I'm on to the next stage of my DYCP project. Up until a few weeks ago I was learning new tools and techniques, and now I'm supposed to be composing. Which, in theory, sounds like a lovely thing, doesn't it? To have 3 months to just write whatever I want? Living the dream. But omg do I like to make things more difficult than they need to be and suddenly I'm feeling all this pressure to produce something awesome. We creatives do like to beat ourselves up unnecessarily, don't we.
Is good the enemy of great? I don't think so. I think 'good' is the only road to this fabled 'great'. Good is 'it works. But first, we must start.
Coming up with ideas can be difficult, but it doesn't have to be. In this post, I'll go into more detail about a particular form of restriction that's very common in music - the 'limited palette'.
You're staring at that blank page. It's scary, and you want to get ideas onto it fast just to take away the terror... But wait, there might be a better way. Generating those lusciously original ideas, to order, can be a tricky venture if you don't have strategies - but stick with me, I've got …
Continue reading "How to Generate Great Creative Ideas: Refresh and Get Perspective"
You want to get something quick onto that scary blank page. Generate great, original, creative ideas by (counterintuitively) imposing restrictions. You need new, juicy, creative ideas, and you need them now. This is how to get them on tap, stat. (Yes I do rather love E.R. and I'm binging series after series of Grey's Anatomy …
Continue reading "5 Strategies to Generate Great Creative Ideas by Imposing Restrictions"
How do you generate great creative ideas when you're faced with the abject terror of the blank page?! Here are my tried-and-tested strategies for composing music and beyond. These are the methods of idea generation I've actually done. They all work. The order doesn't matter. Not a composer? They'll work great in any line of …
Continue reading "5 Mind-Freeing Strategies Guaranteed to Generate Great Creative Ideas"
Creativity. To really get creative, your brain desperately needs: Time Space Freedom from distraction Focus to make cool stuff happen. Systems enable this. I schedule low-level activities, if I can, at the same time every day, week or month - for example, email, shopping, phone calls... I do this no less than 1 week in …
Continue reading "4 Essential Prerequisites for Creativity"
At the moment I've got rather an easy-going carry on. I'm loving it. But there's this little niggling part of me that's feeling awfully guilty about it and keeps trying to justify this rather easy going schedule.
The music themes are all pretty much composed for The Count of Monte Cristo, a new, irreverent theatre adaptation of the book by Alexandre Dumas. Rehearsals start next week at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, where it will play from mid-April to mid-May. These are some of the challenges which have become clear through the writing process.
This post was originally written for ScorecastOnline.com. Ever have those days where you just don't feel like it? And no matter how much you stare at that blank sequencer page, the notes just aren't forthcoming? And you wonder if you'll ever get that li'l spark of inspiration back... How do you get your compositional, creative, …
Continue reading "Get the Musical Mojo Back"
