from relating to audiences and music business people.
Thank you so much for this great video, and great speaker. I loved all she gave.
When I write I have to do things to get out of my own way. I go out to the pond or cook or play with my dog. I have to show up and keep taking little breaks and not push myself so hard. Melodies inspire me great intervals.
I'm always so happy I finished a tune. I don't think if it was the best ever. It is hard colaborating in that I want the musician to be happy with the lyric or melody I wrote.
warmest regards
When Elizabeth spoke of "just showing up for work", it hit home with me. I made a personal vow to commit twenty hours a week to write, while keeping my day job. Ten years later and I've kept that commitment. It has been the most productive time of my life. Waking up the next morning knowing that I made progress on a song the night before is so pleasurable I can't wait to get back to work.
For some reason, when she'd speak, she'd say something that would remind me of a situation that I once went through...this happened several times throughout. It actually added more questions for me to answer...
I'm not sure I've ever written a song the same way twice. I know there are more "killer" ideas inside of me that need to come out.
The biggest obstacle in my way has been my day job...I can't even begin to tell you how many ideas went past me because I didn't have a pen/paper, or wasn't able to "pull the idea back" before it got away, or told it "hey, I'm working on a table saw, and might cut off one of my fingers if I keep thinking about you!"
Many ideas have come and gone, forever...but I'm certain I've still got a plethora of ideas that I can keep from floating away, and at least one of them is going to be a "killer" idea!!!
Songs come to and through all of us. But only one in a hundred of us write them down, and massage them, and coax them, and edit them, and (when we're lucky) even finish them. Of those who do so, only one in a hundred will write a hundred songs. Of those who write a hundred songs, only one in a hundred with find that they have unexpectedly written one great song. And of those who write one great song, only one in a hundred will see their song achieve recognition and fame and fortune.
If you write down the songs that come to and through you, will you eventually fail to write that one magical song that is a recognized success? Damned likely.
And if you don't write them down? It's guaranteed.
Al "Doc" Mehl
(Just writin' 'em all down...)
Hi Derek,
Years ago, my friend Si Kahn challenged me to write a song every day for a week, Finish it and then put it in a file folder and not look at it for six months. He didn't say a long song or a good song he just said a song. That week stretched into three years. By the end of it I had several hundred songs that I'd never looked at. When I finally looked at them, I found some were good, some were terrible and some just needed some work. It was as if someone else had written them.
What had really happened was that I had learned to write songs by just doing it. Not looking at them for all that time gave me the distance to avoid the self censorship that kills our creativity.
Now I write 10 songs a week with kids as part of Kid Pan Alley. Si's exercise was profound. And it's what allows me to do what I do. If I show up, something always comes to me -- to me not from me.
As I do a lot of songwriting teaching and writing myself, I've often thought about the questions you ask and have spoken about them with my students. Here are a few of my thoughts pulled from my endless ramblings about the subject:
Writing songs is like fishing in a barrel. You need a hook on the end of your line. Actually…I prefer to catch them with a net. It let’s the little ones get away.
If I knew where songs came from, I’d take out a room there rather than in Nashville. Afterall, Nashville is where the songs go and where most are buried in mass graves.
thanks for asking the questions. After all, that's what art is supposed to do, get us asking the questions and answering them for ourselves.
Paul Reisler
Kid Pan Alley
Trapezoid
derek
elizabeth says it all so succinctly...
you chose great subject matter. and. as always. thank you for giving me a chance to sound in....
(yeah!...there's this song i've been almost done with this year... ...and as soon as i hear the keyboards...)
on artists in the world..
...the deciding moments for me in the choice between mozart and bach as a lifestyle coach were thoughts of bach. an artist, a human. loved, acknowledged at home, in his community- awakening in the morning and applying his connection with his divine, utilizing his innovation to create ways for his students to grow. or for groups of musicians to play music in a way that it not only sounded different, by the nature of the sound waves, it Was different....
to me, that is a human who happened to be an artist. giving of himself. thinking of others and those who will follow. no better or worse. just living....
most of the best art has to have been created...so by nature, as artists, we are all derivative (ahem, I mean built upon our respective traditions)...it seems the truly original art, to me, would be that which was created by someone who is helping their family, their community, and the world. to have the 'genius' flow into the world unhampered by canvas, recording, or words, not as an artist, but as humans...(...and even more someday, for it not to be original...)
my hope is to always improve as a beginner so i keep growing....
thanks again derek!!
youROCK
Thanks for sending that video as I found myself relating to a lot of what Elizabeth says.As far as songwriting goes, I usually wait for the inspiration to come and sometimes that inspiration can simply be a strong urge to pick up my guitar and just start strumming and suddenly a song starts to develop from there
I would just like to say in my 42 years of playing Trumpet in many different situations and coming up against many obstacles, the inner drive to create has never stopped and the walls of interference that comes about, from time to time, has not been a hold back. I feel that Elisabeth is dead on the money. That distance, that she spoke of, is necessary to overview your thoughts of the particular project that you may be working on as well as just quiet time to make rational judgments. I think that the creative process is a result of ones ability to want to do something and then letting go so that the creative process can begin. Inspiration comes from something heard or seen or experienced and then realized. I believe that the only thing that stands between a person and his prosperity is an idea. Once the idea is manifested the creative process begins.
I just write don't have to work at songs. The notes and words just kind of come I guess. I get my ideas through other material weather it be Christian or not.
I have created good songs in 2002. Although there are still 40 songs waiting arrangement.
I was once asked by my wise meditation teacher to accompany her while She sang a bhajan, a lovely East Indian devotional song. I never heard this song before, didn't know what key it was in, and I was asked to play on-the-spot. So, I sat behind my harp and played. And the wonderment was that it was the best thing that I have ever heard issue from my harp. I was magically in tune with Her voice, and I even knew when the song was about to end, without having any clue how many verses there were or understanding any of the words, which were in Hindi. This was not ear training, because I was playing a raga scale that was never introduced to me.
I have seen the video and heard the CD as record of my experience many times since, and I still marvel at it. Here is my take--I had total trust that I was supposed to be accompanying my meditation teacher at that moment in time. This trust allowed me to know what to play, on some level. Trust is the opposite of fear. Fear makes us breathe differently, hold tension in our muscles and our minds, and can actually injure us.
My belief is that the music lives as a pool inside of me, in my heart, and if I trust it is there, it summons up for me to play. If I place a value on it, good or bad, or am distracted by events or people around me, then I become outer-directed and lose the ability to find this pool inside of me.
I don't wait for inspiration, I don't "work" at it, I haven't "achieved" anything. It's all about dipping into this pool inside of me and going for a swim. I trust that outer achievements will follow.
Lovely video. It reminds me of how fear ruins that moment of connection.
Wow, Elizabeth Gilbert is an amazing speaker and has never communicated so beautifully that 'thing' that passes through me when I'm creating. A few years ago I came to believe that I am merely a channel that funnels creative ideas onto the page, canvas, instrument. It's a continual battle to remember to keep showing up, whether the muse does or not, because if you don't show up, neither will the muse. I'm sure I'll refer to this video again and again for a humorous and spot-on reminder of that.
First let me say that was very interesting. Thanks for sharing. I do believe that inspiration comes from God. This belief has help me to keep things in perspective. I can't get all crazy when songs don't come so easy and I no who to give thaks to when they do.
The creative process is very exciting for me. I was never one who needed something wierd to happen to get a song idea or to get inspiration. I enjoy the process. It is, in a sense, the the inspiration. I am so grateful for the gift that I can't help but write. It is my way of saying thanks for the gift.
Do you feel songs come “through” you? - sometimes they do. I mean I can feel the energy flow through my mind and heart. Other times I work and work at it and build the idea to a point where I can see where it's headed. My lastest 13 song CD project came to me so fast it felt like I couldn't keep up. It was a religious experince.
Do you wait for inspiration? - No, I don't think you should wait for it. I think you get to a point in your craft that you can create the spark. For example, I would spend all night on a drum loop. There's something there but I haven't found it yet. My craft takes over and I may take out a the hats or change the timbre of the snare and "ding" the inspiration hits.
Or do you just work and work no matter what? - Yep, no matter what. I have tons of material that I never completed because the inspiration never came even after the work. But, the cool thing is that I have come back to some of my old ideas and have created some of my better material. I guess the inspiration was delayed.
Do you feel you’ve already achieved your “greatest hit”? - I used to feel this way. But each new project seems to be better than the last. I don't mean this in a big-headed way. But I'm my harshest critic. And I honestly feel these are my best songs to date. But I still think I have greater songs to come.
Thanks for letting me share Derek. You're the best!!
Concerned friends and family are always questioning a writer's choice to become a writer, but that magical moment when we finally realize writing is not merely what we do but who we truly are, all that well-meaning though misguided negativity instantly vanishes, freeing us to be the very best writers we can be.
ahhh.... yes. how powerful this approach is...
I tend to be in the Tom Waits situation, with the random inspiration at the most inopportune times. As a result, the songs (and stories as well, as I write books/articles too) come far less often than say for my husband, DVS, who is the 'mule.'
However, I feel each song is complete and fully crafted when it does come to me - and YES - I feel I am simply transcribing it. As a result, I have less repertoire than I 'should' have, but I feel really good and connected to each song (and each story).
In short, I have always felt that the idea was 'coming through me from some place else' and I had to grab it on the run. Hearing her proposed idea that this might be true, and that it is a blessing and not a 'missed opportunity' if we aren't quick enough - is really grounding.
It actually inspires me to want to 'show up and do my part' more often and not be exasperated by the seemingly fleeting moments of inspiration!
Thank you so much for sharing this. I have posted it everywhere and I hope many many creative folks get to hear her speak!
Oh, and you can find me talking to the genius in the corner of my room from now on!
Chantel Mead
http://www.DVSandChantel.com
A wonderful and inspiring speech.
Like Elizabeth Gilbert’s father, I was an engineer for many years. However, I did experience anguish. Why? Because, deep inside, I was an artist even then? Perhaps. But some of my best works as an engineer were inspired, just like my words and music are today. Sometimes the ideas felt as if they came from somewhere beyond me, just like sometimes they do today. But as an engineer, I always had something tangible to explore with that inspiration; something with which to reason. Certainly, the anguish was lessened by the values that the members of the organisation were encouraged to hold when evaluating my work: if my work failed, it would be justly critiqued and documented as a lesson learned; if my work succeeded, I would be rewarded with kudos, promotion and pay-rises. But I still felt the anguish all the same – when would the ideas and opportunities run out? But my work was, nevertheless, always “valued”.
As an artist, I am sometimes inspired by a flood of words and/or music – often at inappropriate moments – and other times I have to work hard at it. Song lyrics and poems are much easier for me to write because they are brief and easily fine-tuned. My stories take much longer and are more often rewritten several times, disposing of large chunks in despair because they are not fitting with the whole – at times I have to apply objectivity despite how disappointed the decision makes me feel.
Now, as for whether this inspiration should be considered as being from someone or through them – whether the person is the genius or channels the genius – I think there is a more important question that needs to be asked: does the audience at the point of reading, hearing and seeing the work of art experience a similar connectedness? Is the experience that provokes a shout of “olé”, due to some critical mass of being? And, most importantly, does the awe factor have anything to do with the value that our audience perceives of art and the artist?
The above questions lead me to an observation: that the audience for the recording artist has become extremely fragmented making it even harder to find a critical mass – the internet is a double-edged sword. And the focus of the major labels has, therefore, reduced towards the large, profitable market segments, e.g. pop. Surely this makes those “irrational” successes far less likely to happen, especially if these successes are as the result of a chain of olés. It’s interesting to note that the book industry is heading the same way as the music industry has already turned: with only a handful of major publishers left and a target market focus that’s more and more towards popular fiction. For example, none of the major publishers handle poetry anymore (except for the classics), in the same way that very few classical recordings are commissioned nowadays. The major labels and publishers will continue and will still have a role to play; that of determining a value for the art that they market.
And creativity will continue to flow through or from we, the artists; and as it does a need fulfilled. For myself, it’s the rare moment when someone comes up to me and says “I really liked that song that you played – the one about…” that make being an artist satisfying. My only wish is that art and artists were valued by society for what they bring. It’s ironic that communication companies are the ones who gain the most for all we see and hear on our iPhones and computers! Unfortunately, many people believe that art should be free. That is why being an artist will continue to lead to anguish.
Derek,
Thanks for the link to a great seminar. Elizabeth has some very good views about artistic endeavors, all from experience and I respect that. For me the litmus test is my second cousin who for years was a very successful songwriter/artist in Nashville. He passed away in 89' but left a song catalog of about 500 songs to his credit, many of which you have heard on radio. To write 500 keepers takes approx. thirty years, one song a week for 30 years. About 1/3 of those songs will be of marketable quality. So my personal goal is that I must work my craft everyday. Yes, sometimes a song presents in a matter of minutes and seems to be a revelation, but alas I discover it's been said exactly in that way by another writer at least once before, back to the drawing board!
So I keep in mind everyday that I go to work in my studio, there are over ten thousand songwriters in Nashville, producing at least one song per week. Of those ten thousand songs a week, about 50 will get signed/demo'd and 5 of those 50 will be cut by an artist, one or two of those songs might actually make it to radio.
So the rejection thing for me is an everyday reality. I have a better chance of getting hit by lightning than I do getting hit by a hit song. Yet I continue to write, record and produce music because that's who I am, and that's what I do. The big man/woman upstairs wouldn't have it any other way. Thanks for all you do Derek, you are truly a great human!
Peace out,
Jimmy
I loved her book, but jeez, I've never been able to get into that whole "the-songs-exist-already-and-I-am-but-a-vessel" thing! So many people talk about that that sometimes I get depressed - "How come I only got an idea for a song, while they experienced Divine Intervention!?"
I will tell you that I can sometimes tell when a song is "coming on." I know I need to get off alone where I can be receptive, or have an instrument handy. And even if a song comes at a time when I'm not ready, and I forget it, if it's a good idea, it eventually comes back. And I have occasionally heard songs in my dreams and got up to write them down. Creativity is so fantastic and amazing, I guess it may as well be supernatural! I just happen to think it's a natural part of our wonderful existence.
But what do I know? Maybe Lennon and McCartney had a team of really high-powered song elves following them around, looking over their shoulders, suggesting chord voicings...
Thanks for the clip, Derek!
Creativity. Is it a gift or a skill? I think it is both. A creative person is born as a creative person. The lines on his palm or the planets in his birth chart will reflect that. The sense of creativity may be there since birth, but if the creativity is not nurtured, it will lie dormant and he will end up doing other things. A mind open to inspiration and to the creative urges and a mentality to keep working at his craft, all of these help a creative person stay creative. Creativity is a gift and an ability. A great thought may come to you but if you fail to harness it's influence, you miss it. Maybe it's time had not yet come. On the other hand, there are those who create out of their virtuousity. Either ways, you can make a seed out of anything. A real life experience or mythology, everything has the power to inspire. The person who harnesses inspiration is the artist. Whether you believe fairies or God or whoever gives you the inspiration is immaterial. The important aspect is the experience. Not even it's commercial success. A creative person will always create, irrespective of the success of his work (unless he is starving and needs to do something else to feed himself). He will care equally for everything that he creates, maybe some pieces more than others because of his personal connect with the piece and not because of it's commercial success. Art for art's sake. The journey as they say is the destination in itself.
Hi Derek
I have joked more than once that "channeling" must be real, because it is a good explanation for how someone as dumb as I am can produce such beautiful music. Most jokes contain a grain of truth. I really do feel that my music is, very much, from something greater than me, rather than entirely from me.
If I just work no matter what, then what I produce usually sounds like an uninspired piece of crap, but I do this some times because I feel "guilty" if I don't spend enough time at it, inspired or not. These songs usually don't make it onto one of my CDs, but some have, and I have been surprised when some people liked them more than I do. However, one of them sucked so bad that I replaced it with another before I sold too many copies of the CD. It's probably good enough to put up on CD Baby now, but it wasn't with that song on it. Oops!
One of my favorite recent works is a fairly simple guitar and flute piece that I created just recently while getting back into guitar playing after being in a hospital. No other instruments, but the unusual chord structure makes it sound as etherial as some of my very electronic stuff. Duh, how did someone like myself do something like that?
I might guess that Elizabeth Gilbert could write a book about people's experiences with the creative process, including her own, and it would be a best seller. She is really inspired and brilliant, and presently focused on that subject.
I do feel that I am still a baby at this, and my best work is yet to come.
Derek - thanks for sharing this. Elizabeth really touched some notes for me. Now I know I'm not crazy because many of my own songs have come to me from nowhere to. In 2008 I started a group through Meetup.com called singer/songwriters meetup with Raz. Much of what Elizabeth is saying is what I want to convey to my songwriting group and I will share this with them. On a side note, she mentioned Tom Waits, who I am a a third degree from. Tom Waits wrote a song in the late 70's/80's called the Tom Taubert Blues. In the summer of 1982 I witnessed a man stabbed to death by a gang of thugs and watched this man die. The next day, the newspaper reported that this man was Tom Taubert, the subject of a song written by Tom Waits. Waits apparently met this man in a Denver jail and spent the night talking to him and later wrote a song for him. I've always wondered if Tom Waits knew this ever happened to Tom Taubert and I have always said I would like to tell Tom Waits about it because the song predicted the way this man would die. As for Elizabeth Gilbert, she will be an inspiration to me and my songwriting group.
