Inspirational Activities...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
When I do a post like this, half the readership goes “sigh. Another process post.” And the other half goes “Yay! Another process post!!!” When I started blogging lo these many years ago (Jesus fuck, has it been 18 years?) I quickly learned that, even though my first blog was about my band and not music tech, and it wasn’t called a blog because there was no name for them then, there was a certain segment of the audience that loved process, and another segment that hated it.
I happen to number myself in the “love it” camp, as declarative statements about gear can get really tedious, in my opinion. So suck it, naysayers.
Anyhow, the one aspect of my life’s work that I really love is the “R” half of the R&D equation, and that’s where we are now with Audio Damage. And the main tool in my mental toolbox for doing Research is, surprisingly, YouTube. For a right-brained person such as myself, the non-linear information firehose that is the YouTube recommended videos sidebar is an amazingly handy thing. I can type “Generative music” in to the search bar, and in three short steps be watching a video from the Nature Channel about how water has memory. From there, it’s only a couple clicks to what I call Costello Land (Schumann Resonance videos and the like, from people that really enjoy fractals). I can’t click away from that hippy shit fast enough, and a few random pokes later I’m watching a video from someone that has made a valiant but ultimately futile attempt to use the L System equations to make music.
In the space of maybe 10 minutes, then, from typing in a relatively random seed, I’ve set all the gates on the right side of my brain to the proper mode for having ideas, and to be clear, I’m not looking for wholesale ideas in these videos; rather, I’m trying to set my brain in a state where it can have its own ideas. My theory (which practice has more or less proved out over the years) is that a given idea is really the result of the ingredients you feed it. My habits to create that idea are sort of like following a recipe that I know works, and while I don’t know how the result is going to taste, or if it will be any good at all, I do know that if I follow these steps, I’ll end up with something edible.
I have a couple other things I do (usually a trip to the public library will get me a whole stack of fodder that costs only time; it’s a great way to taste things outside your areas of interest) to get myself in the right frame of mind, but on the whole, the best thing I’ve found is YouTube.
What do you use to get yourself in a creative mindset? Do you find my method works for you? Would it work for an extremely left-brained person? Or do they need something more linear to engage the gears? (With any luck, we’ll avoid a lengthy Sean Costello treatise on Schumann Frequencies, but I think I’ve tempted fate just mentioning them; I’ll take whatever punishing 3,000 word essay Sean sees fit. Also, water doesn’t have memory. It has impurities. That was a stupid video. But it’s all part of the process.)
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A graphic diagram of Schumann Frequencies:
https://twitter.com/valhalladsp/status/205445809221804034/photo/1/large
Anyway, creative mindset: Walking. If I suck down a few cups of green tea, and then walk about 3 miles, the mind starts working. If I can walk through Ravenna Park (an amazing wooded ravine in the middle of Seattle, and the setting of much of Charles Burns' Black Hole comic series), so much the better. If I can end up at the University of Washington libraries, and have time to look at cool books on music or art or anything non-engineering, even better.
Holy shit, that water memory video just blew me away.
Regarding creativity I find I move from the opposite direction, I have a constant flow of creative impulses, and I have to cage them to make anything concrete from them. I find brainstorming has worked, try to get out as many ideas I can in short order and work them down to something cohesive/singular.
reading fiction, science docs and the head exploding physics shows hosted by morgan freeman etc..
riding my bike..
often, listening to something someone else has written that is new and good will often get me in gear sometimes after the first listen..
patching the modular, staying up late and forgetting what time it is and feeling like i'm all alone. that works a lot..
generally though.. i have to just decide that i need to go work on music and quit dicking around. once i do that and spend time in the studio it becomes its own inspiration.
i dable in writing for my own benefit.. i like to create characters.. that kind of thing requires something different for me to be in the mood. it just has to kind of happen after being fed up or too busy or too annoyed with daily life etc. basically rubbed the wrong way to some degree... that works for music sometimes too. being generally tired of "all the bullshit" leads to plowing through any road blocks.
1. Walking to the top of our local 'mound', which affords stunning views of the entire, crazy patch called Los Angeles usually triggers me good. The more vigorous the walk the more pronounced the effect it has on me. I think the elevation is a big part of this effect.
2. Getting a new toy or, more often, rediscovering an old one.
3. Just chipping away at it until 'it' happens. Nothing fancy, just forcing yourself to stick with it while it sucks, until it hopefully doesn't.
