I used to think that being an artist was about the idea. Your way of thinking itself should constitute the work and that (similar to thought) the more succinct it was the better.
It became an excuse for writing one line poems or sticking hastily drawn pictures around the room. Mostly it contributed to a complete lack of following things through as once the spark of inspiration had passed you were left with technical wrangling or repetitive action, like a photographer knowing the inns and outs of his camera or the dancer knowing the names of her moves. It was this ‘filling in’ that made me think: perhaps art isn’t all that grea. I'd always imagined art as being like beethoven crafting the notes for his opus without being able to see the instruments or write the notations. Its like singing the tune into my phone.
From the point of view of pop music, which is and has been be my chief means of creative expression, once the ‘hook’ is found its sometimes difficult to create around it, write your verse and chorus. I knew this throughout writing and didn’t try and experiment too much in the extraneous verses and middle eights because you want some relationship with the listener, some sense of familiarity, to already exist (after all you’re not the Beatles).
I felt then that modifying what I was doing just to make it palatable wasn’t really art. I think it was Bill Hicks who said that as soon as money is involved then it isn’t art. But putting yourself in front of an audience is always going to involve money. How do you write in a way that means you can be honest with yourself and know you’re not doing it for the money? It's the same with writing!
ee Cummings, Berio, Webern, Jackson Pollack, they didn't seem to give a shit if their stuff was palatable. But their work had the intrisic beauty they sought, they left it to chance that the audience were aware of it too. I mean Shoenberg, master of serialism, he never got recognised in his lifetime. Maybe that was good enough for him? He didn't need that reassurance. Berg was a fellow serialist and he (unlike webern) compromised to make his mathematical music sound more approachable. Did he want to do that or did the audience become a co-composer?
Perhaps it's knowing that your audience is much smarter than you? That they will see things you don't, like writers who don't realise they've referenced an abscure greek poem or composers who get called my musicologists saying they've plagiarised something they'll never have heard.
Maybe you need to compromise, though every time I hear that word I pause, implicitly understanding that it isn’t what was wanted the most, it’s not what was intended. It feels a bit like pollution.
So, I’ve now the basis to start writing again and here is a tick list to keep you and I updated:
| Need for Expression | |
| Technical Skills | |
| Observation Skills (Reading…) | |
| Niche | |
| Confidence | |
| Time | |
| Inspiration | |