Thanks Derek
Why is it that some people are blessed with this artistic talent and others are not?
I have three daughters. Two can sing and one can't.
The ones that can sing could care less, and the one that can't wants to despertly.
I have been writing songs for many years, but one evening while I was on board a cruise ship in the Indian ocean writing music in my cabin, it occured to me that the music I was writing did not belong to me. The inversions of the chords I was playing I had never played before and didn't even know the names. The words were coming just as fast as the notes simultaniously and there were no erasers in the melody line or the lyric.
After 30 songs came in 30 days...I realized it wasn't me writing the songs, but it was a gift from God.
Since then I have been writing all most everyday with a library of over 500 songs and I take no credit for any of them. I just write them down and then record them and then put them out for people to hear.
CD Baby has helped me to distribute the work.
I give God the glory for all of the music but even more, my life.
Thank you for the opportunity to share this story.
Larry Randall
Someone said, if you 're looking for the right answer just ask the right question. This is what happpened to me now. I had all theese things lately in my head, suddenly at 9 o clock in the morning i got my answers!
Thanks Derek, thanks Elizabeth!!!
Hi Derek,
Thanks for sharing this video. It was great! I haven't had a "hit" yet, but I'm working on it!
Inspiration, Dedication and Perspiration------I love writing songs!
Blanche
I never wait for inspiration. It is just there. It is more like allowing, getting out of the way.
I often have the feeling that my music exists inside already, and all I have to do is listen.
My gratest work is always the one ahead, no matter how successful it will be or how it is received.
Thank you for sharing, Derek
Hi Derek
Thanks for posting this video. I found Elizabeth Gilbert engaging and thought provoking – to the extent that I was provoked into profoundly disagreeing with her main idea!
As a creative person of sorts, I understand the feeling of mystery and wonder that can sometimes seem part of the creative process. I can also appreciate that for some people (perhaps those far more creatively successful than I am!) the psychological construct of assigning this mystery to some magical entity outside of themselves could be a useful fiction; useful in protecting them from some of the pains and rigours of the creative life.
I believe, however, that whatever usefulness this fiction has for a few creative people is entirely outweighed by the negative effects in human society as a whole from encouraging the idea that the best human qualities (amongst which I’d number creativity) are somehow separate from human beings. It seems to me a great shame, and a source of innumerable past and current problems, that the greatest peaks of human achievement are taken away from us and assigned to a god or geni(us).
I think the dancer at whom the audience is directing the shouts of “allah/olé” should be shouting back – “No! It’s me!!”
Kind regards
Chris
In the last 6 months I've changed my song writing technique. I wait until there is a melody in my head, and then I write it down, then I find words and chords. Sometimes I have rewritten a song/fragment that already exists. This often occurs when I am in the shower or driving, because, apparently, our delta waves are flowing through our brain in those circumstances (monotonous background noise, rest of brain in automatic). Whether this means better songs I'm not sure, but they have become simpler. A negative of this is that I sometimes avoid listening to music or playing an instrument, in the fear that it may stop that melody from forming in my head! I am a christian believer. I have experienced a warm shiver go through me when, e.g. a psalm has been read at church, and known that this means a song will come (usually that psalm put to music). I attribute this to a work of the Holy Spirit. I also believe other, unholy spirits might also inspire.
I really enjoyed her talk,especially the Tom Waits part of it where inspiration can show up at an inappropriate time.
I think that what ever you want to attribute your creative side to,be it God or an imp in the corner or yourself is pretty much an individual choice.
It is whatever you decide it is that helps keep your mentality in balance.
I am also reading Julie Camerons book,The Artist's Way,which this talk/video,enforces in some ways.
My take on both of these is not to question your creative force,but embrace it,nurture it and work with it.
Thanks Derek!
I TRULY THINK THAT INSPIRATION COMES FROM A HIGER SOURCE,AND SOMETIMES ITS THE EVENTS AT THAT TIME THAT CAN INSPIRE INSPIRATION,TO BE CREATIVE,YOU ALSO HAVE TO GET BEHIND THE WORD INSPIRATION,MEANING TO INSPIRE,WHICH IS MORE LIKE SPIRITUAL,WHICH IN PART TOUCHES THE SOUL THIS IS WHAT HAS MADE MUSIC A UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE,LOOK AT BOB MARLEY,NEED I SAY ANYMORE,SO YES I GET ISPIRED FROM A HIGER SOURCE,AND SOMETIMES I CAN FEEL THE POWER AT THE TIME IM CREATING,ITS LIKE IM NOT HERE LIKE AN OUT OF BODY EXPERINCE,LIKE IM JUST WATCHING,LIKE JIMI SAID ARE YOU EXPERIENCE,IM
keep doing it till it happens.like doing lay ups, mental lay ups,then when it comes you can grab it,i dont fret if its fleeting it will come annother day when its time. just keep the faucet open.my fans and the dance floor are the judges of my greatest hits, somedays we levitate together otherdays we just are..,i always feel insecure but still hopefull,i still have the dreams of a 24 year old, even tho i am an old man ,a good attitude is key. i know many players from every walk , the one with the better attitude is usually doing more ,my attitude could use some tuning im working on it /teaching helps /elizabeth and derek helped thanks ,billy
In all Beginning there is always a misstake and defficulties, asking questions about my intelletual property the good song is about to hit because have gotin more expirence
more inspirations and more money these wil bring a better way.
thanx Derek
Do you feel songs come “through” you?
I do believe that the music comes from somewhere else, whether from your higher self or from another dimension. In a meditation once, I found myself sitting in a cave looking out into space. Sylph-like light beings were singing this amazing music and I captured it and brought it back. They told me that this music was always there for me any time I wanted to find it. I've been back since and yes there it is again!
When I listen to music I've written, I often wonder how it could have come from me. It's definitely a gift.
Do you wait for inspiration? Or do you just work and work no matter what?
Yes I do wait for inspiration, unless I have a paid composing job when I force something to come. In those situations I wonder why I don't force myself more often!
When an idea comes it won't stop, I too have to catch it and try to get it down. Then I can relax and have fun developing and perfect it, but if I miss it, it's often gone.
Many of my ideas come in the shower. It's the rhythm of the running water, and the music of those perfect transparent drops hitting the tiles. I'll find myself humming a riff, or a line of lyrics. I have to keep singing it the whole time until I can get out of the shower to write it down or play it. The trouble is that we are in a drought here in Australia and are limited to 4 minute showers. I need a recycled waterfall grotto to sit in and write.
Do you feel you’ve already achieved your “greatest hit”? Or is your greatest work yet-to-come?
I have by no means achieved my greatest work yet. I am working on a musical and have 20 of the best pieces I've ever written, but have not yet shown anyone. Once it's been produced and staged, I have so many more projects waiting to be completed.
Writing music is like being a gardener. You have your first ideas, germinations that can be left in the dark a while to sprout. Then there's the seedlings that need to be planted out into their parts, guitar, bass, keys etc. Then there's the harvest, the finished work all produced and ready to go. You work on them all over time, checking in on all of them in good time. Some are just weeds, that you throw away, others can be weird plants that you thought would not be very pretty and and up being awesome songs! Sometimes you have to leave the land to rest and do other things besides writing. Other times, it's like life is getting in the way and all you want to do is write.
I feel incredibly privileged to be a composer and have access to this amazing source of emotive sound waves.
what I do is say a prayer that goes like this...
'Please God take my will and my life over to your care today,make me humble and grateful and help me to sit back relax listen and love.'
This I find helps me to get into a conscious contact with my higher power, and then I let it take over.
I write my first book of poems when I was 15 and then went on to write music,program and produce...
creativity is like time .it is all things yet nothing unless you know when and how to express it in it simplistic terms as complex,any writer or singer artist will tell you ,they are as only insprired as their last inspiration,,peace wizthom
Thanks Derek very interesting video.
Songs seem to happen to me, they come into my head with lyrics and music at the same time.
In a way I wait for inspiration weather it be other peoples experiences or my own. Sometimes its a film or a story I am reading. Quite often I imagine myself in another persons shoes and write about that, the music telling the story as well as the lyrics.
So I suppose songs do come through me.
I would like to think that the more I write, the better I get at it so I have not yet written my greatest hit. That thought inspires me to better my songs.
I do not spend ages trying to perfect a song, if its not there at the time then it never will be so I tend to scrap it and move on to the next idea.
I have had the odd weird song that came from no where, just popped into my head for no reason.I guess in a way I'm full of it and have so many more songs in me, I take it for granted that I will just keep writing.
Do you feel songs come “through” you?
Usually a fragment of a song, like one word, a title or one line just sparks off the whole thing
Do you wait for inspiration?
Or do you just work and work no matter what?
I am unable to create merely by will. Rarely I am hit by what I feel is an astounding idea. If is strong, it doesn't matter if I am ready for it or not,it lives in me somewhere, until I get down to it. Most of the time though I have to to wait for inspiration. Sometimes it comes and sometimes it does not,and sometimes it can take a while.
Do you feel you’ve already achieved your “greatest hit”?
Or is your greatest work yet-to-come?
I think I'll know the answer to that just before I die.
Derek: Thanks for sharing.
1) Good songs come through me and I feel it immediately. But ever notice how each artist has their own unique style?
2) I try to write even if inspiration isn't there BUT more often than not, the song comes when inspiration has arrived.
3)I can force songs out (work and work) but they often feel forced. BUT rewriting lyrics is not a forced situation in my opinion, it's a necessity. I'm referring more to melodies and chord progressions.
4) Greatest hits are yet to come because songwriting in my opinion is like learning guitar. Practice makes you better.
5)So, I believe hard work seems to channel great songs that do have their own mysteriously spiritual side to them. It is amazing and unexplainable. Songwriters generally get better at it with practice in my opinion.
Cheers,
Thanks for the link Derek! I found it truly inspiring. We all share common ground one way or another. It's the only way we try to make the world a better place.
it was interesting to hear how other people get there inspiration
myself i cant sit down and write a song something has got to have happened to me or something on the tv or even something or someone ive observed in life even then i dont suddenly have a rush to write it just comes and always the melody first the lyrics later
The comments of Elizabeth Gilbert on, "Creative Genius", delivered during the imposium featured on the website so kindly made possible through the concerted efforts of Derek Silvers, founder of, "CD-Baby.com",is delitefully wonderful, which is to say that it sheds light on the sense of wonder held within the heart and soul of dearest Elizabeth! It becomes obvious that all minds concerned with sharing and caring are kindred spirits. And in answer to the five questions listed below the screen following Elizabeth Gilberts comments regarding the essence, or, source of creativity,i.e., "do you feel that songs/writtings come through you?", "do you wait for inspiration?", "or do you just work and work no mater what?",and," do you feel your best work has already passed by, or, that your best is still in front of you?", come to all of us at one time, or, another and I find comfort in remembering what I already knew when I arrived down here in this deminsion which is to say that we are all a spiritual being taking up residence here inside of these wonderfully designed biological containers and I find it paramont to stay in touch with the Prime Creator, on a regular basis. Conscience effort is the key to maintaining the awareness that provides us all with the sense of balance that keeps us from falling into te net of dispairity! In one sense our experience as unselfish caring humans who have the desire to share our experiences of joy, or, sorrow is like unto a tight-rope walker who while trampsing step by step on the tight-wire stretched over the Niagra Falls, must make use of the balancing pole in hand. The awareness, along with the knowledge, of how to maintain a sense of balance is essential to the sucessful continuation and completion of such an undertaking. One slip of the foot!!,...yikes, and it's over! Ha, ha, ha! And I have found that to lose sight of my connection with that of the great Prime Creator is to lose that sense of balance that carries me through all the unexpected gust of winds that may come, testing my sense of resolve to be steadfast for that moment.
"Ask and it shall be given, seek and ye shall find",the word inspiration quite literally means, "the breath of God", wherein there have been instances in which I knew, without a doubt, that a piece of work was an orchestrated colaboration between me and DAD, as I like to call Him! (Although Prime Creator is not male, or, female as Prime Creator doesn't need to procreate in the biological sense but makes that means available to us in this deminsion). Prime Creator also likes share any variety of things with His kids/children! Have you ever had the experience of a funny idea that pops into your head, seemingly from out of nowhere? Like when a buddy sneaks up behind you and pokes you on the back? At first you're a little startled but when you turn around they're making a funny face at you! Ya just can't help but break out into a roaring laughter accompanied by your friend's laughter as you both slap each other on the back sharing the joy of life!? Well thoses ocassions when a good idea pops into your head are from Prime Creator and can, as noted by dear Elizabeth and her story of Tom Waits, come at ackward times, with no pen and paper handy.
Then, of course, there are times when we experience a sense of misery over a loss of some sort and we find a need to rid ourselves of all the negativity attached with it like a something nawing at our insides that we must get out of our system before it eats out our insides,...catharsis becomes a means to find remedy in such cases. Oddly enough, it is still an act of the creative juices flowing through to render the sorrowfl event into some sort of form as a means of finding a sense of closure,...i.e., a song, melody line, a poem, a pinting? So there is, within the community of mankind, those who choose to communicate all of the experiences of life, through a sense of caring and sharing,...it's a wonderful form of record keeping,...and I'm thankful for all that brings it into existance.
I agree with her. Einstein said genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. One of the real demons creative artists face also is faced by anyone in a profession that involves the public eye - and that is the press and media. Sensationalism and bad criticism seem far to often mistaken for good journalism. In these cases, the artist suffers a great deal.
In my opinion the best creativity is that which flows naturally from a person, unencumbered by deadlines or pressure. The songs that I have written or the artwork that I have created which I love the most are those works that have essentially created themselves.
Although creativity can be forced my experience has shown that true creativity should not be forced. The works that I force myself to create are not nearly as good as the ones that create themselves. And nine times out of ten I end up scrapping them.
For this reason I have a full time profession which pays the bills. This also relieves the pressure to force creativity and allows me the luxury of waiting until the creative process is ready to release itself. When this occurs the ideas come flooding out and the process becomes an experience that has far more satisfying results.
Sometimes I will go months without the feeling that I have to write or record a song. Then out of the blue some stimulus will trigger the creative process, often without my being aware of it happening. Then the need to start writing will manifest itself and I start writing or recording my ideas like a mad man, often with no regard to time, my surroundings or anything – almost like I am in a dream state. Sometimes the flow of ideas is so great that there is literally nothing I can do to stop it. And often the need to create is so urgent that I have to literally take a vacation day from my day job so that I can have the time to get all of the ideas out.
If you are fortunate enough to have the luxury of not relying on your creativity to provide you with an income and feed your family, the creative aspects of your life in my opinion become a far more rewarding experience and a pleasure rather than a chore.
I know that if I attempt to make myself write music, words, anything it does not come out. A door has to be open leading to a place of depth, deep thought, or being lead through that door while that something is showing me what ever it is I must write.
Dear Derek,
Once again thank you very much for passing to me a very inspiring and well informed piece of work by Ms. E. Gilbert. There is a quiet a few good advices there that I can use in my music career.
That's why I always loved to improvise: I go into a different state of mind and open the channels to my divine source to lead my fingers to the right notes
I started to read the Seth material, because this is a writer, Jane Roberts going into a different state of mind to produce excellent philosphy as Seth without her conscious knowing...
Just finished two inprovised meditation pieces: "Pan meets Daphne" and "Neptun meets Arielle" - on the latter the Atlantic Ocean is having his musical part also...
Follow me on twitter.com/PeterBayreuther
and get "Pan meets Daphne" for free...
having fun while playing and creating music definetly opens the channels to our divine source - duty mind kills it - nevertheless it is certainly important to DO it
Thank-you for bringing her to my attention, I was touched by her humor and her wit: Yes i feel the songs come thru me.
No, i don not wait for inspiration but when it comes I do my best to be available to receive the gift. Yes, i work and work everyday, whether it is practicing, writing, recording. i show up. No I don't feel as thou I have achieved my "greatest work" however, I have learned to love my work for what it is rather than spend so much time criticizing it. Inspiration has found me easier and more often since then. Thank-you for mentioning that this can be a lonely pursuit as indeed it can. It sometimes helps to know I am not the only one who feels that way at times.
As humanist/rationalists, its going to be hard, perhaps unproductively hard, or event impossible for many of us to ascribe our work to a higher or separate power.
What we can do tho - to put it another way - is to invest ourselves in the process (as she says - "its my job" without forming attachment to the outcome.
We do what we can and when its done, its done.
Rich
Xx
I think we, as artists, are more finely tuned to that "energy" or "divine inspiration." But it's our own humanity that sometimes flaws the work. In other words, it's "lost in translation." But we cannot just sit and wait to be touched by God. That's where the practicing and the work of developing our craft comes into play. The more prepared we are, the easier (theoretically) it will come. I personally work at it everyday. Sometimes I work for hours on end, if not days, only to find my trash can is the only one getting fulfilled. Other times, the complete work can be done in a very small amount of time (unfortunately, those times are extremely rare!) I hope my greatest work isn't behind me, but I have to believe that it isn't. I have to believe that the greater work ... no ... the greater ANSWER, is yet to come.
