You’ve
been sitting there for days. Months. Years. You are trying to unlock something,
artistically, and it isn’t happening the way that you would hope. Perhaps you
can tap into what Bob Dylan (2004) calls “that wellspring of creativity” on
occasion, but most of the time, the well is empty. Ira Glass (2009), host of
This American Life, postulates that your good taste, which may be the very
thing that got you interested in our creative pursuit, may also be what is
holding you back because you feel that what you are producing is inferior to
what you are envisioning. He recommends creating “a huge volume of work” and
“only by actually going through a volume of work, that you’re actually going to
catch up and close that gap and the work you’re making will be as good as your
ambitions.”
On Being Creative. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/3ResTHKVxf4
Fair enough. Work a lot. Work every day. Get
in your journal and write something. Pick up an instrument and do something.
Keep working. However, this approach does not always produce results. Why? If
you are approaching process in exactly the same way every time,
you will likely get bored and hit cul-de-sacs.
Two of the most influential and innovative
musicians, John Cage and Brian Eno, not only produced interesting work, but
also took process very seriously.
John Cage.
 |
| John Cage image retrieved from http://bit.ly/1JHMLJc |
John
Cage is the father of experimental music. He has influenced all types of
composers and visual artists. Cage spent a great deal of time discussing and
lecturing on a broad range of topics, including philosophy, particularly
Eastern, as well as process, creativity and expression. As an artist,
Cage completely surrendered to chance, accepting the idea that when a musician
is playing a piece, each time it will be different regardless of what is noted
on the paper. He took this idea to extremes. One famous piece of music called
Imaginary Landscapes, No. 4, was first performed in 1951 (Larson, 2012). Cage
placed 12 radios in a space, each with 2 performers. One performer controlled
tone and the other dialed through frequencies. The results were never the same.
The results could never be the same. The radio, as an instrument, requires the
player to surrender to the available sounds. Throughout his life, although he
was involved in preparing spaces and instruments as well as organizing spaces,
he accepted the final outcome completely, regardless of whether this inspired
praise or scorn from the audience. Most writers wish to have more control over
the work, but surrender can be useful. I will explore this later.
Brian Eno.
 |
| Brian Eno image retrieved from http://bit.ly/1DpT5A0 |
Brian Eno is among the first generation of art
students to be directly influenced by the school of experimental ideas born
from Dadaism and cultivated by artists like John Cage. Eno is arguably the most
commercially successful. He calls himself a non-musician, because he is not a
classically trained musician. However, Eno embraces song structure and melody.
In an article by
Maria Popova (2014), exploring the link between Eno and Cage in BrainPickings
and in Scoates’ (2013, pg. 27) Brian Eno: Visual Music, comes this enlightening
quote from Eno:
In a 2005 interview for the
British Arts Council:
“John Cage … made a choice at a
certain point: he chose not to interfere with the music content anymore. But
the approach I have chosen was different from his. I don’t reject interference;
I choose to interfere and guide. . . . The music systems designed by Cage are
choice-free, he doesn’t filter what comes out of his mind; people have to
accept them passively. But my approach is, although I don’t interfere with the
completion of a system, if the end result is not good, I’ll ditch it and do
something else. This is a fundamental difference between Cage and me. If you
consider yourself to be an experimental musician, you’ll have to accept that
some of your experiments will fail. Though the failed works might be
interesting too, they are not works that you would choose to share with other
people or publish.”
Ultimately,
Eno has to work harder than Cage, because he believes that, although chance can
be used in the process, refinement and editing is necessary. Cage created a
construct and accepted the fate of the final product, regardless of the
outcome. Eno believes that the artist should be more discerning and throw out
the bits that don't work. Eno likened himself to working in the "metaphorical
south of France" while, respectfully, describing Cage as a "polar
explorer" (Sheppard, 2008, pg. 379). Eno could not have described the
difference between the two better. While he typically tries to please on some
level, Cage is satisfied regardless of the outcome.
The
two met in 1985, when brought together by Musician writer Rob Tannenbaum. A
nice moment from the meeting was remembered in the biography, On Some Faraway
Beach, the Life and Times of Brian Eno by David Sheppard (2008):
"The venerable composer was obviously rather taken with Eno. During the ensuing discussion, Tannenbaum reminded Brian of an old quote of his about his motivation as a music maker: 'The idea is to produce things that are as strange and mysterious to you as the first music you ever heard,' to which a beguiled Cage responded, 'That's beautiful', causing Eno to blush."
Both artists had strategies for changing the process, which I will begin to explore in my next entry. I have also created a third process, inspired by Cage and Eno, that may be useful for creativity.
References
Eno,
B., & Schmidt, P. (1978). Oblique strategies. Opal, London.
Glass, I. (2009). Ira Glass on Storytelling, part 3 of 4 [web interview]. Public Radio International. Interview retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI23U7U2aUY
Larson,
K. (2012). Where The Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the inner life
of artists. Penguin.
Leung,
R. (2004). Dylan Looks Back [Television series episode]. In 60 Minutes.CBS.
Interview retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKkZcgrec8A
Popova,
M. (2014). Oblique Strategies: Brian Eno’s Prompts for Overcoming Creative
Block, Inspired by John Cage. Brain Pickings. Retrieved from http://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/22/brian-eno-visual-music-oblique-strategies/
Scoates,
C. (2013). Brian Eno: Visual Music. Chronicle Books.
Sheppard, D. (2008). On Some Faraway Beach, the Life and Times of Brian Eno. Chronicle.
Sloth image retrieved from http://www.funnyjunk.com/Parents+just+don+t+understand/funny-pictures/5264821/20#20.
