Tag: creativity

Creating Your Own Reality

Whether it’s composing, writing, drawing, sculpture, painting, or any other art, the act of creativity is disciplined and on purpose.

It’s one thing to have a dream. It’s another to create a vision for your future. My son, Ryan had a vision for his life to be a professional drummer. He wanted to perform on Broadway. He made his Broadway debut on 9/9/2018 in Dear Evan Hansen at the Music Box Theater. Today he is a drummer for the First National Tour of the same production. This didn’t just happen. This didn’t just drop in his lap. He created his reality through vision and hard work and yes, he worked on his creativity muscle.

That’s right. Creativity is something that gets better through exercise. The musical performance above is on someone else’s channel, but it contains an original piece of music performed by the composer. Whether it’s composing, writing, drawing, sculpture, painting, or any other art, the act of creativity is disciplined and on purpose. This goes for life as well as art.

Conformity and standardization have become buzz words and they are killing the very creativity that all people will need in the very near future as jobs disappear. Today in schools, entire months are dedicated to testing to see how students measure up to standards. Then they return to their regularly scheduled learning complete with even more tests and grades.

Ken Robinson has suggested that schools do kill creativity. Maybe there should be a course in how to survive school so you can still be successful in spite of it.

Ken Robinson has suggested that schools do kill creativity. Maybe there should be a course in how to survive school so you can still be successful in spite of it.

Dare to follow your dream…

The Creativity Conundrum

What became apparent when attending a workshop was the challenging notion that what I was doing was the “least creative thing” I could be doing in music. This gave me pause. I dwelled on it and realized that it was true.

Having been a music teacher for years and directing choirs has been rewarding for me. I have been fortunate to both perform in music ensembles and direct them with the firm belief that this art form and its inherent creativity was beneficial to the members of the group. What became apparent when attending a workshop was the challenging notion that what I was doing was the “least creative thing” I could be doing in music. This gave me pause. I dwelled on it and realized that it was true.

The person directing this workshop indicated that the persons who participated passively in the experience of listening to music also could be brought into the experience of creating music. Again, it gave me reason to think. Using digital software, you can create music and you don’t even have to know how to write it. In education, I have become somewhat of an elitist in that I believe that to be a musician you had to learn and use notation. When the ultimate experience of music is audio…why is that the case.

I bought the software and I was fortunate to have a young lady, who loved to sing, record “cover tunes”, just so I could learn the process of using the software. Still, creativity eluded me. So, we took some of those covers and made a few videos. Here, I first discovered how I could use the music to create a visual experience that would give a greater impact. I was on my way, but I didn’t understand why I was finally on my way. The cover tunes gave me structure. The structure gave me parameters to develop something. The truth is, we all need parameters.

The first day of school in the subsequent year, a contest was presented to me to produce a 2 minute video to support the need for music education funding. You needed original music. There were only 72 awards and this went nationwide. There was only 4 weeks until the submission deadline. Truly, the odds were against winning, but I finally had parameters. I finally had purpose…and the creativity flowed and the contest was won. All the participants, myself and 9 students, felt that “we had accomplished something great” For me, it was more meaningful because it supported my belief that we can all be creative. Now, I need to get others to believe it as well.

On this site is my “ongoing attempt” at creativity. I hope that you enjoy as I continue to explore this side of me that has been dormant for many years.

(This is a re-posting of an entry on a previous server.  I felt I needed to revisit it.)

Glee Give a Note Video
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