Back in high school I read an autobiography by Philip Glass, recounting his work on the Trilogy of operas, Einstein on the Beach, Aknahten, Satyragraha. One thing really stayed with me: Glass always works in the morning. He never composes after lunch. No ideas ever came to him outside of the time he was composing.
Later, I read a quote from Igor Stravinsky saying he considers himself the vessel by which a work comes through.
It's an approach I've always taken with songwriting. I hum to myself a lot, but I never really listen to what I'm humming.
When Elizabeth Gilbert told that anecdote about Tom Waits, I immediately thought about Glass and Stravinsky.
I have the reverse situation where ideas seem to want to spur me to write, but I always keep them at bay. I'll let them in when I set aside time to do so.
Another seemingly dangerous thing I do is to let an idea come to me but not write it down. I intentionally try to forget it. If it's a really good idea, the parts that matter will come back to me when I go back and try to remember.
great talk - i personally have long realized that I am just a conduit for the creative energy. my songs are filtered thru me but come from 'out there', or whatever you want to call it. Elizabeth talks about this seperation of the creative process from the ego as being essential to remaining sane and healthy. this is certainly true, but i want to point out that its not just artistic creativity that needs to be seperated from ego, but everything that all of us do. in other words , we all need to lose self-importance first, then we will free our energy from it's rediculous obsession with upholding our inflated images of ourselves; and allow it to be put to tapping into that vast world of creative energy that exists beyond our puny world of reason.
If I get an idea I work it up. If I don't, I don't. No big deal. Analizing the process doesn't help me at all. It just makes me think I should get over myself, but thats just me. Best of luck!
This speech couldn't have come at a better time for me. I have been a musician and poet for over 10 years and after publishing two volumes and yet to release my first album, I, at numerous times, have been in the situation where I no longer like my work after it is finished. Being scared of creating is a feeling I know very well. I have just started writing my third volume of poetry and starting recording for my first album. (I have quit my jobs and dropped out of university to pursue these things.)
In this period I have often had fights with my girlfriend because after a full day of just slaving away at the two things I care so much about, I had no respect for myself, hated everything I wrote and recorded, and was just frightened by the fact that all the work I put in might end up being for nothing. I have been reading your articles for a long time Derek, but I'd really like to thank you for showing me this video. It really spoke to me! Cheers!
Hi Derek!
I thank you so much for this great video with Elizabeth Gilbert, this was very inspiring to me!
The message she is sending out to every artist in the world is very positive, supportive and encouraging and I really like that.
As far as I am concerned, I love being "surprised" by inspiration: that means that for me inspiration of a melody or lyrics comes often in an unexpected way and more importantly, it always comes when I am in the most joyful and peaceful frame of mind.I feel that creativity comes to me when I am "available" and ready for her so that I can give her full attention and take care of her like you would take care of a new born baby. And it is always a very pleasant experience, it feels like "having a conversation with the universe"...
Cherifa Tounsi
Fabulous talk!
I would only add one thing to Elizabeth's perspective...I have found that ASKING for a song, while feeling the essence of what I want to express seems to invite the 'genius' or 'muse' in. If I can feel what I want, it is always delivered. My job is to be there, focused on the feeling, and completely open and ready to receive the song, in other words, being in just the right state of mind...simple, not always easy!
The video is a good reminder to enjoy the journey...we all seem to worry about failing, but none of it is worth anything if we don't ENJOY life...
Hello Derek. Here is my take on this. I have been a musician since 1968. I got hooked on The Beatles and decided then and there that I wanted to be a musician. As I got older I got past all of the wanting to be a "Star" nonsense, and came to a point where I just wanted to be heard. Today, at age 53, I look for a little respect, recognition, and a little revenue. The Three R's.
The speakers point as to the awful burden on artists is one I am a little tired of hearing about. As one of the little unknown worker bees, we never get any recognition much less money. Many of us, like myself, have gotten a job, raised and supported a family, lived life as a responsible adult, all the while, still trying to create musically and satisfy that inner need to perform, and be heard and understood.
I remember when Hendrix, Morrison, and Joplin, all passed away within a year of each other. They were gifted artists, but I would bet my last dime that there were many other artists with just as much talent who never got any recognition or rewards, lived responsibly and didn't poison themselves with a self destructive lifestyle because they were "suffering" for their art. Suffering? Really?
I would be far more interested in hearing from someone like myself, and what they do to keep engaged and creative, knowing that very few people will ever hear what they have to offer.
I am less concerned that my best work is behind me (or ahead of me), then that no one will ever hear my best work.
I don't mean this to sound like a rant, just an adult in a business that often seems dominated by people who havent' grown up yet.
Regards, Jerome Unger
O.K. here's my story. I prayed one morning to work with the Creator. It was a deep prayer, very felt, to do work for the Creator. Right after that, I heard a name and I was 'told' (which was part hearing and part feeling) to go to CD Baby and look up this name. I did. I was directed to a particular CD, and I was given a comment which I wrote. It was something that had to do with trusting and keeping on being creative. Then I looked, and saw that the artist on this particular CD had done a song about doubting God. I listened to the song, and then went about my day. Later I looked it up, and the new people at CD Baby didn't approve the comment. Hummm. So there it is. The Creator talks. We just don't approve it!
My work is just about listening, and trying to stay out of the way.
I'm an author and a singer/songwriter (www.marytrsofsound.com). I completely believe, absolutely, that my creativity is entirely channeled. The writing (books and song) comes to me in one whole piece. I tweak and work it after that, but it arrives fully formed. It doesn't come from me. I just receive it.
I don't even bother trying to create from myself any more—I don't believe it's possible. I do a lot of meditation, connecting directly to the Divine via my mind (psychic development techniques), dreaming, walking around, etc. Most of the time, I'll get five songs in a weekend—just will receive them out of the air. And then of course, will tweak and work. But the initial spark is received.
One of the wisest elders I know once said to me, " Your gifts are not your own. They belong to your people".
We were all given a gift to share with others. It doesn't belong to us, and if we chose to hide it, or to use it for our own ego, we will have abused it.
We are entrusted with it not primarily for our own enjoyment or benefit ( although it can often,but not always,be that), but for the benefit of others.
Great Video!
Yes, I feel that the work comes through me, even when recording a cover song. I showed up and did my part, God gave me the idea, that's how I think of it.
I prefer to work in a structure and sit down to create something, but lyrics often get started when I'm running. The idea pops in my head and my feet set the tempo.
Inspiration happens all the time, whether or not I'm paying attention is another story.
I work a lot but give myself some breaks cause I know I'm human.
Overall, my greatest hit will be the body of work as a whole, more than any particular song.
Hi Derek,
Thanks again for your ever useful and informative notes. I understand her exactly well - though she's a lttle too nervous for me, ahem! Yes! There's life to live and work to do. And I'm fortunate enough to do what I enjoy most: Music in every aspect, i.e., from its conception to its finition. And been at this for at least 15 years. Some people think I'm super talented and deserve all the breaks in the world. And others always ignore me, because I'm not famous due to the lack of a, 'break'. So far it's all words and silence! But like she said, as a disciplned person I do what I do and just go out and take breaks, live life and have lots of fun - sometimes never even bothering to tell what I do to others, and come back to pick up where I've left off!! We'll see if some big break will come through. But i wouldn't let it torment me for anything because I love life, languages, travels and cycling and sex and many other wonderful things for all mortal beings. And just as I'm writing this, I'm working, and I don't want to be nervous about it - just get physically and go to bed, because I'm not going out tonight to clubs!
Thank U and cheers,
Henry.
www.myspace.com/henrysoul
www.myspace.com/henrysoulplayslive
Hi Derek.
Thanks for the video. Guess I should complete my thinking here.
The gift I refer to in the creative case is both an ability which needs to be developed, and an openess to discovery. The discovery process has an external aspect to it. Sometimes a simple riff seems to contain a song. But if I hadn't learned to play an instrument, I would not be able to express it. I'd say I discover songs more than write them.
Derek, thanks so much for sharing that video!
As I listened to Elizabeth, the first thought that occured to me was, "no, I'm not afraid".
I initially began writing music back in 2003, as a accompaniment to a cookbook "project". Since then, I have continued writing music and have been amazed to observe the "growth" of this creativity....like taking baby steps.....
Yes! I definitely feel that my songs come "through" me. It is not uncommon for me to sit down at my piano, place my hands on the keys, and simply have music begin "flowing" from my fingers.
And, like the poet, Ruth Stone, I have learned to "capture" that creativity a.s.a.p. (or it tends to be lost). I now keep a digital recorder on my piano so I can do just that.
Some of my songs have come to me in the middle of the night, or, first thing in the morning. Again, I have learned to immediately head for my piano (or lose them!)
There have been times when I have been "inspired" by something and would immediately "feel and hear" music inside my head. Sometimes I was close to my piano, other times I would simply keep going over and over the tune (in my head) until I could get to the piano....
I have tried the "scheduled" approach to music writing; it does NOT work for me.
Have I achieved my "greatest hit" yet? No. Perhaps my "magnus opum" (sorry if I spelled that wrong) won't come until I write my very last piece of music....who can say...
At any rate, I am "content". I am content with what I have done, and, would certainly be thrilled to someday see a piece of my music featured in a film/tv/video game....
I'm simply enjoying the musical and creative "ride".....
Ole!
When I write sometimes it is as though I have removed a stopper from a large barrel and this liquid just pours out. Frequently what I am writing makes no sense to me at all until I read what I have written. Then I think in those unusual moments, I wish I could write like that. Of course I just did,- I think, or was I just a tool (ya, ya maybe so) of some higher source. Other times I am in no position to write and have lost some of the greatest stuff I have never written.
This stuff could drive you nuts. Keep some paper next to the bed and a cheap mini recorder in your pocket. If you are afraid of running out of material, don’t be, it is endless if you know where to look. You can learn to conscious dream. Sit in a chair. Hold something in each hand that you will drop when you fall asleep, but not make so much noise as to startle you. When you drop this ball, or pensil or whatever--- hold this state. With practice you can learn to dream and be fully conscious. That’s right, vivid dreaming like you experience in your sleep. This technique was practiced by Thomas Edison it has other names like meditation, self-hypnosis ect, but conscious dreaming is the least misleading.
Another trick is to read some of the classics, fill your self with knowledge and it will remix and pour back out. Travel to some place you haven’t been and learn its history and geology. There is a song in every thought, though most may be discarded, do not refuse to write a bad song even if you know it is a bad song, write it .I have found when I stop writing a song that I know is bad, nothing else will come until I write the bad song, I don’t discard it until the next song comes.
I hope this helps
Kevin Wood kevinwoodmusic.com
I enjoyed your presentation.The last sentence was the best for me. "Just keep showing up".No, I don't think I've done my best work yet.Yes once in a while I've had the rare feeling that an idea was being sent to me but not often. Usually I work at coming up with a theme or hook or chorus etc. I don't wait for inspiration. I don;t write everyday and I know I probably should. I have other things to do so when they are covered I work at writing. I love it and I feel that what ever I write has been a creative project. The hardest thing for me is getting my song(s)through the proper front door.
Thanks Derek for being a constant cyber-companion in the music business. She made a lot of good
points. Do have to disagree with
her comparison of writer to Chemical engineer-- I feel the engineering field takes as much if not more creative thinking as any artist does. Thats why some (including yourself) of the best musicians are engineering types.
Thanks again - Doug
wow, excellent and very moving talk! and yes, full of so much truth!
I've been consciously creating music since the age of 15, which is when I first had a piano come into my life (although my mom once told me that I made up little songs when I was 4). my more inspired compositions have always felt as though they were co-created with some higher power.
I do not slavishly, "mulishly" work every day. I've occasionally tried to, but the results were usually dull and mundane, and I found myself bored with the process. No, I have rather always preferred to wait for that celestial spark to take me by the shoulders and say, "now. now it's time to go work on this song, and you must continue doing so for every available moment until it is done."
this obviously doesn't happen very often, and so it is that I'm not a terrifically prolific artist. on the flip side, I do feel that when I work on a song of this sort, it's well worth the effort.
in recent years, various physical problems have begun to make playing more difficult, with the unfortunate side effects of pain and even semi-paralysis. as a result, inspiration comes with increasing infrequency, and so I do worry about whether I even have the right to continue to call myself a songwriter, if I'm no longer actively creating songs on a regular basis!
thanks so much for sharing this with all of us, Derek. I feel, maybe not directly encouraged, but certainly less discouraged.
Norman Mailor - "Every book I've written has killed me a little more". I certainly know that feeling. In fact, in my manic days of writing, I would often, on my way to the studio, picking up the day's whatever at the time, whisper to myself "destroy to create, destroy to create....." By the end of the day all the tracks and vocals would be done, mixed, new song, but I would come home exhausted from the pace and pass out within a minute of hitting the pillow. Most of the time it was just me and an engineer chasing me with microphones or guitar chords and a mop.
The idea of creativity coming "from somewhere else". To me, music is like a giant pool of sound that I can reach into and "pick" which notes and chord structures from that pool I want to use. The pool sounds like when you hit every note on a piano and keep your foot on the sustain pedal. Think water tower. Stand under it with a water cooler cup. Take the drops home (play a few notes on a piano) and see what's in the cup today. Run out of drops? Then go stand under the water tower again, but stick to the cup, don't bring a bucket, cause if you bring that much water (that many notes to try and organize) you know you won't have time for all that.
Ruth Stone "getting to a piece of paper and a pencil fast enough" - I have written lyrics wherever I was standing, one day it went around an entire lampshade, I have written on shelves (taken them down, written on them, put them back on the wall, entire bathroom doors, I have asked bus drivers for a pen and paper, I have called people and asked them to write lyrics down, I have slept with a tape recorder near the bed. I dream entire songs and sometimes get them all in 3 to 8 minutes from waking up.
Tom Waits - "can't you see that I'm driving?" - ...;me talking back to a song that wants to be written - "Oh, no you don't, that's the fifth time you've been here this week, where do you think you're gonna go if I let you in? With all the others?"
As I wander around in the middle of the 4th decade of my career, writing has become easier yet I do it less frequently. At this point it's a matter of what Not to write, because if I let them all in I'd never have time to sleep, where they invade also anyway, so what's the use.
http://cdbaby.com/cd/markradice6
Sometimes it's lyrics and then the music.Sometimes music then the lyrics. Sometimes it's just music.
325 songs published/recorded and counting.Thanks. Love the comments.
Thank you very much for the link to Elizabeth's talk. It was most interesting.
As for your questions:-
I feel songs come through me
Yes I wait for inspiration and try to catch even a piece of it (whether the final piece turns out different or not) I cannot work on no matter what (I haven't usually had the patience) I have no idea whether my hit has already been achieved but I tend to think I have much greater stuff to come as I improve every time!
We go from glory to glory. I think the best is yet to come.
At 62, and in show biz since I was 9, let me share: it's true that time passes quicker now then when I started. And with time whizzing by, it is more and more challenging to complete all the endless creative projects I want to do. It occurred to me quite a while ago that I can only do what I can do. So I do what I can.
I actually got out of Show Biz nine years ago, but got inspired to write songs about Tai Chi and Qigong which I also teach since '83. My belief is anyone who wants to create can make the time. They can get inspired to stay healthy and keep dreaming with Tai Chi-Qigong. So I occassionally sing one or three of the songs at a lecture demo about what I teach, (YES! I love to teach as much as perform.)
So now I inspire others as well as I can, to, As ELIZBETH SAID AT THE VERY END... " Keep Showing UP!"
www.cdbaby.com/RavenCohan2
I am in her shoes right now, in a sense,..I haven't experienced the same type of freakish mainstream success she describes but I've witnessed it from being involved in projects that got so big they had a life of thier own.
but here's my situation,..
I'm a musician working on a 3rd commercial release,..which is very different than my previous work and it scares me, but it also scares me that don't know "the source". I didn't think it made sense until now, but I get it now after watching this speech, especially in regards to her story of the poet chasing the poem. Maybe I have a different genius now? lol a changing of the guard? That feeling of "uh oh, here it comes where is *$%&-ing pen" has happened to me all of my life until fairly recently,.. writing has become more difficult, I've felt as though "my friend" has abandoned me and I'm alone now,..I thought that was totally irrational until 25 minutes ago,..but I just had an epiphany!!! BECAUSE I've put so much pressure on myself to produce, I forgot about that big elephant in the room. figuratively & literally. I've been so wrapped up in my own head I haven't left a line open to hear her call, it's like I'm a walking busy signal,..So now, I'm calling out,.."Oh genie, where are you? wanna play? Let's have some tea and get to know each other again, let's have some fun!"
Just what I needed, thanks Derek! For you, I will put aside a complimentary CD, or download, or...maybe I'll just channel it over the psychic internet!
Blessed be
d
I often feel that my creativity comes from a sacred place. But in my desire to honor the divine in my music I put so much intense pressure on myself that I set myself up for failure. This was a great talk to help me re-orient myself.
