Exploring Creatively

by Chris McGinty of AccordingToWhim.com

I’m not sure why Miguel didn’t post it as a blog post, but he left a comment on a blog post I wrote a while back, and I just now saw it. My original post had to do with a concept that I’d been working out in my head relating to creativity and iteration. I used the backdrop of an old debate that Miguel and I had about forced creativity. I’m not sure he fully understood what I was saying about creativity isn’t always about being in the zone. Sometimes it’s about tinkering with thoughts whether you get something great out of it or not. I might go over that again at some point, but I’d like to actually deal with some of the stuff he wrote in his comment.

“I’m a believer that your work shouldn’t be dictated by just making your fingers move.” – Miguel Cruz

I find this interesting. Some musicians find it difficult to go a day without picking up an instrument and playing for a little while. You can usually spot them, because they’re often working musicians. On the other end of the spectrum, you have musicians like Miguel and me. We don’t tend to play every day. You can tell because Miguel isn’t all that good if you were to compare him to Jerry Cantrell. And I’m not all that good if you compare me to anyone who has played a guitar for at least a month.

Miguel talked about our days as songwriters and how he felt that it was way more miss than hit. I think that was the point of my original post, and where we still disagree. We wrote a few songs back in the day that if we went into the studio with a good producer and engineer would make great tracks. We also wrote some that they wouldn’t want to waste the studio time on. Miguel seems focused on the number of failures littering the floor in the museum of our few successes. I’m focused on the successes, because I find them more interesting to contemplate.

In reality, Miguel and me getting together for two and half hours to watch Star Wars together seems to be difficult, but let’s pretend an alternate reality where for 20 years Miguel and I had gotten together once a month for four hours. During that time we spent half the time writing new music and half the time practicing and iterating music we’d already written. If we only completed 5 songs a year and only 10% of those songs were good, Miguel’s view might be that we failed 90% of the time. My view would be that we had a great album of 10 songs that people would hear and believe that we should have been big time. On top of that, both of us would be better guitar players. I’m not sure I see the downside of making your fingers move.

I’ll get into other aspects of Miguel’s comment later. For now, I just want to double back on my point, which is that creativity is about exploring as much as it’s about creating amazing things. The exploring leads to the amazing. I think that was one of the flaws of our thinking back then. We didn’t understand the power of exploring.

Chris McGinty is a blogger who often gets the Dora the Explorer theme stuck in his head. It’s possible it’s there now. If you’re really quiet, you might be able to hear it.