Slow the brain down to alpha state for 30 mins, then be creative.
Pencil and paper are awesome. An uninterrupted day. Exercise.
Back to water having memory, doesn't putting a flower in water add oils or something to the water? The syringes might also have traces of something in them to make the drops different, or maybe the angle/velocity of the drop does something.
I'm sure there was some interesting information in that interview, but whoever edited it and wrote the voice-over just dumbed it down to 2nd grade level until there's no information imparted.
I know from having a swimming pool that vegetable matter adds all kinds of jank to water.
-CR
Contaminants on the slide? Research methods? Need more data.
Have you been drinking?
-CR
Yay! Another process post!!!
Process transparency is the reason I read this shit.
I can say with 100% certainty that that entire water memory video is pseudo-science drivel. I'm really shocked that even PBS has sunk so low these days. Real "educational" television programming hardly exists anymore. Move along folks.
my public library is very very nice. they have around 10-15thousand of CDs, a huge comics section, fancy magazines, movies ... there is a shelf with employee picks that usually has very nice stuff that hits my nerve. And I can have the kid sit in his section reading books or make drawings. I can take like maximum 15 books, three DVDs and 10 CDs home and keep them for one month. Free. If I don't have enough time to get done with it I can ask for another month via the library's website. And spain isn't even a socialist country.
The youtube method sounds like my ADD. A might go to B and C but first visting Å and looking at D.
I have a hard time recognizing my own creativity because every step to get there seems to make sense to me.
@pepezabala: A good library is such a valuable resource. Our main city library is along similar lines, although the fact that I live in a heavily conservative area where people pretend they're cowboys informs the content.
@afreshcupofjoe: Yeah. I was excited when they added all the Discovery Channel shows to Amazon Prime, as I hadn't seen any for years. Then I figured out that they're all reality shows and, as you say, pseudoscience drivel. The only way one gets informed, inspiring television these days is if one watches nothing but TED talks, and that can get tedious (ha!) after a while.
-CR
I have to pretty much leave the phone and laptop at home if I'm in the studio to actually make stuff and be creative. Yellow legal pad, sketchbook, pen, and time. The ideas are there. I just need to get 'em out, and reading the internet/email is the worst possible thing.
In addition to the library and TED talks I have often found some great inspiration in reading this blog. And I am a big fan of process oriented posts. It seems like some part of my brain is in "R" mode fairly constantly!
Taking a shower works wonders for my creative process. Bonus cleanliness too.
Any form of exercise is great for clearing and opening my mind. Something about the repetitive, near-mindless nature of it opens the door for real shit to happen.
Tearing down the modular and starting a new patch from scratch is also liberating and invigorating.
I turn the television on and put it to something boring and then put a video up on my second computer screen to be left playing in the background.
That piano exists and you haven't sampled it yet?
I've had real luck just doing covers. I started a covers EP a few months back, just to exercise my production "muscles", and halfway through I did an album's worth of my own music (including my submission for the AI comp).
I have been playing in a video game cover band as of recently, so video games have given me a lot of inspiration for new material in my own process. Some of the compositions from the NES and SNES, as well as the MegaDrive/Genesis are pretty catchy and some are downright amazing, despite (or maybe because of?) the limited sound-palette that is available to each device.
Also, since I am playing guitar in the band, I have been using the guitar a lot more for tracking my own material. I notice that this usually results in more interesting melodic/harmonic content than when I am just tracking with a MIDI keyboard, which should have been obvious from the beginning because I am more skilled at the guitar than the keyboard.
This isn't really anything particularly new or novel, but I thought I would share in any case.
I'm with boobs.
Ah, i didn't know what does that "i'm with boobs" button was for...
Reading trough your article i recognize myself in the part of collecting information for setup the brain for creativity processes.
I think you could really like to read a book of an Italian Designer called Bruno Munari, the books title is Fantasia (or at least that's the title in italian) Most of the best of munari's work whas about researching (and trying to proove) on the creativity process subjects.
He believed that creativity was not some kind of supernatural gift from the gods but something that is just a matter of practice and filling the brain with material to make connections, cuz' the creativity in his theory is more about that, connections between concepts, the more information you have to make relations the great the possibility to come out with a new idea.
By the other way he really enjoyed to work with children and most of their books are writen in an spectacular "easy-to-get-it" way.
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This is the first time i know about someone talking about this (i don't know all that people tough)
Have a good day.
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