I am also a fiction writer as well as a composer and have been writing music and stories as long as I can remember.
I also used to paint a bit too.
But, I don't think about or worry about any of this stuff.
Everyone in my family is artistic in at least one way or another and it's all in the genes.
As far as inspiration, I'm inspired pretty much by what goes on around me in everyday life.
Especially the human condition. But then who probably isn't?
IMHO Some try too hard to dissect what makes them creative.
I've seen a lot of books about this and how you may be borderline insane if you are creative and blah,blah,blah.
Those who killed themselves like Hemmingway and Platt were most likely already messed up freshly out of the womb.
Charles Manson has a genius IQ, was quite creative and look at him.
He actually lived with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys who was quite impressed with Manson's song writing abilities and the Beach Boys even recorded and released one of Manson's songs though he was not given credit on the recording.
Had Manson became famous for his music he'd still be the same psycho.
Me, I put creativity down to being wired a certain way.
Everyone pretty much has some talent or another no matter how mentally balanced they may or may not be.
No different than being born with brown eyes or blue eyes.
I never worry about not being able to come up with new ideas or is this going to be the best I can ever do.
That's just an exercise in futility.
Not a very romantic or mystical answer I'm afraid.
But then again I constantly hear from others I'm one of the most logical people they have ever met, so I'll blame it on that : )
To answer "How this mystery happens".... We "work" at it by preparing ourselves with fundamentals but since writing songs, lyrics, books, etc is CREATION from something which did not exist before it definitely comes from somewhere. I believe the artist must be "in tune" with the source of this creation. People like Einstein, Michelangelo, etc were able to focus their minds because they could use both hemispheres of their brains most effectively. Meditation greatly enhances this ability. As I become even better at this process, each song becomes more complete in it's final form. Yes, all people "in tune" receive it. The question is... What will you do with what you receive? The "mechanical" writers sound mechanical. Great things are from inspiration.
Ms Gilbert seems to be confusing 'success' with 'achievement' - she may write 10 good books in her life, but the next one might always be rubbish. It's the fear which gives life to the sense of internal competition - the desire to do better - that's what makes artists of all sorts better at what they do.
Who knows where creative impulses come from? Does it matter? I write songs because I want to play and record music that I wrote, and I endeavour to be as good at it as I can.
The question to ask oneself is not 'why do I write a song (or book, or play etc)', but 'what else is there to do except write a song (or book, or play etc)?' - the sort of (albeit very interesting) self-questioning that Elizabeth Gilbert extols so eloquently seems to me to be in danger of becoming an end in itself. It might even merely reflect another aspect of the 'tortured artist' she is keen to de-bunk and disown.
I found this a very interesting talk, which has given me much to think about - but I think that some part of the central premise is a little flawed. But then, I have never created an acknowledged 'hit' - so maybe I would say that!
Dan
I've been watching TED for quite some time and I loved the talk by Elizabeth Gilbert that you recommended Derek. I also loved her book, "Eat, Pray, Love."
Here's my Immediate, knee-jerk reaction after watching the video:
I believe that Pure Creativity has no boundaries or rules. It has no rhyme or reason, and is not based on any logical conclusion of what is the proper way to produce or create a result. Pure Creativity is free of impurities, totally naked, and does not wear the clothing of pride, selfishness or ego. Pure Creativity has absolutely no purpose until its creator gives it one. Pure creativity bubbles up from the heart, it does not trickle down from the head. It cannot be bought, taught or found in any book. It has no formula for completion, and is only available to its creator when used in conjunction with the truth. Pure Creativity is not learning how to play guitar, it’s remembering how to play. It’s not writing a new script, it’s summoning the thespians of your imagination. It’s not painting a pretty picture, it’s getting out of the way so a colorful expression can appear on the canvas. The place where pure creativity exists has not yet been fully explored. However, it has been known to hide in such elusive places as that serene, silent space between one thought and the next, prowling in the privacy of naiveté and innocence—wedged between bright ideas and self doubt, and dancing in the shadows of spontaneity and impulsive behavior. The ultimate result of Pure Creativity is expressed love.
Although conceptually it wasn't new to me, I completely relate to all of what Elizabeth said. My first notion that we are, or could be, separated from our creativity came from reading an interview with Carlos Santana.
Paraphrasing to the best of my recollection, Carlos was asked where do his melodic ideas come from and if he worried about the ideas drying up. He said that he didn't worry about it because the melodies weren't his anyway, they belonged to the Universe,and the Universe is infinite No shortage of melodies! He only channeled them, was only a conduit.
Riiight, Carlos. At the time it seemed a little cosmic, and as I wasn't yet in a particularly creative period of my life I didn't find the interview useful.
A few years later when I was facing a paying audience every night, I DID find myself wondering what the heck I was going to do to keep things fresh and I recalled Carlos's interview. The concept of a Universe being an unlimited source of ideas with me being the channel helped a lot. Of course, I had to rehearse the band, show up and play the guitar, do the WORK, but ideas for new songs or arrangements on old songs did seem to come from nowhere much more readily if I distanced myself from OWNING the ideas.
Thankfully, I'm confident my best work is yet ahead of me. I have better tools, talented people and a better lifestyle that supports our creativity so I, we, are truly getting better and better.
I have been working on a career in opera and I think that what this boils down to is to keep fear away. If you allow fear to interfere with you, you will never reach the point where you can create or perform at the best of your abilities. I have found this harder to do than to say, but I have been getting better at it. When you just have fun doing what you do, you tap into this great energy that will lift you up in so many ways. So keep Fear away, be optimistic, look at the glass half full and keep on believing in yourself, and if you do, the "Genius" will show up. Thank you.
One of the benefits of maturing as an artist is being able reconcile within yourself both your processes and your response to all that your creative work entails.
Yes, i have a seperate sense of my work and myself. I perceive the music i create as being a seperate identity to me, and that i am simply the means by which it comes into a tangible form. I don't so much feel like a channel, but more like a nurturer, taking a seed and caring for it, providing an opportunity for it's growth and expansion, until it has fully grown into a work within it's own right. Then, not unlike a parent, i feel the urge to let it go, and allow it to be on it's own, to forge it's own place in humanity, to link up with people and places, time and space.
As for a "best work"...i don't believe there is a best work as such. i don't consider any of my children as being the "best", and likewise any of my works. They simply are. Sure, some might be more popular, more relatable perhaps, but each project soars to it's own unique height...and if it can touch one heart, move one soul...it has surely achieved the greatest success imaginable.
I thought her descriptions were very animated however I understood exactly what she was getting at. If writing is what you love by all means write as much as you can. So when that inspirational moment does come you can catch it and know that you are not alone in the creative process.
Derek,
Thank you for sharing this video with us. The creative side is always looked at as crazy, especially if your success does not come within the time period in which people think it should come. I also feel that the creative process is different for everyone but still the same in many ways. Very inspirational at this moment for me.
WIth that being said and considering the talk, my best work is yet to come.
RECAP:
- songs come "through" inspiration...
- they are not "yours"
- so, work no matter what
- your "greatest hit" is yet-to-come
Hi Derek,
Thanks for the link - that was an awesome talk by Liz Gilbert! Ironically, just finished reading her book about a month ago.
As a musician, the majority of what I compose comes through me. Anything can inspire a tune, which stays in my head until I have time to record it. Guess I'm lucky, in that respect.
Excellent talk, and quite inspiring ~
i just work, work, work. i never have writers block. i think when you stop writing for you you start to question yourself.. wondering what people want to hear or what they expect. creativity is like dreaming. never question yourself, never have doubt and dare to dream big. just be you and run with it. i agree with her. put in work and let go. forget about the outcome and focus on the now. get lost in the moment and spill who you are or what you know. there is no wrong.
Halealluya !!!!!!
Man,
I'm forwarding this video to my whole fucking family,
who think I'm a looser, for being different than them, and following my ''genius ''!
Dude,
That shit hit the nail on the head!
L A M M Y a.k.a. Mr. True
Thanks for this great video Derek. I Noticed reading through alot of these and with what she was saying about "recieving inspiration" is inherent in all of us as a whole. It's more proof of the one omni- present spirit and how we can either be tuned into it or not tuned into it. So in my experiance I either tune in or tune out for inspiration. I'm not worried about if "this is my greatest work" because all works from true inspiration are timeless and will always be there even after the physical manifestation of who we are has vanished from human sight.
I have always been wondering where the ideas in my music come from because I certainly felt they weren't my creations, but this talk is a real relief. Now I can just work on being there and being receptive when the genius shows up to deliver his goods. I always looked for a sense of connection in my musicianship, and now I feel I have a better idea what I am connecting to.
Hi Derek! ... and thank YOU for posting this great video. What a gem ***
I have been in a major creative shlump for a while now (on and off over the course of the last year) and it has been frustrating and saddening. I feel like I've wasted a bunch of time. Elizabeth's comments are some of the best things I could hear to get me out of it.
Basically, I got burnt out on my band as I was writing the songs, organizing and leading the band.
Ugh ! --- with little help from anyone to make things happen, gigs, promo, etc.... so that sucked every bit of energy from me - partially preventing new material.
The major reason for my block was my outlook on writing. I was trying to "produce". And, if I did not instantly come up with what I thought was "good", then I would be upset and shelve it.
I was also looking at it from the point of view of clubs in SF and whether others would like it.
So, many songs are sitting there unfinished because I was trying to force them out of me.
So, thank you again for presenting this great info as it has reminded me to re-set and re-view how I look at creativity and writing music. I need to first acknowledge and look to my genius "guide" - or helpers - or the spiritual current...but first open the door and let em' in, then allow it or them to flow through me. ahhh!~
Many thanks for this reminder!
It is apt for me right now because I have focused too much recently simply on becoming well-known and getting enough money (simply to be able to live from my own works). I only had the guts to really start performing my own work in the last 2 years (now 41 years old!) although I recognise that I have always had talent - so often stated by others as well. I don't write this with arrogance because I know it is a gift from the universe with which I am trying to inspire listeners to discover their own original spiritual connections and become creative in whichever way because that is what makes one feel truly alive.
It is so important to step aside from the ego (fear) and get on with creation. There is no end to this. Only the ego makes us believe we are failures, blocked etc. Surviving as sincere artists is particularly hard for many now, although one might have the "gift" but that in itself is the challenge to see the real reason we do it in the first place.
My own personal opinion - there is far too much destruction and hopelessness in the world - art that celebrates this alone may even have beauty and be inspired but that which moves people towards deep happiness and connectivity is what we need more than ever and the choice to do it or not can be made every day.
I believe that was the original intention. I will try my best to experience and give joy with my music. Then there is always a way!
PS like a politician with my own agenda, I forgot to answer all the questions:
I decide (often consciously) to feel the inspiration. It doesn't normally take more than a day to come, when it is from the "thinking" level. Sometimes it comes unexpectedly.
I can compose better when I am in a good mood, even write music with a sad aspect from this.
Some strongly-inspired ideas require a lot of rational processing and experimentation before I am satisfied. Others are pre-prepared (Sigh of relief!).
There is no end to potential hits if you are broad- and open-minded enough. I know musicians of nomadic, rustic lifestyle who have lots of hit material moving hearts and minds of many, without the commercial success wished by many.
Some songs of feeble musical quality with a feeble message become hits because they are contrived to match the mode of the moment which many people then buy because they identify with that mode without necessarily really believing that the music is good.
Other hits are simply genius and magical. Let's encourage those! (I take it you are referring to those, Derek!)
So i respect & understand the video very well* , her views are great!
Having said this i tend to think ART people in general from musicians to writers to actors & so on are DRAMA QUEENS and seek
" im a somebody " way way to much *
what i think is my BEST writen song the one i love the most is by far not the best seller on iTUNES or the most popular with the fans and im grounded/intelectual enough NOT to self distruct my own feelings cause someone loves another item i have writen * thats JUST PLAIN VAIN mentality >
We all have dubble thoughts about everything in general from the Car you buy to the color of your suit for a wedding ( everyone on daily basis says, em i doing the right thing? where is this going to take me ? etc )
so i believe to foucus on it is what makes it VAIN overthinking !
just do what you do and ENJOY your LIFE *
_good day
We are physical, mental and spirit [the invisible part created in God's image]. It is when we trust in an entity other than the spirit of our creator that we experience fear. God did not give us a spirit of fear, but one of power, love and a sound mind. Fear is our worst enemy and we feel it when we place our trust in an entity other than God our Father. All other gods are dead and have NO power. This includes allah the moon god.
We are co-creators with the living God and our creations are gifts of his spirit to be used to share with and help others. It is our choice to use these gifts for good of evil in the spiritual war of good (GOD) against evil(satan).
As with the teachings of Jesus with the parable of the talents, what we do not use, we lose, and what we use is multiplies.
I think that she is spot on with her observations and insights. And I believe that she is courageous to leap away from the rational known to the dangerous-unknowning cocoon called faith. I'm not talking a dogma, I'm refering to Ms Gilbet's history class of the daemon and genius. Our steps could be lighter if we lifted the burden of creative responsiblity off our shoulders and shared it with the Muse.
It also gives us a explaination when found in a room talking to no one. We're hardly talking to ourselves, we're talking to our genius. Olé
Cheers Derek, aren't you the dude for posting this!
When are you coming to Ireland?
On Creativity:
Let it it flow...use what you've got to the best of your ability and don't stress over creative thoughs that flow through you on to someone else. If it comes back to you, then it is yours...if it does not, then it never was.
Enjoy the creative process; don't make it seem like work. Believe that the best is yet to come for as we think in our hearts, we become.
I loved this - ole!
In my past as a songwriter, the Tom Waits story related to me. Every snippet of the Divine that would come teasing at my spirit got first priority whether I was on the job, on the run or on the toilet; pen and paper at the ready, I was at the mercy of the muse. Not a bad thing, some wonderful music came out of those snippets. But then again, some highly frustrating and incomplete bits came out of those moments as well. Maybe I grabbed somebody else's song by the tail?
That was in my turbulent twenties and now, twenty years later, I'm calmer, more patient and not exactly compelled to write each and every day, though like going to the gym, the physical exertion of it becomes easier with practice in "showing up for work."
After years of "trying" to write songs that would connect with people, with varying degrees of success, I finally wrote a tune that people young and old have embraced. Called "Crazy Feels Like", it's won awards from songwriter's organizations and devotion from listeners; it's sold the album it's on by the strength of the one track alone and all I can say is that I caught it by the tail. Hours have been spent trying to "reverse engineer" it or quiz people about what's so appealing about the tune, to no avail. It's been two years and I haven't even come close. However, admittedly, no real effort has been made. For awhile I wondered if THAT was going to be it - if I should just put all of my eggs in that musical basket and really attempt to get the tune out into the world for some kind of success larger than what my career could afford.
I don't feel that way now. For some reason, it feels like that tune was the sun breaking through clouds and all I had to analyze was the heart of the song, not the construct, much like it's the spirit or "genius" that makes the inspiration take place. Every divine spark needs combustion in the form of matter. To burn brightly and not be consumed is the delicate dance that I believe Elizabeth was talking about.
Thanks for the continued inspiration, Derek!
Aloha,
Bing
Derek,
Thanks so much! Timing couldn't be better. It's like everything I understand internally was put into words. She's great. It made me feel understood for the first time.
Maybe, sharing this vid. will help educate the people in my life, that would love for me to have a normal, stable, existance. Maybe not.
But thanks again, She spoke to me!
D.C.
Thanks for sharing Derek,
Creativity is a lonely business so thanks for creating some community. I am often overwhelmed and full of doubt. I have resolved myself to only writing the songs that only I can write; leave the boy meets girl, boy looses girl songs and defiant rock anthems to others.
I am also trying to spend most of my time doing the things I am best suited to do. I have spent too many years doing what I should do, what I have to do, what is expected of me. Those things can't be ignored but the can be managed. Hosting IndieCan Radio is something I will gladly turn over - it's only important that it happens, not important that I do it, but for now I do it because it suits my creative skill set. Actually, I can't wait until someone more qualified appears. My shortcomings are many buy my stubbornness gets a new show out each week despite the many and often pointed out, tragic flaws that I defy with every new creative effort.
Do you feel songs come “through” you?
I do believe there are things I write which were intended to come through me...life experiences shape who we are and sharing those with others who may identify are valuable tools for moving to the next level of self-awareness and self-improvement. It also gives people the consolation that tough times come to all, and that good times can be had and shared.
Do you wait for inspiration?
Yes...I find that the best things I write are those which seem to 'fill my being' with a message that must be shared. For me, working hard on lyrics or even in writing a book, is not an option.
I would rather wait for the inspiration because if I get ahead of it and 'work' to find it, I may miss the REAL 'aha moment' of awareness.
Or do you just work and work no matter what?
Never...creativity comes to me instead of me going to it...no it's not a 'person', but I believe my inspiration is God-driven and God-given.
Sometimes I'll have a rush of things to write and say over a period of a few weeks, and then it goes away. During this time, I re-read and absorb the messages I received and those I'm giving in my writing. Sometimes this rush doesn't happen again for a few months, but I'm ok with that.
Do you feel you’ve already achieved your “greatest hit”?
