creativity – Kai Strandskov Music

February 27, 2013February 11, 2013

How to be creative

Having discovered this amazing, free PDF that charts out how to be creative, I feel like I’ll have nothing to add on the topic ever again. It’s an amazing read, and I highly recommend it. It is by Hugh MacLeod.

http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/6.HowToBeCreative

Every one of the 26 points has an illustration, so you don’t even have to read much if you don’t feel like it.

This is the kind of thing that should be part of the process within a consistent plan for integrating innovation into our art.

February 20, 2013February 10, 2013

Innovation in art

There is a great article about the areas in science and technology that are going to explode with innovation. Areas like biotechnology, AI, robotics, nanotech, etc.

What grabbed my attention is that there is an image (you have to click on it to enlarge it) that shows some interesting statistics about how companies that have an executive in charge of innovation tend to be successful with it. The reason they are successful is because they have a plan, and someone at the top is accountable.

How can we apply these lessons to our artistic personal growth? Are we haphazard about innovating in our art, or do we hold ourselves personally accountable for some kind of process for brainstorming, discovering, and integrating new artistic ideas?

I think this would go much farther than just subscribing to Modern Drummer.

November 14, 2012December 1, 2012

Trying to be creative

When I’m behind the drumset, I’m just not that creative. It seems like moments of inspiration happen any time but when sitting behind an instrument. Mostly when a song’s been running through my head, or after having just woken from a dream.

Sitting behind the drumset is about doing what I can already do, or about practicing to get better. I can have some ideas within that framework, but creativity seems to be all about letting my mind go crazy in a way that is not constrained by my limited drumming ability at this moment. There might be some rare moments during a solo.

For consistent creative results, I’m using my imagination, free of existing assumptions and free of what I’m comfortable with. Then comes the fun part: sitting down and trying to reverse engineer what I just came up with. Usually it takes a while.

How do you push the creative boundaries of your current abilities?