Creativity in a new decade. - Jan 2020
What a wonderful image to look at as we begin 2020!! …I’ll explain more later.
2019 was bumpy, at least that’s what the Queen said in her 2019 Christmas speech, and I tend to agree on many levels. Personally, it was a year full of uncharted territory. I wish I could say I courageously and confidently navigated through these, but it was more like bushwhacking with a dull machete. In any case, the path was paved and I’m very hopeful that 2020 will be an incredible year.
In this first post of 2020, I want to discuss creativity, where it comes from, where we choose to draw our creative sources from and why I believe and know this matters so much in such a time as this.
I’ll begin by saying that I’m no expert on creativity and how the brain works. I have no formal education on music’s influence or impact, be it positive or negative on the brain. I do however take a significant interest in such matters and so I’ll be taking a stab at a few ideas here now.
Over the past year and a bit, I have almost fully relied on Instagram as my primary source for creativity. When it came to practicing, or learning new ideas, it was as simple as clicking the spy glass icon, scrolling down for a second and BAM, random and seemingly endless “inspiration” from drummers to draw from. It became the easy and bottomless source.
Now, Creativity by definition is: “The act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity is characterized by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing.”
AHH crap…
Here I found myself - an imposter. Thinking that it was appropriate to steal others ideas in an attempt to improve upon them for my own creative gain. Here’s the thing though. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with “stealing” another drummers groove and working on it. Even the great Buddy Rich said:
“A great musician is just a thief who doesn’t get caught”.
but when you call sitting on the gram poaching and not using your own brain your “creative growth” time, it all becomes a sham that only negatively affects you…or, me in this case. And here’s what I’ve come to learn through this for myself. “If you don’t practice drawing creativity from organic, natural sources, you will slowly but surely hit the kill-switch on your ability to come up with creative ideas on your own at all.”
Upon my realization of this, I began to compare myself to a drug addict…stay with me.
According to my research, when drugs are taken, they alter the way in which nerve cells normally send, receive, and process information. By and large, they do this by over-stimulating the “reward circuit” of the brain essentially flooding it with dopamine. Over time as one abuses these types of drugs, the addiction sets in and your body halts the normal production of natural dopamine levels now requiring you to either continue with this counterfeit or go through withdrawals to get back to organic, natural sources.
This is where we go back to that comforting image of a phone devouring that poor dudes face. (If you don’t get the ‘Alien’s movie reference you can probably still get where I’m going with this).. And perhaps it’s all a bit intense BUT intense or not, I think there’s a lot of validity to this.
If one continues to use outside sources to get something that can be naturally produced, then that part of one’s brain will go to sleep - essentially.
When it comes to creativity, I think this is a fantastic parallel. and more so, I don’t think I’m the only one that has fallen into this trap.
Well, this brain is ready to wake up!!
So here’s the plan. For this new year I will be removing the option for myself to hit that adorable little Spy Glass icon. It seems that I have taken advantage of it and can’t be trusted with it. I want to be clear here that I don’t think social media is the devil. I do however know this much. That anything good can be abused and quickly turned to something rotten. I also know that our culture lives off of the quick and easiest fix.
I want to challenge myself, and perhaps you as well, to take the long road. Put down the phone, (unless it’s your metronome!) grab a journal and pen and start thinking for yourself. I know that that’s what I’ll be challenging myself to do this new year. My desire is to reignite my long lost creative brain that once propelled me into new and fresh ideas on the drums. I want to think for myself and ignore the masses. I don’t want to have to draw from outside, unnatural sources, but instead I yearn to draw from good, slow places. I really believe that in doing so, you will create your own sense of style with your instrument.
Here are four that I can think of right now to help this out:
Listen to music often. Lots of new, diverse music.
Go to Live concerts. Watch the musicians and learn from real people right in front of you, wether you think they are “better” than you or not, there’s always something to learn.
spend time with your instrument making an insane amount of terrible music in order to get to the good stuff.
In all these things, be sure to ask questions and journal your thoughts.
I whole-heartedly believe that when we draw from these kinds of sources, we re-energize the brains capacity to create. I know this experientially because for years that’s all I did. I believe that I just got lazy and even though 2020 is looking like a busier year than what’s past, I feel inspired to put some work into this.
If you’re reading this and can relate, go ahead and leave a comment below, I’d love to connect about the ways you are searching for more authentic, creative sources in your life.
I wish you all a very happy start to 2020.