NO, not by a long shot and I'm not talking about being 'discovered' or even having fans. If I allow my new revelations about myself, life to flow through me, change me, mold me, then I have grown to a new height of awareness and maturity.
Life is all about reaching that next new level of knowledge and we should always expect a new 'hit' but I don't think any of us reach our 'greatest hit' until we experience the grace of the process of winding our lives down.
Reflection and self-examination produce great clarity in this process and our greatest hit may very well be the sum of all we have given rather than any one-hit wonder.
Or is your greatest work yet-to-come?
Yes...the sum of the whole, rather than the part, is our greatest hit!!
The fish is never thirsty.
We swim in an abundant flow of consciousness. Fear comes when we buy into the man-made illusion of "lack."
It is when we realize there is no lack, no shortage of ideas, or projects, or song lyrics, or melodies, or "greatest hits" in which the "Ole" moments happen.
There will always be new ways to channel creativity... look at all the openings that technology has created to do just that.
When we get into our head that ONE thing is the only thing that we can do--so we have to keep one-upping our self--we get into trouble. Perhaps Sarah Gilbert's "greatest hit" is a film script, or a hypertext novel, or an art installation in which she wraps Africa in newspaper...
Every time I connect with the flow (be it through singing, writing, meditating, dancing, or standing in line for lettuce) I feel successful in life.
Connecting is very different from rationalizing--what we are all trying to do as we answer this blog ;)
Great talk. I have always felt that my songs are not just from me but are more from the universe and that I am a channel for them to be expressed. They definitely come to me, sometimes in bits and pieces, like just a melody or just a lyric that stays in my head. Then I have to work and work to get the rest of it. I believe that I am growing and evolving everyday and therefore I think I will always feel that my best is yet to come. As I grow into a better person everyday, I can only imagine that will be reflected in my art. Thanks for all that you do, I really enjoy discovering new and interesting things here.
Elizabeth s talk was humorous, insightful and subliminally intelligent. Where does my music come from.....well the same places of all the other artists with one big exception.....GHOSTWRITERS....which are entities who get inside us and write the music not us.
Elizabeth Gilbert has become a truly focused & successful artists. She is successful b/c she is focused & committed to her art. She is basically saying 'work, focus, work and do not give up your art & the genuis: better it is removed from ourselves;so that we do not have to carry it like a 'cross'
Yes, it is hard to be an artist because we live in a very material world and artists in general get their sustenance from a spiritual realm.
I think artists have something good learn from Elizabeth & that is being committed to your art!
I listened to all of what Liz Gilbert had to say about creative genius. In my humble opinion she was overly dramatic about it. Creative Genius is very subjective, too. I don't take it too seriously. There's really nothing to get very upset about the creative process. I don't believe songs come from the beyond. I think if you get out of your way, and don't censor your stuff you'll be better off. You can always come back and polish it later. Take the perfection out of it, because there's no such thing anyway. It's an illusion! Music without thought is the way I approach it, and I just go with the creative energy flow. As I mentioned earlier particularly with lyrics I can always come back to them and polish and rewrite till I'm satisfied. Miss Gilbert in my opinion makes it seem too grandiose, and takes it far too seriously. Have fun with it and paradoxically it will probably be more brilliant if we can use that somewhat arrogant term. Anyway dear Miss Gilbert take a deep breath, and enjoy the process, because the next book you write that many may think stinks may in fact be the best thing you've ever written. Again only my humble opinion. Thank you! Please let me know Derek Sivers what ya think of my opinion here.
Derek, Elizabeth is great I'm saving her to watch a couple more times. Yeah music comes right through me. Many time I'll awaken singing a new song get up and write it down. I live for inspiration, it sometimes just appears out of nowhere. Several songs I've written such as "IF I EVER GET TO HEAVEN" "A MOTHER'S LOVE"...I could swear a power far above me fed me every word, every melody.I often think my last song was the greatest one I'll ever write but then tomorrow brings another fine song.....good luck to everyone!
Great motivational speaker whom I agree with, if you want to fly with the Eagles you can't be hangin out with the chickens.
Thanks for another thought- provoking and inspiring message, Derek. You are one of a kind... I actually found myself sliding down the rabbit hole with the TED site- so many interesting minds at work- I am a big fan and supporter of the concept of "el systema" and Dr. Abreu is one of the recipients of the award this year. Fantastic! He is a great example of one who is truly committed to making music a healing force in the world for all people. His must have, at times, been a very lonely journey, but one that after 35 years has produced amazing results. Really, what more can an artist strive for? This is not a profession for the faint of heart or love or commitment. No matter what one is creating, the key is to keep studying, keep working, keep pursueing that unnattainable goal of perfection and have some fun along the way.
This is why I named my first album "A Rip in the Sky" because I have experienced a feeling, a physical and emotional feeling of some "thing", "muse", "genius", divine being touching me as I create, like "it's" hand is coming down through a rip in the sky and feeding me my inspirations.
It doesn't happen all the time, but when it does, it reminds me that it is the most addicting feeling I have ever felt in my life and that is the reason I have left all other outside addictions by the wayside, leaving my physical, subconscious, conscious, and higher self to be as productive and constructive as possible. We can not drown ourselves in our own misery over the pressures of being an artist, because, as Elizabeth Gilbert so eloquently put it, art is not our own, solely. We are vessels of interpretation, but are not responsible for creation.
I wish the divine feelings of creativity and interpretation on all artists. It's goose bump city.
Great post Derek!
I only feel truly alive when I set aside time to pray, get focused and write. I MUST set everything else aside. If I do that, I am always amazed at the results, and I feel at peace - like I am finally doing what I was meant to do.
I'm a Christian; I believe that God could take a rock and give it the same talent/gift he's given me. So am I not a fool on the days when I turn away and ignore the gift?
Thanks,Derek, for providing a place where crazy creatives can know they are answering their call.
CA
http://www.waitiam.com
Hello Derek,
By listening to great jazz composers, I am discovering that you have a short few minutes to say something meaningful and it must be entertaining. I found great inspiration from Errol Garner and Thelonious Monk (to mention only two). Garner played with great zest and colorful sounds. Monk would express beautiful sounds and demonstrate and create things that are some of the most precious events experienced soundwise. And Duke Ellington would even lecture at the university about how you should discover the sounds of the composition yourself while capturing the music in the composition. So, you develop it from within your own mind and imagination for it to sound good to you and others. I agree with them, and I want to create music which would be liked by people to a similar extent. There are no shortcuts, I don't think, although the best ideas usually come in a flash. But, still it takes time to get it right and make it well-presented. That's what I want to do.
Thanks,
Clayton Wright
(Clayton Wright Jazz Piano Trio)
I couldn't view the video as I'm still on dia-up. However, I think I get the gist of what it was about. I work best when songs come to me. I usually sit down with my guitar and start strumming chords. Something just happens. Sometimes I have to go back and fix the words or write more, especially if it is a historical piece and I have to research it.
If I have to work on a song too much, I find it is not as good as those that just come. Do they "come through me?" Do they come from somewhere else? Who knows? That sure is an interesting idea though.
What an inspirational talk Elizabeth Gilbert gave. Thanks so much for sharing it on this site! I too have felt many of the questions, fears and elation of doing creative work. Solitary craft mixed with public scrutiny is perhaps something that can never be quite balanced. Her descriptions of a divine sort of presence coming through us as vessels is something universal that I agree is important for the artist to acknowledge. It may not always be so for each creative piece but,it is imperative for the relief of the ego which holds its own image so tightly that it can fall from disappointment and break like glass. When I sit down at the keyboard to write I allow whatever wants to flourish and see where it takes me. Sometimes when I attempt to intercept,the quality of the work drops and I try to back off and let whatever is working through me get as far along as possible. The key seems to be to realize there is always something out there to grab onto no matter how new you are to the process or how far you've already come.
A great way to put it, and having studied Greece and Rome, it was interesting to hear her thoughts on inspiration, in fact Elizabeth that was quite inspiring. Another ancient idea is The Sun and the Moon where the Sun is the inspirer and we are the reflector waxing and waning. I think your best work is always the next full moon.
Thanks for sharing the video Derek, she is a very natural speaker; eloquent and insightful.
As far as the questions you ask, my answer is yes to them all (I took that from the video btw).
I do feel some songs come through me fully realized and ready to record, I do wait for inspiration with some pieces that I feel I am forcing in order to create, I do work no matter what, I do think my most popular stuff has probably already been done, and I do feel my best stuff is yet to come.
The thing is, I write music for lots of different ventures and am often jumping from one genre to the next. Even within the genre there are aspects of the job that are inspiration-based and others that are simply a matter of spending time with regardless of how inspired I am. As I tend to perform and record my own songs, as well as do my own copying and printing of scores and charts, my time is best spent on those aspects of the craft when I am not necessarily in the throes of inspiration. I have a desk with scores on it, a computer with some music production on it, another computer with work being readied on it, and a host of instruments to practice and maintain my chops on, so it is easy for me to put some of the more tedious aspects of craft aside when inspiration hits and vice versa. I work full-time and juggle my work accordingly.
I have written a lot of music that has been used on TV and have earned quite a bit of money that way. Some of the work gets used a lot still, whereas some of the concert and weird rock music I write, which I am far more fond of, has had very litle success with other people. I write primarily for myself and try to market it where it is best suited, but I have had to face the fact that some of the work I like best is also some of the stuff people like the least.
I am past the age where I care about becoming famous and well-known (even if some of my work is) but I am also in the constant process of honing my craft.
Igor Stravinsky wrote The Rite of Spring as a young man, and probably never had a piece resonate with the public as well, yet his most sublime music was probably written when he was in his nineties.
All very true comments. Great talk. So often an artist's greatest work is produced early in his/her career. I believe that is because it is when he/she is being most autobiographical, whether in song or literature. They are drawing from something they are most familiar with, that was real for them. Honesty. After success comes, they try to duplicate the formula, and it rings a little less true, a little more "contrived". An audience has an instinct for "the truth", I think. They can tell when they hear it/see it. I believe artists can maintain their excellence if they shed their past success, say "that was very nice, to be appreciated", and then draw from the reality of their existence as it happens around them living each day. Ever notice how easily the creative thought comes right after sleeping? We are still in a dream-like state and "see" things more clearly, more purely, the way we really feel them. Later in the day, we start pulling our lines of safety or defenses around ourselves and our work can become more trite, more "safe", more "saleable". Big mistake.
All the inventiveness and rawness of emotion then trickles through your fingers like gold dust, and all you are left with are the worthless little pebbles which may be pretty, but do not have any lasting value.
__-_-_--__-__-__-----_-----__
"Rubbing fairy juice on their projects..."
Haha! I love it! That was great... She's wonderful.
I totally understand what she's saying (as I'm sure everyone else can relate)... song ideas strike me and are so elusive if I don't immediately render them...
"Excuse me, can you not see that I'm driving??"
"Do I look like I can write a song right now?...come back at a more opportune moment!" "Go bother Leonard Cohen!"
That connection with a higher power is so precious...
Sorry to not leave a detailed reply, but I would love to answer these questions as they apply to myself, for myself:
1. YES
2. YES, but I keep working (outside of the day job) to keep myself available for that inspiration to strike.
3. NO...yet I wish I could just "work" (I continue to try), and I'm sort of jealous of those who just keep plugging along that way without need for some apparent muse (as far as I can see).
4. I'm scared that I might have, but deep down I still don't think so....
5. (see #4)
Thanks so much for sharing this, Derek!
__--__-_--_-__-____--____
During the first couple of years since I became a songwriter I would every now and then think, "I wonder if I've used up my songwriting talent - no more songs." And then the next thing I knew, I had a great idea for another song. This happened a few times with the same result. So I stopped wondering. And I keep writing.
Being a physicist and a musician gives me an unusual perspective on creativity,hard work and probability of success. We have become dependent on too many belief systems that temporarily appear to help solve our problems.So I'm not really keen on someone starting another one about gremlins helping us use our abilities when they feel like it. Because of the diversity and increasing evolution of Homo Sapiens, we have excellent and varied skills which we try to find. When and if we find them and why we find them results in doing different things with these talents. If we are industrious and intelligent about it we can even develope a small talent into a large capability.If we are lazy and/or not inteligent about it, we take great talent and make it dormant or even destructive. Lao Tzu, a most famous Chinese philosopher of about 600BC very often in his writings warned that problems can occur more often in obtaining success than from failure. This is an interesting way of saying that success very often brings failure. For this reason alot of people are afraid of success. Developing another belief system won't solve that problem. Loa Tzu's answer to this situation is ''enjoy the fruit and ignore the flower". In todays words, useing talent for the primary purpose of profit and fame will most likely lead to pain, sorrow and incompleteness. We can avoid these pitfalls by useing our talents for enjoyment, relaxation and positive feelings for us and others. The rest of what we need will come from the physical laws of the universe.Q-"do you feel songs come through you?" A- Yes Everything comes through our sensors that developed through evolution.Eyes, ears, nose,vibrations, memories etc.bring forth the stimulation we need for our art form.We all see different paths because of our diversity. IE, Mine come from rhythms,particularly stimulated by the night sky and being near or on the water.Q- "Do you wait for inspiration?" A- Not me; time is my most precious resource. I listen for it,search it out and run with it. Sometimes the energy resources aren't there and I"m better served temporarily doing something else. Getting the most out of energy is key. Everything according to physics,has a resonant frequency. This means that at a certain frequency it takes only a little energy to get a large response. The laws of physics say that statistically all the conditions like environment, audience,you, money,will be at their resonant frequency at the same time, sooner or later and you will get the most gains.Other times they won't be and it would be like spitting into the wind. This has nothing to do with Gremlins, it's just physics. Many times you can sense the timeing of these things and do something about it. Other times, it just happens when all the energies are in alignment and you don't know it.Q-"Do you feel you've already achieved your greatest hit?" A- It depends on what you mean by greatest hit. The most money, the most popular, the most self satisfaction, the most benefit to others? For me, the answer is no-I'm still learning,growing and getting better. If I get disabled, then yes, but what's the point of worrying about that?
Simply put: Objectify the Genius instead of Subjectify it. Wise word and I will heed. Takes the pressure off. No need for total responsibility. Simply show up....do your part and let the rest be. Love the words! I feel better already. Acknowledge it instead of owning it. WE only own now. Thanks Elizabeth!
She's not addressing the damage that stunts the child, that is stuck with in us.
That is what is trying to kill us.
We get to see that geiney via the child's eyes. (all kids can till we tell them they can't)
The creativity comes from that child's eyes. Success or financing to enable it, keep it (us) safe.
It's the diversion of success (be it financial or being able to kick it in public) that turns the child into you. It's not a geiny on the wall.
But when the child doesn't get his way. Look out. All they do is scream. And then Gyn at 9:am seems rational.
I sure enjoyed the video and wish her only success!
First, "Ole" to Elizabeth. Her talk made a lot of sense and her comments about seeing the "genius" in others -- seeing the inspiration at its best, seeing their beauty... and cheering Alla or Ole, deeply moved me.
Because create songs and sing them is what I want to do. It is at times anquishing to get the song out and other times miraculous in its quickness and completeness to arrive. Yet to pursue my passion as completely as I believe I need to, I will need to leave the illusion of a secure day job that in today's economy, isn't so secure. So I struggle with the fear of leaving what I know to what I don't know.
Elizabeth's message was thought-provoting and timely. Thank you for sharing it!
Re: your questions, Here are my answers:
Do you feel songs come “through” you? Yes, I always have felt that way, like they come from somewhere or someone else and I'm just a portal. Someone once said to me that the creative ideas will keep floating around in the universe until someone brings it to life. I believe that is true.
Do you wait for inspiration? Yes, but I also seek out opportunities to be by myself and be still and silent so I am open to the inspiration of a thought, idea, word, phrase, title, first line or melody that may come.
Or do you just work and work no matter what? No, I sometimes wish I had the discipline for this approach. It's hard to work at the craft when I feel so consumed by my day job...
Do you feel you’ve already achieved your “greatest hit”? Yes and No. Yes, in that my most recent song always seems to me to be the best thing I've ever written. ; )
No, in that I agree with a previous comment that writing the next potentially great song is what keeps me going.
Or is your greatest work yet-to-come? Yes, I got to believe that.
I like the anti ego approach of believing that your art is crafted by a separate genius and yourself together. It removes the pressure of failure and success.
Ole, Allah! My Seraph has truly spoken.
A few days prior to this email on the TED2009 Conference and Elizabeth Gilbert's inspirational talk,
I'd asked some older, fellow musicians these similar questions, following a gig we'd had
at one of the local clubs. One, a brilliant musician, replied that he used to write original
songs all the time but since there were no outlets to having his songs played anywhere, he'd
stopped writing and recording...
I was a bit sobered by his answer but there was truth in what he said. If no one buys
the CDs or downloads, why continue to do it? Then, I looked around the room and saw a few
people still there. Somebody out there liked it enough to stay to the end... That is
inspiration enough to keep on writing and performing. Sometimes.
Do you feel songs come “through” you?
Yes. Sometimes, we all write something that we know for sure is "a hit."
Something that seems to catch when those rare moments occur that all the elements are in
the right places. It is usually based on some experience in our lives that generated great
passion within us to inspire our creative flow.
