Creative process...?

My guts say this is the creative process:

inspiration - method - review

Something inspires you.

You start to figure out how to make what you want, get a bit of a method.

You review it - experience it - to see if it is as you want it to be. You are always working to the limits of your perceptions. It's hard to tell when to move on, so it's good if there is a point to this creation - so you can say - yeah, that's good enough. That will do what I want it to.

Instrument obscenities

I've just been to see Stevie Wishart at the Barbican. She does unspeakable things to a hurdy gurdy - putting her fingers inside the instrument, making slides glisses scrapes rattles - amazing sounds totally appropriate to her piece ("Transients"). A friend called her the "Hendrix of the hurdy world". Somehow though it just seems rude to put your fingers inside an instrument - far too intimate to watch!

Motivation within a group, improvisation and social music

I went on a community music "Group dynamics" course run by Music Leader a couple of years ago. One of the main things that stuck were ideas on what motivates people within a group, i.e.

belonging - competence - autonomy

So feeling motivated within a group is easiest when:

• you feel like you belong, there is a place for you
• you feel that you have something to give, that your skills are valued
• you feel that you have some choice over what to give, you're in charge of you

I feel that folk sessions fit this exactly. At a session, where you met voluntarily in the pub, if you turn up with an instrument you can become part of the session - belonging. Part of the way folk music works is you can subtly alter the music with ornamentation. This means that many people can play the same tune while all playing at different skill levels and all having responsibility over their own part - competence and autonomy.

I feel that all improvised music allows this balance - that you are playing with what you have, not what you don't. For me, this is a defining feature of social music - that it welcomes all without constraining any.

Planning a musical career

The most exciting but also most scary bit about being a musician is the immense freedom of how your career can work (or not!!). Most people I know have a portfolio of work, that is a mixture: a balance of performance, function work, teaching, workshops, funded projects... also merchandising sales: publications, cds, digital sales, merchandising itself (if they have a brand), licensing of music for film and tv.... Just figuring out how to make an income from music is extremely difficult and requires you to think creatively itself!

Anyway right now I'm just beginning to think about this. A friend sent me this link which I shall read with interest.

http://www.zoekeating.com/blog/2009/09/deep-thoughts-on-my-music-career.html