Creating Creativity

How does a person become artistically creative?  I’m a music composer, so I’ll use music composition as my example.  The same principles apply to fiction writers, painters, or whoever.

Skills: Spend 5-10 years developing skills:

• Learn techniques: Take lessons, read books, watch videos, and get advice from your musical friends.  Practice diligently, meaning that you pay attention to what you’re doing and you’re constantly trying to improve.  Learn some new techniques, then go back to the basics … do this again and again.
•  Imitate what you like.  Try to play or sing your favorite songs.  Start with the easy stuff, and gradually improve.  Don’t worry now about developing your own style; that will come later. 
• Actively listen.  If a song works or doesn’t work for you, ask yourself why.  Listen to individual parts, and listen for how parts work together. Keep an open mind and listen to other musical styles, and think about how one technique works in one style but not in another style.  Most importantly, you’ll develop your artistic taste by actively listening, i.e., you’ll refine what you like and dislike.

Style: OK, you’ve learned to play by the rules.  Now you can create your own style by breaking some of the rules.  

• Style is the combination of technique and artistic taste.  Put another way, it’s what you can make happen, combined with what you want to happen. 
• Explore: Try combining techniques from different styles.  Try combining old rules with new techniques.  Experiment, to see what’s possible.  If you can’t create the artistic statement that you want, keep searching.  Find an idea, explore it, make something if you can from it, and move on to the next idea.  Find a way to work around your artistic limitations. 
• Caution: if you break all the rules, nobody can relate.  If you break none of the rules, nobody is interested. 

Your artistic process: Create a way for you to create.  Find a way to create time/space in your life to work on your art.

composing, part 2

By the time I've finished composing a piece of music, I don't know if I've written a masterpiece or a piece of crap. 

?

I never worked for the CIA.

But that's what I'd say if I ever worked for the CIA.  

Good news, bad news ...

A NASA astronomer discovers that a huge asteroid is headed right towards the earth.  There is no escape.  All the world’s nuclear weapons are not powerful enough to knock it off course.  Even if they could nuke the asteroid into pieces, the pieces would still obliterate the earth. 

The astronomer travels to Washington DC to inform the president.  As he stands before the president, he says “Mr. President, I have some good news and some bad news.  The good news is that you don’t have to worry about being re-elected”.

How To Compose Music

Step 1: Add a note. 
Step 2: Add a note, delete a note, or change a note. 
Step 3: Repeat Step 2 until done.

Everything You Need to Know About The Music Business

There's a good book titled "Everything You Need to Know About The Music Business".

If I wrote that book, it would have only three words:

Give up now.

Apple should think differently

I recently tried to download some apps to my iPhone, but I'm out of memory because I have too many songs.  So, I can just delete some songs from within the iPhone, right?

No.  Apple requires that you connect your iPhone to a computer that has iTunes.  Within iTunes, you select what you want on the iPhone, and then iTunes will completely overwrite your iPhone with your new selections.  So, that's a bit awkward, but it should be easy, right?

No.  A year ago, I spent a long weekend painfully loading 100+ music CDs into iTunes on my computer.  A few weeks ago, that computer died, so I'm now using a new computer.  I can't overwrite my iPhone with my music, because my new computer doesn't have that music.  So, it's a bit convoluted, but ... I can copy music from my iPhone to iTunes, select what I want within iTunes, and then copy it back to the iPhone, right?

No.  Apple intentionally prevents you from copying music from your iPhone to iTunes.  I assume the record companies were scared bad people would steal music, and Apple put their interests ahead of mine.  Within the computer industry, there's a technical term for my situation.  That term is "screwed". 

So, what are my options?  Option 1 is to spend another long weekend copying music from my 100+ CDs into iTunes.  Option 2 is to buy software that does what I need.  When I say buy, I mean give my credit card info to a complete stranger on the internet.  Option 3 is to hope that someone at my local Apple store can delete some songs from my iPhone. 

UPDATE:  I've learned that widely-used program "senuti" (iTunes backwards) can do what I want, but that only works on Apple computers.  There's no free Windows equivalent that I can find.