And when the impartial listeners give the finished creation approval, we learn to recognize those elusive
moments. The problem is that those flashes of inspiration usually occur when we are in
situations that prevent us from writing it all down, as driving on the highway or
in the middle of some demanding task which distracts our energies, and alters the creativity.
By the time we can get the pen, or the instrument, in hand, the energy and feeling has changed.
Do you wait for inspiration?
That can be a very long wait. Writing as much and as often as possible helps. And, like
high school literature class, re-writing those compositions to perfection is another way.
Or do you just work and work no matter what?
Yes. Sometimes, a sure thing comes through after many drafts. Though, other works tend to be uninspired rubbish or sound contrived.
However, if the impartial listener likes it, there is hope to refine it as much as possible.
A writer once said that Paul McCartney had "Yesterday" in his head, for months, before he
finally was able to compose it to perfection.
Do you feel you’ve already achieved your “greatest hit”?
Hmmm... The music I've made was never greatest hits in the "best seller" sense but people still
download songs I'd made years ago. Many of the better compositions are still in the notebook due
to inability to get them recorded and out there to the public. As long as inspiration and some
re-writing are involved, potential great songs will continue to be created.
Or is your greatest work yet-to-come?
As mentioned above, I think that great works are inspired by emotional experiences in our
lives, somehow. As long as such an emotional experience happens, a great work is always possible.
It seems the mood of the impartial listener also determines what is considered a great work.
We can spend hours of time in perfecting some song which has a certain "feeling" about it
and the audience just doesn't get it but they'll go crazy over some improvized, unrehearsed jam.
This talk made me smile and nod my head - very grateful to have the opportunity to hear it - we are not alone : )
I often have to crawl out of bed in the middle of the night to write down ideas and lyrics that have been gestating over many days. I'm not sure why they finally make sense or become clear when I'm nearly dreaming - but I know by now that if I don't wake myself up and take those notes, that the clarity will often be gone by morning.
Other times lyrics and verses will come while I'm caught up in a passionate conversation - like a sledge hammer or a mini explosion: THAT'S IT! And then again I must write it down immediately. It took time to recognize those 'a-ha' moments and to discipline myself to follow through with them, but it has become a sensory knowledge - tangible.
First of all I'd like to say to Derek is thank you for your continued thoughtfullness and support for recording artist, God only knows the lives you've saved by giving they're works an outlet through cdbaby. To the songwriters,inspiration comes from many unseen places, at times we can't predict, take the pressure off yourselves, by not saying or thinking in what's your greatest or your worst song. Continue to enjoy the creative gift you posses and appreciate any feedback, whether it be a compliment, money, awards, or applause. And realize this; Nobody Hates on Stevie Wonders work, and we all want to be like him. But we are not, so accept criticism, we can all be better from it, and continue to embrace inspiration humbly.
I would like to highlight a few things she said in her 19:29 slot. She fist talked about her fear of taking the career on as an artiest. And then fear of the success and what to do with that. Well don't be too afraid of those fears because you hope to have that problem and deal with it when you get to it, like she did. Don't let the unknown stop you from beginning . All to often people associate "the unknown" with fear, but if you also see the vast array of possibilities in it, then it can turn into something to really live for. Yes listen to the wise past but look towards the all knowing and available possibilities of the future.
you can't create creativity, that is why music has gotten so bad in the past few years in my opinion. People are making a product. they are told you need to sound more like this and look like that...what does looks have to do with music? What I'm saying is your looks should not effect the success of your music. The way you will find the most successes in this day is make your own music. Please, please find what sound works for you and use it, write lyrics that mean something to you. We need real music from real people. Stop trying to sound like musicians that have already made it. Clearly there is a lot out there but we need to hear more of it and find more outlets for it. So I believe creativity comes to you, BUT you must do your part. Practice and practice try new things that you have heard about but have not tried. You will find the more you do your part the more your little sidekick genius will like to join you for a plate of their favorite dinner, soul food.
-Yes songs come through, under, over, and all around me.
-Nope I don't wait for inspiration but man its great when it decides to fill my body with energy, hope and new ideas.
-Nope, I have not achieved my greatest hit but I've got some good ones!!
Thanks for this Derek.She really
said it well,to the point and beau-
tifully.Divine inspiration using
her "gift" as a writer to relate
and give insight to all of us who
are creative vessels/radios.
Thanks Derek,
"SONGS OF LIFE INSPIRED TRUTHS"
Your persistance is evidence of the truth and goodly sacriments of vows not just to woo but woes of all mankind journeys thru anicents centuries showing us of the great comely verses of enrichment as prophets set out their testiments to music with all the passion and devout beliefs findings that help them work so faithfully to restore the moral pledge of being inspired to set us at ease amongs the rage of our wants and needs...
All praise due to the divine majesty who inspires all to the fullest of the ever flowing pen always the ready writer so this is why Rastafari teaches us to embellish ourselves with tales of wisdom knowledge in overstanding never to deny him in his path as the creator of oracles giving thanks and praises...
A particuliar role that he does whole-fully in our heart n soul right into our limbs and bones should we know and be true to ourselves to reveal not conceal this his blessings to his children for our yearnings and dreams of freedom and liberation in the democracys and furfillments of prophecies...
For there is even greater redemption songs in revelation to come as the end is just the beginning of these historical songs been sung trumphantly of the living glory that we so long to share as people living on this great planet earth as it could be in heaven if we only realise the score and folks knowing their worths while on creation to give a little back for taking so much of life stock as to whom much is given indeed much is expected...
So to lack inspiration is a lesser sense of your spiritual being of not keeping you in-tune with the groom of music super-natural realms the ever prevailing truths and soulful light as a next song with the greater score must be sung and no excuse as we get our rewards as to how we labour like trying to return a love in kindness or favour to a kindly neighbour who watches out for your coming in as you push out to do your bit for redemption or entertainment be it your work or love of songs...
The hardships of toiling to raise a score all windows you think is open or closed don't allow yourself to somehow give in to machine the robatic situation for a writng theme mainly when your head is too busy to except this gift, as the part in the sister Elizabeth video about the name artist who did not have a recording device for reording this tune that came to him as he was driving he must be moving too fast for his own elements to get into him as why you look a gift of realms in the mouth he should have just let it pour out of him and keep the define thing inna his soul...
Rather not digging gold as an example for people motives when they get these great vibrations with all the hands on pro-tool skills to do at will driven by the markets and reps to find the next great song and then you present it and someone rip up your soulful measure to determine a more production chain treasure...
A great score will come to those who believe that music has given them every thing that is worthy to to give up and amplify via voice and instruments of emotions more than joy or pain with enchantments to give you hope again to buck the trend and open doors leading to a resourceful river of life supplements shared by all to get the next testimony of your greatest score like a voice said open thy mouth and i will reveal it, from what you want to define will be moving thru your structure and removing all negative factures to deliver the complete satisfaction without too many complications as in a simple melody song or singing in grace to the highest of hearts content...
i n i oh i n i
why oh why they do this to i n i
when jah love so good for i n i
makes the weakest man so strong
So a strong man may sees sense
And where will this all ends
When we all get off the fence
No need to cause an offence
Better still lets not pretend
Try listen to the healin voice
who's has long been your friend Jesus lives and is lord savour...
That why it's best left to songs as the pilot knows his vessels and his sheep knows his voice
and he shares with us all the goodness that he gives in life where we seems as nations to struggle
Some thinks their songs should drop like bombs to explode peoples mind then the point would be hard to find then his message will humbly come into you and even reminds you of plesant dreams find urself even whistling a tune of life spices in hidden realms in the sun under the moon and stars...
So divine sweet inspiration is from the great mediator and lots more to come as the truths will never return to him unfurfill before that heaven and earth would fade away is that dark or light or what song would make that clear contrast in life changing realities in humanity the lest doubts the more truths in the song...
Word up love is also a key inspiration we all know that so no harm to show it bless us all with it in a song, I could have just wrote theses last few line to sum nuff things but hey these routes were made for moving on stay strong...
Big one love Derek you're a cool bro blood keep up the works you do us fine open the mind same ways...
Isis n Regards
Wayne-mwm
Thanks Derek for helping all of us out I for one (of the many) really appreciate your efforts. The first thing I do is write the bass and drum, drum 1st then the bass line, its like a solid building if you dont have a good foundation the whole thing/song crumbles to the ground. I just keep building until I find what I like.
Creation is an iterative process. The really good stuff you come up with, the really great leaps where "it all comes together" are rare, and even more rare if you're not trudging along, building on what you know, and pushing the limits of what you're capable of.
If you haven't, since I'm pretty sure Elizabeth Gilbert has, read and live "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron. It changed my life and will help anyone who shows up to do the work in the book reach his/her fullest potential.
* Do you feel songs come “through” you?
I think they come from your subconscious. Because it's subconscious, it seems like they come from somewhere else. But of course, we are influenced by people and the world around us, both good and bad influences. So in that sense, what is in our subconscious *does* come from "somewhere else". That's just my theory. This is a question that probably can't be proven rationally one way or the other.
* Do you wait for inspiration?
* Or do you just work and work no matter what?
I can't afford to wait. I have a day job, and I have to clean the house, buy groceries, do laundry, etc. So my time for songwriting is limited to a few precious hours. At the beginning of a songwriting session, I find that usually I have to do songwriting "stretching exercises" to shift from the logical side of the brain to the creative. Just playing a song or two, or noodling around on the guitar or piano for 10 minutes, usually suffices.
Also, ideas come all the time, so I try to capture them, even if I can't work on them at the time. In that sense, I'm always writing songs.
* Do you feel you’ve already achieved your “greatest hit”?
* Or is your greatest work yet-to-come?
Definitely yet to come. But I think it's probably harmful to think in those terms. I think you should just try to create and have fun, develop your craft, work to improve and be as could as you can, and not try to rate your work.
Wow. Couldn't have put it better. Feels like Gilbert has hit the nail on the head. I couldn't have even begun to have described it before and she's analysed it in great detail. On wonderful yet all too rare occasions, I get a song that does indeed feel like it's been channelled through me. Most of the time I have to work hard to get a rhyme or figure out a chord progression. I'd love to learn how to make the bursts of immaculate creativity less random and more harnessable. I think there may be a way to achieve this as well. Like Gilbert says, just talking to the universe may be enough to harness it. Practicing the harnessing of it may also help. I'm going to see what I can do to harness these bursts of channelled creativity so they're more common than the dry periods.
I must identify with the quote from Norman Mailer as Elizabeth quotes his thoughts. Mine as a composer is the same,each work "kills me","takes a piece of my soul" etc..Although both are solitary arts,a writer can take a scribble,a sentence,a draft, and read it to anyone looking for a reaction or just hear the "words" out loud. The difference is that a "composer" such as myself writes for 40 instruments all at once in a language foreign to all. Notes of music. I do not know what they will sound like,until my first record date! As it all is in my head;each bar together with each note,with every instrument.I always
give my all, I create. On one side of my piano...my financial manager
saying "The last album sells were down,you need the"dough". On the other side of me is my personal manager, saying to me,"David can't you make it more commercial. Do you always have to make it so "OUT"? My answer is, I don't hear any of this, I just do my job to create! It is not up to me to lower my creativity so the public can understand,it is up to the public to arise and be moved and educated by the artist. As history shows. Modigliani,"Vincent",Pollock, the artist is way OUT there! The public has to catch up. Michelangelo said "The statue is inside the stone, my chisel brings it out"! The music is in my piano, I just bring it out, however, I never worried about "topping" the last one as Elizabeth says. I learn and see what I,as an artist could do better next time.There is no truth in a starving artist makes better art, as I have starved
over my career,near homeless,etc..
As you then lose a little focus thinking over a rumbling stomach.
Many times I had to hustle to make it,I have "NO REGRETS"; but if I did not have to worry in the recesses of my mind about these material,daily problems, perhaps my music would have been even better! It is a job, but if you love what you are doing whether as an artist or house painter it is not work, it is what you are and enjoy doing. One piece of advice, learn all the rules first, then you know when to break them.
Study and learn, regardless of the fame, or fortune you must practice your craft and everyone wants the shortcut, to me that is a dilettante.An Artist seeks knowledge on all subjects, and cares for the world. My entire being goes inside every 1/8 note.
I do my "work" as if each note is my life,to prove to myself I am as great as I know I am! We are now a global village,please help each other as peace,soul,and caring, is what we are as human beings. We are here for the seeking of knowledge,try to learn and not
be satisfied with the dumbness down of all of the cultures,as why
were we given a brain? To seek more knowledge!
David Axelrod/ Composer, arranger, producer,6 gold albums,Grammy,and and NOW 30 years later the public recognizes my older works. In 30 years from now I am extremely confident they will again recognize my works of today!!
Ex-prize fighter,truck driver,ditch digger..
www.DAVIDAXELRODMUSIC.COM or
DAVID AXELROD/MYSPACE
Hi Derek,
I think song writers are saying things about emotions and how they have dealt with them. Some of my songs start from an unusual riff, or mistake on guitar. Others are from a phrase I've heard which is so true, yet simple, that the orator has attached no value to it at all, like there's "No more I can do". I don't do much analysis; I just compose. In one hundred songs, perhaps ten might be okay and one memorable, but they are all memorable to me.
Best Wishes, John.zhonray
I am a musician, songwriter, lyricist & also a writer, artist, creative brainstormer. Recently I have been trying to tap in more to my spirituality & take more specific steps - setting goals for a specific dream. Music has always been a very important part of my life. So whether I am doing it for a living or just experiencing it for pleasure, it is still one thing I think was meant to be a part of me. It wasn't until this last year I really started thinking about what I am put on this earth to do, what should be my job, etc. This video continued in the same vein, exploring & pulling together other information I have been reading & listening to. In answer to your questions:
* Do you feel songs come “through” you? I feel songs come TO me, maybe not THROUGH me. I can be just sitting there and lyrics or a phrase or a title just pops into my head. I never questioned where it came from or why it came then. Yes, I do grab for the paper in hopes to capture it. All ideas come to me/though me this way. This includes various business brainstorms & inventions as well as music, lyrics, poetry, and novel/story ideas. On the other hand, in the past few years, I have additionally been able to come up with something when I needed to (a creative commission or a theme project I decide to work on). At this point, working full time & also performing, it has been a little difficult to schedule time to write on a regular basis. I have no doubt, however, that what I need will come to me when I need it, because that is how my mind has worked for me.
* Do you wait for inspiration? At this time, I haven't needed to wait for anything. Things just come to me. But I have also forced myself to be inspired when I needed to be (see comments above).
* Or do you just work and work no matter what? It just comes to me, so it really never feels like work! One little idea festers & it becomes something much bigger. I brainstorm a large corporation out of one little thought. I never really tried to figure out where these thoughts came from or why. This creative process is fun and energizing to me. Sometimes I feel I must be crazy (going back into the content of the video) but mostly, it just excites me to have ideas & to creatively solve problems. If I could get paid just for having the ideas & going no further, I would probably be a very ecstatic person.
* Do you feel you’ve already achieved your “greatest hit”? No. I feel I never will achieve my greatest hit because I will always be working for something better, a way to improve on what I started out with. However, I am also satisfied at a level, with songs or other creative projects, because I need to feel I am done & can move on!
* Or is your greatest work yet-to-come? (Answer incorporated above).
The work and the flow has all of her observations. The process requires that you are open to the "voice" of the creative muse as well as the logic and discovery elements within. The process is "Inside & Above". (I'm sure that when you listen to the composition you will go "now I get what he was saying in this song").
Take care.........
I enjoyed watching this, but would like to add something. Life is always changing. We grow and learn and, as a result, become several different versions of ourselves as the years pass by. Therefore, to pin our hopes on doing only one thing well over entire adult lifetime sets us up for both anxiety and failure. Why not seek success in multiple ways? Just look what Benjamin Franklin was able to accomplish in one single life. Why should we settle for being great at only one thing? We songwriters tend to think we are always working on borrowed time. In actuality, however, a normal life is very, very long. There is time to do many things well.
There is no mystery or mystic about writing a good song
1 you need a good structure
2 good lyrics
3 preferably a good melody
4 Some Originality (almost impossible now in the context of the quantity of music now produced )
5 Referenced by a good understanding of what has gone before and what works or doesn't Listen and absorb everything
6 Timing the right song at the right time
Not all but most of these criteria need to be included
7 Combine this with a good artist i.e. Voice performer etc
Mix it Cook it Release it and Hope EASY !
THEN SOMETHING JUMPS OUT FROM NOWHERE AND CONFOUNDS EVERY LAW
BUT THATS MUSIC !!
P.S. It's not Alchemy it's art the Art of music
and Like Art it is in the eye of the beholder
OH I NEVER GIVE UP TRYING IT"S WHAT I AM
THIS IS MY LOVE MY LIFE MY PASSION and MY SALVATION THE REST IS AN INCIDENTAL
CONSEQUENCE AND A NEVER ENDING INFLUENCE ON IT
Writng memorable songs is like anything else. It's the same as cooking dinner, or writng an essay.
Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to take chances. You run the risk of being ridiculed, rejected etc.
It's important to work through that anxiety. When people applaud after a musical performance it's rewarding. But even better is when you have conquered your fear.
That's the joy of the creative process. We all have something to say. Each of us has a special gift. I don't know why it's so difficult to share our genius with the world. That's the "work" of being a musician.
The magic of creativity that comes to us in moments and then in others deserts us like an old rag.
When that moment of genius touches us,in that Mozartian moment and when we fly like an angel,then all things seem possible.We've never created our greatest work of art nor our worst until we are laid to rest
I 'resonated' with Elizabeth's point of view. I see the 'reason vs deity' argument as false. For me it is both reason AND deity. There is a dimension of life we cannot see. That 'muse' is what we here when we are quiet enough to hear it, or in some other way experience it. An urgency to 'get it down' flows from our innate knowledge that it is actually somehow very important. We need it. Like an infant feeling the tickle of a mother's nipple on his cheek turns instinctively to suckle, so we instinctively 'suckle' on the creative spring we have stumbled upon in that moment. Turning up at the page, the instrument, the canvas. That is the discipline, the reason side. Being quiet enough to capture the inspiration when it comes, that is discipline too. I believe it is actually always there, but we don't always find it.
Hi Derek -
I read her latest book & found it a great read - couldn't put it down.
In this video clip, I really liked her approach to the writing process: got to that special place (whether it's a physical place or a head space) & write. If the inspirational doors open up, capture whatever you can as quickly as you can. If the doors are closed up tightly, write anyway.
Writing is a 2 part process: the creative, free-thinking non-judgmental, right-brain, write-everything-down, nothing-is-silly part followed by the left-brain, editor, get rid of the junk process. Then keep going back & forth until you are satisfied that every line, every rhyme, every imagery is the best you can come up for that song.
A friend of mine used to say: a song is done when you are tired with tinkering with it. Amen.
Keep up the awesome work. You rock! (ok, yes I have a 14-yr old).
Before enlightenment:
Chopping wood, carrying water.
After enlightenment:
Chopping wood, carrying water.
[Zen Proverb]
* Do you feel songs come “through” you?
Sometimes, yes. Sometimes the Muse just descends and I hit the computer, or pick up my guitar, or whatever, and twenty minutes later it's like, "What the hell just happened?" And this song that I can't believe I actually wrote is there. Other times I set upon the task in the hopes of finding it... and sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't.
* Do you wait for inspiration?
Occasionally. Often it just hits me. I keep a DVR in my purse and sing or speak fragments of ideas into it when they hit. Then when I have the time I sit and flesh them out. Sometimes I try to intentionally sit and work on something in a more "studied" way--by assigning myself a challenge to write a particular type of song. Sometimes I can do it, and other times I can't. Then I wait. Eventually, always, the inspiration comes. Sometimes it is far removed from what I thought was going to come, but it always does. I will say that going about the task regardless is often what sparks it, though.
* Or do you just work and work no matter what?
This year I am trying to do this more than ever before. I set myself a challenge of writing one new song every week and posting a video of the song online. I thought that I would sit everyday working on songs, but it hasn't quite panned out that way. Again, often when I sit down with the intention of writing "something" before a solid inspiration is there, I come up empty. But within hours, or a day, I am then hit with five inspirations completely different than what I was trying to force, and one of those thoughts ends up being the new song.
* Do you feel you’ve already achieved your “greatest hit”?
No.
* Or is your greatest work yet-to-come?
Who can say if it will ever come? I just write what comes to me, and what makes me happy. If it speaks to other people, that's great. I feel like my "greatest work" is a subjective idea anyway. There have been great pieces in various cycles throughout my life. Are any of them my greatest work ever? I don't know. Who decides that? If it's me, I haven't the foggiest idea.
* Do you feel songs come “through” you?
Yes, I sometimes hear or feel the music & words as well as my observations of people & things around me throughout the world in which I live.
* Do you wait for inspiration? Yes but if I am commissioned (paid) to write a commercial or a song (as a family friend named Jimmy Van Heusen once told me he did easily), I can create with drawing upon & from different lifetime experiences & sources.
Inspiration is the best key because it flows easier towards being made into a creation that opens a door. I believe the artist also can create when commissioned if he knows how to use his tools, i.e., paints for the painter, instruments for the musicians, etc.
* Or do you just work and work no matter what?
Yes I work hard (if physically able) no matter what I do because I believe I have been given a passionate gift to share the talents I inherited as I do whenever possible.
* Do you feel you’ve already achieved your “greatest hit”?
This is like asking a mother with children have you given birth to the best child and finished with motherhood.
Once accepting the gift given, which is meant to be shared, it becomes an eternal responsibility to continue to try to give.
* Or is your greatest work yet-to-come?
I hope that as long as I breathe I can continue to try to share the gifts given as often as they are given to me. I know if I do not try (or are unable to work in my lifetime field of work) then I have wasted the gifts I was blessed to accept & I was meant to share with others even as extremely hard it has been.
Therefore, for us all, the greatest work is always yet to come, and I believe & hope that the greatest work for humanity towards one another is as well yet to come.
As long as we continue to give & share that which we accept as a gift from a higher source (this simple sharing with others), then we all will experience the joy it brings in what we do instead of what we may just say. "There's more to lovin than just sayin you do".
Thank you, Derek, for giving the arts the right light under which to shine
Derek you have come through again. I have considered this subject 1,000 times and written about it often. The following is published in "The Ancient Warrior" titled "Devilish Hunting," Hope you enjoy it.
DEVILISH HUNTING
The poem is such a delicate thing,
I dare not pursue it in lust,
I dare not burst my hungry hand against it,
that it may fade and be lost.
It comes to rest beside me like a butterfly in spring,
my anxious heart reaches,
it is quickly lost.
Words so light cannot rest,
upon the hard rock of life,
that string is too volatile....
No hammer can affix those fleeting thoughts,
nor the crush of ego need,
the blackness of a traveling thought,
is always that beyond my greed.
If ever I would find a way,
to foil the poem’s flight of day,
not ever would I carve away,
the onward slew of word at bay,
for in the line of words so bare,
is found the key to life, there,
through tender implication,
can be no grand device.
Come often gentle word of line,
through mind and window,
void of time,
and color me with sky and moss,
and tame my heavy hand,
that I would grab thy fleeting tail,
in devilish hunting...
For patience guides the poem to me,
a visit that can only be,
an anthem, a chant, a message there,
that I may find to later bare...
For ego’s heart needs things to show,
not always pure in purpose though...
When comes the line above me,
I reach to ascend for dichotomy,
to align, to couple, together these,
as mine and of me only....
Yet, the lie would be there,
the poem is air,
and I am the breeze.
Don Alberts
Also: "Spirit Poet," from "Absolute Time."
Spirit Poet
Pretty humbling to realize
those are not your thoughts,
that some great spirit poet
is standing behind you
placing thoughts in your head,
and you are writing them down...
Pretty hard to hold
your life to something
when you begin to see
it comes from outside of you...
In your stillness
they flow in,
looking just like you,
saying what you say,
believing what you believe,
and the joy is yours...
Have I the right to this bliss
within the verse,
the deed to those frames,
the windows of my own visions...
I stand hollow before the words
as though carved out
from the inside,
left with only
the rapture...
It is a thin contract
I long ago agreed to,
the scribe, not the story,
the voice, not the thought,
the joy, not the rebellion,
like a cat I sit,
sensing the stream
of the day...
the smallest wind,
the cant of the sun,
looking for messages,
on the undersides,
of clouds...
Don Alberts June 2006
Thanks Derek
I hear her. I feel what she is saying. God has given us these creative gifts, with a sufficient amount of peace, power and permission to pursue what we were created to do.It requires courage to pursue, without guilt or apology, to be who we are created to be and do what we supposed to be doing.
I myself tended to feel the weight of the world on my shoulders every time I went into the studio to create. The pressure of trying to match people like the Beatles and write a HIT every time was too much. On of the things I did was to take up painting. I felt it didn't have the same preconceptions about a HIT. This helped me to reset my expectations in music to a more creative place.
A lot of very thoughtful artists have responded to Gilbert's talk here. I wasn't able to read them all, but the ones I read were honest and creative like the people who wrote them.
For myself, I think that Gilbert was right to say that we have to shift the burden of responsibility from our entirely fragile, imperfect and broken selves onto some less psychologically strained, outside muse.
Since I am judeo-christian, my muse, the source of my creativity is the Holy Spirit of God.
I believe that the songs, poems, artwork, stories, and wisdom of understanding that come to me, all come from that source.
I believe that all receive such inspiration in one form or another, but an artist is a particularly well developed receiving instrument. Through the work of honing oneself, (and each artist has their own way of honing: some mentioned playing a musical insrument, some mentioned meditation, others make themselves get up in the middle of the night. Gilbert herself said she does it by "showing up for work and doing her part." We all learn ways to turn up the volume.)
Once we've tuned into the muse, we hurry up and get it all down in a recorded, reproducable form as soon as possible, as Gilbert and others mentioned.
I don't believe in a "master work." I believe that everything we produce in our lifetime is of value to the rest of mankind, because the source wants us to contribute to human growth and completion.
That doesn't necessarily mean that everything we do will be appreciated in our lifetime; artists still don't always receive recognition, fame or wealth. Look at Vincent Van Gogh. The appreciation or rejection of the clamoring crowd doesn't negate or prove its worth.
Thank you, Derek, for making this forum possible.
I BELIEVE IT'S ALL HARD WORK, STUDY, EXPERIENCE AND AN INNATE UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT IS REALLY CREATIVE, ORIGINAL, AND COOL...BESIDES BEING TIMELY AND ENGAGING. BASING ANYTHING ON A PERSONAL BELIEF OR FAITH IS USUALLY DISAPPOINTING AND USELESS, UNLESS THAT ARTIST HAS SPENT YEARS ALREADY WORKING ON YOUR CRAFT. AND IT IS A CRAFT...NO DIFFERENT THAN BUILDING A CHAIR. BUT THERE ARE CHAIR BUILDERS THAT GO BEYOND 4 LEGS AND A SEAT....THEY CRAFT A CHAIR THAT IS COMFORTABLE, STYLISH, A CHAIR YOU WANT TO GO BACK TO, SIT IN, PONDER LIFE IN......
I commend Ms. Gilbert for putting it exactly the way she did. Personally I do believe that music, melodies, lyrics and musical ideas flow through me, and some leave me for maybe one of you guys who commented in this blog.
Describing your genius as having a genius definitely brings us as artists back down to the earth and back to work, so that can strive to be consistent and true to ourselves.
Thanks again for the link Mr. Sivers
Adrian Dublin MBBS
Thanks to Derek for the heads up on the talk and a special thank you to all who shared. I believe songs can and do flow through writers. Consider a situation be it tragic or celebrate good times come on! There is gonna be more than one writer at any given life stage and after hearing the talk a sort of new way to look at the reason we have writers who are at peace with what they have done and writers who for a multitude of reasons;burnout;fade away;medicate themselves away;quit;and on and on.Interestingly she touches on the muse or genius. Something that is another resource but in a different plane, and the power to cross over to our flesh and blood world. A spiritual "something", whether it be words and music;or just haul ass dictation that if not gotten then; it may well move on to someone else who is PREPARED,IN TUNE SPIRITUALLY WITH THE GIFT GIVEN.I watch tv w/ my guitar most of the time and I guess I could say I'm waiting there. I operated a double drum asphalt roller for 15 years off and on and I sometimes would wait while rollin',rollin, rollin. I've tried that work no matter business and if what is meant is to sit with a mental block, I avoid that but have on occasion gotten the required material completed. I no longer medicate my mind to levels that had hindered my life and wounded others, and yet I find that the healing process is from above,God sending songs poems, etc. through to me.It all works together it seems to me. And, yes I know there is a dark side to all this.A spiritual battle is raging as we speak. In a book I've read some of; the created spiritual entity that was responsible for the heavenly ensemble is described almost as if his entire being is a musical instrument of sorts. He doesn't live at his old address anymore. It has been said he wanted to be King. Still in the music biz. I know the work yet to come from my pen and guitar will outshine everything combined behind me. Derek, Thank you for making a difference in my days of late; your kindness speaks volumes of you and you love of music.
Music came to me and sometimes i have to create when i desired.I have plenty of songs written-that way i can focus on other aspects of music.Shopping my album is a priority.
I think of my songs as beautiful wild animals, in tune with nature and living in bliss till I come along and shoot them and butcher them and turn them into a nice juicy steak!
But sometimes I'll write a tender, touching love song. And by 'touching' I mean the kind of touching that'll get you five to twenty if they lied about their age.
I cried when I watched this video; of course I cry a lot! When I was seven I already knew how to sing harmony, and whenever I heard music there was music within the music. I would repeat every sentence after I had spoken it, putting into it a rythym, looking for rhymes to make poetry. If I couldn't find a rythym or rhyme it would drive me crazy! I always assumed it was my job to find the songs, there had to be a song or poem; words weren't supposed to just float out into space. Words never do just float away, they always leave an imprint on someone! Poetry, songs, music, novels, whatever we artists write does not belong to us in the first place; what purpose would that serve? Is it a burden or a blessing, is it a curse to be sensitive; is it a weakness? I've written songs that make me cry; some I can't even sing after having written them. I don't have to ask someone else what they think, if it makes me cry I know it'll make them cry! It's sort of like standing next to them and saying "wow, isn't that beautiful", you don't say "wow, am I not the best writer in the world". If a writer believes they can do no better than their last work, they'd have to believe there was nothing more to be written--that's one heck of an ego don't ya think! Bipolar, ADHD, obsessive compulsive, clinical depression, PTSD, panic disorder, borderline personality disorder...passionate, compassionate, emotional, sensitive, loving, the ability to feel joy and sadness simultaneously. It's like being eternally suspended between the roles of parent and child--and yes, that can be dangerous! Would the child like to play with the shiny new knife, would the parent give the knife to the child? I suppose it depends on the day! The most frustrating thing in the world is to try and sit down and explain our hearts to another who might not be artistic. The world needs us, but they don't want to put up with us! Some of us call it cosmic, some try and refer to it in a mystical sense and yet nobody can define it. We don't let it happen; it lets us happen. We can't run from it, nor can we chase it. If it could be controlled it would be illegal! If it's your turn then take it, if you don't it should be a crime! God bless us all.
I've often said that songs come from "the great song place". You're walking along and then this great lyric or riff comes into your head. You can "hear it" and you know it's worthy of some further consideration. That's how they come to me, or I write a chord-change that I like a lot and that suggests a lyrical mood to me. I think artists should reflect the world around them and that's what I try to do.
That's a great, great way to try and keep that oh-so-elusive perspective.
At one time...I said those very same things to myself and other creative friends. I was in awe of the creative process...almost, child-like awe about it sometime. Like waking up on Christmas morning and opening the gift from the night before.
However, I have fallen victim to the Ego as well from time to time. When seemingly-important people do heap critical praise upon your work and you do receive a taste of the roar of the crowd your brain re-wires. And then when everything you do doesn't receive the same response...the Ego suffers.
It's something to continue to work on everyday.
-S
I'm so glad she's speaking about this, as it's one of my pet peeves: Great Artists & Geniuses Are Crazy. Or: To be a Great Artist, One Must be Mentally Imbalanced.
Phooey.
There are SO many creative geniuses that are stable and live very happy, fulfilling lives.
Check out the incredible productive life of Chick Corea, the musical genius who defies boundaries. He's famous as a jazz pianist & synthesist for many decades now (since Miles Davis, "Bitches Brew" back in 1970), but he's also written & performed in the classical world. Chick, now in his mid-60's, continues to write, tour, perform, often with "new" virtuosos who become famous in their own right after they've worked with Chick (Elektric Band, Origin), or with new music for established music partners (Gary Burton), or new partnerships with an established artist (John McGlaughlin - touring now), or resurrecting one of the great Jazz Fusion groups of all time, Return to Forever, which he founded in the 70's (2008 tours).
I have the pleasure of personally knowing Chick, and I'm always enthralled with his mastery of the piano, inspired by his creativity and energy, and his continual expansion (I guess you could call it "expansion") into new musical areas. He is continually creating in some form or another.
And I know other musical geniuses who are stable, live full lives, and are basically happy human beings.
This whole "gotta be unhappy" or "gotta be a bit crazy" or "gotta be a bit f---ed up" to be an Artist, well, I think it's a bunch of bunk. Something we've been "sold" and just ain't where it's at.
Elizabeth Gilbert, thank you for talking about this subject. Creativity and suffering are NOT inherently linked. Artistry ultimately, in the end, does not have to lead to anguish but to a happy, fulfilled life.
Awesome.
* * *
Elizabeth goes on further to talk about the "Muses", the goddesses or spirits who the ancient Greeks thought inspired the creation of literature and the arts.
Very interesting point of view.
I think that whatever helps one get through it & to continue to create, is just fine. If one perceives or needs or creates a Muse or spirit, that's just fine. Whatever. The important thing is to continue to create.
Create, create, create.
Continue, continue, continue.
When one project ends, start another.
If one bombs, do another.
If one succeeds, do another.
I most certainly do feel songs come through me. I know there are times when it's not my voice speaking and it's a story that has to come out. It's always amazing when the song appears on the page and it feels like I'm reading it for the first time. A little scary but cool none the less. The language can change depending on who's speaking too.
Do I wait for inspiration? I used to but I know now that if I want to write, I write. Sometimes it's not so easy to do and I get nothing, sometimes it jumps off the page. Inspiration does come but I don't wait for it.
I guess I do work at it...I try to make a date with my muse and my writing at least once a week. It's a date I love to keep even though it can be frustrating and annoying beyond anything, it's still a rewarding way to spend an evening. I also write with others to keep my chops and skills challenged.
I'm not sure what a greatest hit is for a folk musician. Have I written my best song?? I don't know. I write a lot - 11 songs since Christmas - so I'm not sure. I like a lot of them, I've been played a lot, others sing my songs and I have won contests with some. So I would have to say no. Or maybe I just don't know.
I write because I love it and I have to. I love to share what I do. I love to teach. I love to perform. I love words and all the power they possess. I can't think of anything else that gives me greater joy except maybe my cats and husband. But it's what I do.
The late Townes Van Zandt used to talk about "sky songs" that came down like a bolt of lightning. I think every songwriter I've known has experienced something similar, but it doesn't happen every day. You have to work at it every day so you'll be ready. I've always compared it to fishing; you have to show up and put your line in the water, hopefully more than one, and be ready for whatever comes along. One thing that's been helpful to me is to have more than one creative outlet at my disposal. I started out wanting to become a prose writer and always kept a guitar handy when I was at the typewriter (sounds quaint, I know). When I'd get stuck on a sentence or paragraph I'd pick it up and start playing. Sometimes a song came out of this, but in any case I usually became unstuck. I've continued this practice through the years and I believe one process feeds off the other; writing prose can make you a better songwriter, and vice-versa. I believe this processs could work in other ways. Many of my songwriting colleagues also seem to have artistic talent. It seems to me that if you kept a painting you were working on nearby, you could switch from one to another with similar good results.
Have I written my greatest hit? I couldn't say. I turn sixty-seven next birthday, and I expect I'll still be writing songs. I've just finished my 20th record of (mostly) original songs, and I hope this is not my last. I'd be lying if I said they come as easily or as often as they used to, but that's the nature of the game. It's not just the inevitable slowing down; you have to consider that after twenty or thirty years in the business you will likely have covered a lot of topics already. In this case co-writing can be very helpful.
I found Elizabeth Gilbert to be cool and lucid. I could listen to her again.
Mrs. Gilbert:
Kudos for a great video.
Derek:
Thanks for the link
For Everyone That Made It This Far:
You are a bit crazy, and that's okay. If you would just admit that you are, as an artist, writer,dancer, singer or whatever, and you can bring yourself to believe that, it will be a Great
Relief. You will never have to worry about going crazy.
David
Do you feel songs come "through" you? YES
Do you wait for inspiration? YES
Or do you just work and work no matter what? THAT DOESN'T SOUND LIKE FUN
Do you feel you've already achieved your "greatest hit"?
Or is your greatest work yet-to-come?
THESE LAST 2 QUESTIONS- WHY WOULD YOU EVER SPEND ONE SECOND THINKING ABOUT IT??!
I enjoyed Ms. Gilbert's talk very much. Thank you for posting it, Derek. You do so much for us indies.
I've had several thoughts after watching the video.
1) I believe in inspiration. My best songs "come" to me--usually pretty quickly (a day or two), but sometimes over a longer period. I've never been good at "forcing" it, but then again a good idea sometimes requires persistence in developing. What's inspiration? It's hard to define, but the old "you know it when you see it"(or in this case hear it) rule applies.
2)I wait for the muse to speak to me, but I don't waste my time. As Ms. Gilbert says, "you have to show up for work." For me, showing up means developing my craft and intellect. I practice technique in the form of exercises or arranging and performing my compositions. I also eagerly learn as much as possible about our wonderful world through a variety of hobbies and interests. Craft and art can be viewed separately, but they are also interconnected. As I perfect and expand my technique and mind, I become more open to new types of inspiration.
3)Is my best work behind me? One has to remember that art is a two-way street: a communication between artist and audience. My view of my best work and my audience's are often different. One of my best-received songs was jotted down quickly one evening--I would have characterized it as a simple ditty at the time. On the other hand some of my personal favorites go relatively unappreciated. Both views are valid, and artists must strike a balance. Defining "best work" as most popular sets one up for peaking and declining. I certainly value my audience's opinion, but I'll continue to feel satisfaction in my work as long as I write songs that impart happiness to others and reflect personal artistic growth. Since I "show up for work" I'm confident that that trend will continue.
Well put! Cheers for that.
"Showing up for work" may sound like drudgery, but music for me is a labor of love.
I loved what was said in that talk. Each song, each piece of music I write is a different child that I have given birth to. They have all come from somewhere, they will all go somewhere. Like children - I have to let them go. They are all beautiful in their own unique way. For that reason, none of them will ever be my 'best work'. Collectively, they are my best work, and will continue to be so. What do we say to our children? "You are beautiful. Believe in yourself no matter what others say, and you can do and be whatever you want". Believe in yourself. Trust your art. And enjoy it always.
lol
I like the intro alot..
Yes it is damn scary..
But thats what makes it so much fun!
I 'spose part of it is defining success and what it really means to you as an individual..
For me its a balance between, sharing my expression, touching people through my work, reaching targets and having a damn good time..
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” - Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965)
Do they call it TED because Self Absorbed Navel Gazing isn't a snappy acronym?
Scribble, don't scribble, your choice. Her story isn't your story how it arrives, by slow boat, train or burning bush is a detail.
When people wax poetic about the "process" of creativity I just want to puke. New age twaddle like this is utterly worthless.
There is no surefire formula, secret handshake or magic potion, sometimes you scribble something you're proud of and other times you might as well have been a roomful of monkeys with typewriters, the only certainty is you can only reach either point by doing it.
The only thing I'd add is how important a sense of "craft" is to the creative process.
I've found that only a very small percentage of ideas come through me "fully formed." The rest of the time it's a matter of manipulating, evaluating and re-evaluating my inspired material so that it sounds like a gift from god; but I have all the notes, erasures and scribbles to show my part of "the job."
Your best work is behind you only when you lose that desire to re-invent yourself with each new project and allow your rote solutions from the past to define you.
I couldn't have watched this video at a more perfect time. For weeks now I've been in a complete 'funk,' wondering where the songs are? Where is the music and why is none of it coming to me? Through watching this video, I realized the most important thing - I haven't been doing my work. I've just been hoping and praying that inspiration and brilliance would just, somehow, overtake me and the songs would just show up - much as they have in the past.
Instead, I've just been feeling alone, forgotten and depressed. In truth, wondering what the point of continuing on in music would be.
However, the real truth is that I can't imagine doing anything else. I write because it's in me to write. I sing because it's in my soul so sing.
From this day forward, I will never again doubt the work I know I need to do. I will keep doing my work and be grateful that I am afforded the opportunity to do so. If the Genius assigned to my case paves the way for some sort of brilliance or inspiration to shine through, I will be grateful for that as well and I will say - Ole.
As always, thanks to you Derek for finding and posting something of true importance to us all.
Thank you for this inspiring video.
I have always (it seems like always) thought I could write a story or a song that people would like. Some of my work people actually do enjoy. That gives me the drive to keep going.
Dorothy
Definitely important not to perpetuate suffering (as an artistic person) because it becomes insurmountable. Inspiration is like love in the sense that it's really everywhere, but the more we grieve that it's not there, the further away it seems...
May we all keep our creative and love channels open while offering our best to others so they too may be inspired.
Thanks for sharing!
P.S.
To get in the flow - let go!
Glad i kept your email and this link, finally got round to watching it. Really liked the ideas and liked her. I don't agree with all that she said but I do agree with the spirit in which she said it.
Ideas come to me almost fully formed - the hard work is creating a complete composition/the arrangement.
I think what she said about the dancers and transcendence is why I love playing jazz so much. There are frameworks but for me there is more possiblity in this music of 'something extraordinary happening'. Just now and again it does and i realise that's why i get excited by every gig - you never know when that moment will happen.
Thanks again Derek.. will keep thinking about it.
It is now July 12, 2009 - almost 5 months since this blog was posted, and I am finding it quite remarkable that my reply will come up under the reply of another "Deirdre" that walks this planet. That astounds me.
As I drew near the end of this presentation by Elizabeth Gilbert, as she commented on the dancer the night after the performance when the audience saw God through him and he was merely mortal with bad knees -something came from my genius... so I am going to leave it here (under the other Deirdre's posting)... to be seen, or not.
"God is so selfish - just using all of us up and draining our bodies of everything we have. And maybe that is the point. Maybe I have been wrong to think that "this body is for me"... that "this life is for me". Perhaps "I" am just a point in God's universe for the dancing... for the music... for the poetry... for love... to exist. Until I burn out - like a star."
Thanks for the postings, Derek. See you back in the cosmos when there is nothing left of us but a little glimmering star dust.
Usually when asked which is my favorite CD, I reply, the next one. Fortunately, though I`ve written some great music, I`ve never felt as if my best work was behind me. If I can be faulted, it`s due to occasionally focusing on the weaker aspects of past work, as if worrying about it helps anyone anytime! My Guru, Amritanandamaya - AMMA, has said something to the effect of (I don`t recall the exact words) Music = God. This I can now believe and understand, so following what this lady says is no effort.
It's only been in recent years that I learned other people felt ideas would just suddenly inhabit them. It was a great relief to know I wasn't crazy (well, at least about that!).
I see ideas as an invisible stream that flows constantly just above our heads. Sometimes an idea will drop down out of the stream into my brain. If I can't pin it down -- by writing or recording -- it just flows on. When that happens the anguish and sense of loss is indescribable.
I think it's interesting how the creative process is carried out so differently depending on the person; for example, some (most?) songwriters write hundreds of songs, analyze every successful hook and melody, and dissect and reconstruct their own work until it passes a stringent protocol of attributes. If that were the only path to making music I would never write a single note.
Arbitrary though it may be, and counter to every "How to Be a Successful Songwriter" book and article ever written, I can't look at musical creation in such a structured, formulaic way. In fact, I have a horrible time editing a song once I've written it because I feel like it's some sacred snapshot in time and I would be dishonoring the source -- whatever it may be -- by tinkering with it. A completely irrational -- and inefficient -- approach to music-making, but it's all about a person's perspective of and relationship to music, I suppose. I think music is magical, and learning why and how it works is a little like learning there aren't little people performing inside your TV, or understanding how it is that you can transform an image you see with your eyes onto paper through the magic of a photographic lens.
I like the idea that music is created through me, not by me; I'm glad to hear Elizabeth so succinctly elucidate that concept.
Ha -- I was so busy rambling I forgot to state my initial observation and reason for posting a comment in the first place: I almost wonder if the hardest book to write / CD to release is the second one after the successful one. Sure, the follow-up can be nerve-wracking, but once it's out and -- sure enough -- doesn't do as well as the "biggie," it seems almost harder to me to know where to go next. Maybe because that's where I am now.
I have a million thoughts about this video, but here's the summary list:
a. I think the "external source of inspration" thing is irresponsible. Sorry, I always felt that way. If inspiration really came from external source, from something "beyond human" then how would other humans understand it? It's like trying to explain painting to an ant, even if you could do, what would the ant do with it. That artist inspiration comes in a form that other humans can understand kills this whole notion of "divine intervention". Really, would we even recognize the art of a god?
b. I would submit the pressure artists feel (especially professional artists) come from not a piece's artistic value, but it's percieved monetary value. The pressure comes from not how "good or bad" a piece is, but by how it "sells". It is here that the seeds of despair are sown, especially when one is expected to exceeed the sellability of a previous well selling piece. Remember it not just about money either, it's the things attached to the money that artists derive their notoriety, popularity, and even their basic survival from.
c. Removing the monetary aspects of an artform is, in my opinion, the best to alleviate that pressure. Make it so an artist's SURVIVAL is not dependent on whims of the consumer. Do that and you remove the pressure, you also remove the incentive for people to pretend to be artists for purely monetary reason.
To answer the original 4 questions:
...Yes I feel songs come through me, anyone who's worked has heard me say I get songs in big chunks of "done".
...I work when I'm inspried and I learned to do other things when I'm not, its a hard lesson to learn, especially when you're obsessive.
... I don't believe in the concept of the "greatest hit". All my work can be lumped into a genre, but I don't really consider one "better than the other", just different, depending on where I am in my life.
...As I improve as a musician, my works will become better, now whether they'll be greater or not, is a subject for debate.
Can I please recommend two pieces of writing, both by Stephen King, to those who are interested in this issue. i.e. creative genius.
The first is the book Misery. Ignore the horror bit and focus on how a writer manages to reach the next peak of his career.
The second is the story "Ballad of the Flexible Bullet", collected in the book "Skeleton Crew". Again, focus on the externalization of a writer's creative genius.
Thank you.
Christine Sun
I am a writer/musician/songwriter. This made so much sense to me and was a great help and inspiration to me. I'm going to keep "showing up" and doing my job.
Thank You!
I dig what she's saying, but there's a blog post that I think serves as an excellent counterpoint, more along the lines of "there's nothing mystical about it -- just sit down and work, and get better at what you do".
http://tweakheadz.com/musical_inspiration.html
I'm putting her video and this post next to each other in my bookmarks for those moments when I need them...
I still think this woman is talking nonsense....
to answer your questions:
* Do you feel songs come “through” you?
sometimes songs come through me. poems and chord changes come through me, but completed songs take a lot more on my part. it's sometimes like doing a crossword puzzle, a lot of guessing but when a few things get filled out, more becomes obvious that was once mysteriously unknown.
* Do you wait for inspiration?
no, i play almost everyday and sometimes i ask for it. sometimes i get my request fulfilled, sometimes not.
* Or do you just work and work no matter what?
work and work, but some of the work is learning others' music, which often inspires me.
* Do you feel you've already achieved your “greatest hit”?
i have no idea. i hope not.
* Or is your greatest work yet-to-come? i have no idea, i hope so...
Wow... as a writer and a Classicist, I love this talk so much! Not entirely sure I agree with the idea that a daemon or genius is your way out of fear though. My worry would be that you never work again after that, because what if the daemon never pops out of the skirting board? What if you spend the rest of your life waiting for something to happen without you taking responsibility for it?
This is just me picking at threads. I loved this talk, and Elizabeth Gilbert's clearly awesome.
There are very few things that have ever personally offended me. In fact I am often annoyed at those who will go to extreme measures to show how something may indirectly offend them or anyone else. After all, I love a good satire and I am a huge supporter of every individual’s right to free speech. In these regards I have no problem with this woman saying whatever she pleases, but I feel it is my duty to politely retort.
To me, the speech in this video is offensive.
It is offensive to reason, it is offensive to beauty, and it is offensive to the thinking, creative, human mind. This isn’t just pseudoscience it is pseudophilosophy. Does a thinking individual really have to take their creativity “on loan” from some invisible fairy? Is it too selfish to think that maybe humans can actually create beauty and art on their own and without any assistance? Ironically this woman may be too humble to admit that she did create an immensely popular book all on her own, but she is certainly not humble to pass up the opportunity to dictate to us where our creativity is externally formed and how each and every one of us should approach art. Wow!
Tom Waits is my FAVORITE!!!! FAVORITE!!!! FAVORITE!!!! musician, and this is not a title that I hand out easily. I have listened to many of his talks and interviews, and I feel like he is much better at explaining this phenomenon. Tom knows that this is all in his head…his VERY creative head, I might add…and he finds himself conjuring up brilliant ideas at the most inopportune times. Tom Waits is THE MANNNN and he does NOT need some invisible pink unicorn to prove this or assist him.
I’m very sorry if it seems like I am overreacting, but I just cannot help myself. I spend a lot of time with aesthetics and I read and study a ton of aesthetic philosophy. Philosophers in the realm of aesthetics have spend many years debunking the ridiculousness of Plato’s thoughts on artistic genius as Plato believed an artist to be only a vehicle for divine powers. Plato thought that since an artist has the power to move people without any logical basis, he must be under divine power. This can be found in his work entitled Ion. This took all credit from artists of the time and it was up to later philosophers like Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche to expose the ridiculousness of Plato’s claims. I have always been mystified at the power of art, but it belittles the art and the artist to think that we are all pawns or cogs working for a divine “artistic” dictator.
And another thing. Artists being portrayed as freaks or depressed maniacs is not a byproduct of them receiving “too much credit” or “too much responsibility” for their work. There are many other factors that have contributed to this stereotype and I will leave it to the minds of the psychologically interested students to think of other contributing factors to this correlative observation.
I have no problem with using this idea as a metaphor or a romanticized way to look at the mysterious beauty of art. I love hearing Tom Waits talk about wrestling with demons as well as angels, and I very much enjoyed the illustration that the poet presented of the train passing her and grabbing the end of the tiger of inspiration’s tail (a bit clichéd, but interesting nonetheless). It must be heard, however, that this is all the creating of art from the individual, nothing more and certainly nothing less…