You might want to try being less creative | Hacker News Reader

You might want to try being less creative

blog.bawolf.com

80 pointsbryantwolf39 comments

While I like the punchy title, I'd suggest the often invisible role of preliminary work IS a part of being creative. In music it's "demos," in art it's "sketches," in writing it's "drafts," etc. I write in my book, Creative Doing:

> This stage is far too early to demand perfection; it’s best to keep expectations low, to refrain from self-criticism, and to support psychological safety (the feeling that it’s okay to make mistakes) to allow every single detail of the idea to flow out.

It's related to the original post's mention of scarcity, and how "the path to writing a great song really is through hundreds of mediocre songs." The most reliable way to good work is to allow it to emerge through a lot of preliminary work (e.g., lots of drafts, demos, and sketches).

More on preliminary work here: https://www.holloway.com/g/creative-doing/sections/draft-dem...

Maybe the word "creative" would be better replaced with "novel" or "original."

I agree. It's all part of the creative process. I guess I framed it this way because I think it's what my younger self needed to hear because I definitely wouldn't have considered that part the creative work then.

I think there's something here that's a little different from just "refrain from criticism" that I needed to hear which is something like "you can spend a lot of time trying to find the perfect way to do something, or you just do it many different ways and see which you like better" and frankly, I spent so much time noodling, it might have been _less_ overall time if I'd just forced myself to record some very formulaic versions I was averse to, and seen if any of those inspired me to actually get the thing done.

I liked "Instead, it’s about creating one version of a project that will likely either be improved upon in the future or serve as inspiration for something else. The key is to cultivate the commitment and conviction to declare that something is done, for now." from your piece. I think that's what I'm trying to get at.

There is this thing we can't examine directly, you could call it peircien firstness.

We can't actually fully introspect our brain, just a small portion tied to our language or visual centers.

So one day there is something on your mind, on the edge of your imagination, but you can't quite see it, can't quite get your finger on it.

So, you find a bunch of stuff close by, a bunch of swatches, color, sound, whatever, and you may piece it together and land on it and it clicks.

All because we can't actually understand what our brains want or are doing directly in a total sense.

That's one route to conscious creation, other routes can be taken.

Choosing your constraints is an inherently creative decision, because it is foundational to all the other creative decisions you make.

There are no creative chords. There are creative chord progressions.

Yes! Its like texture that other decisions can get purchase on. Understand that has been a journey for me

Stealing this.

> There are no creative chords.

Tell that to my friend's Bm7sus4add11/D# (I made that up but that's the sort of stuff he does until I say "can we please do something more normal")

Reminds me of that ORC-1 ad with Matt Berry.

OK so I am torturing the metaphor a little but what I mean is, a set of notes in a chord is not creative absent the context you're using it in (a progression, a key signature etc.)

It only really becomes a creative choice once somehow constrained. More or less just noise without it.

Started having way more fun (and making better music) when I released the "need" to make everything from scratch and just started dragging and dropping loops.

Now it's like I'm back in 2003 when my feature phone had a little music composer thing on it. You'd just slap together some presets.

Life is good.

Where were you fifteen years ago! I'd love to hear more about your process if you're interested!

Yeah, I'm just downloading sample packs a drag and dropping the into the timeline in FL Studio, for the most part. Just drag and drop.

Though at that point most of the complexity of the music software becomes unnecessary, and I wonder if there are better (modern) tools for that. I saw a video of someone doing the same thing on a PlayStation 1, apparently MTV made a "game" where you make music in the same way.

https://youtube.com/esckos3O7i4

This worked for Rhianna's "Umbrella", Tricky Stewart used a sample from Garage Band for the high hat loop - classic banger!

The most creative things I've done have come from stealing ideas. My longest running project has been sewing. I was tired of buying shirts and them not fitting, so I went out on a journey to reproduce a shirt I owned that fit perfectly. I designed the pattern, made the software to design the pattern, learned how to sew, and a year later I have a perfectly fitting T shirt (with my own adjustments to the original inspiration).

I made a replica of a watch that was too expensive. I made a pair of shoes because the real version was too expensive. I made illustrations based off other art.

I'm an engineer who likes art, not an artist who likes engineering. Stealing ideas, making your process efficient, and creating a great product are all what's important to me... not something like capturing my raw and original emotions in the work.

There's so much to glean from this for anyone who wants to create!

If you're working with an AI to make your thing, know that even though its first output looks great, it's nowhere near as far as you can go if you keep going, use it as a tool, and still put in the same time and energy you'd have done if you weren't augmented.

People can tell if you've vibed something and they can tell if you've cared enough to instead build it fast but still sweated the details.

I'm reminded of the Nick Raskulinecz interview[0], where he prevailed upon Rush to re-use some of their motifs because "you own that" and there would be no shame in alluding to their own art instead of always doing something fresh.

So you hear a little "Bastille Day" in "Headlong Flight". Oh, yes.

[0] https://youtu.be/oQognzPVOIo?is=XAiy0EhMps3QrdrR

Am an aspiring composer. We often say we have no qualms about "stealing" from other composers. Yeah, if we see an idea or technique used in piece of music we like, we won't hesitate to try it out in our own pieces. Of course, we don't actually steal to the point of plagarism, but it's pretty common to do, and the ideas we take are often modified for your own needs or just taken in parts.

When Brahms was told that his Symphony No. 1 sounded like Beethoven, he said "Even a donkey knows that!"

https://note.com/apt_crow7500/n/n440c1a6cfb63?hl=en

Actually, didn't hear about this, but makes sense, Brahms clearly builds off of Beethoven.

But, have had heard the same thing that was said in the page you linked, that one of the reasons Brahms took so long in his life before he wrote a symphony is that he had to compete with Beethoven, and didn't feel it was ready until much older. Yeah, what an immense weight he must have felt to have to follow up what Beethoven had done!

> Brahms clearly builds off of Beethoven

And moreover he wasn't at all afraid to say so; he clearly considered it normal and commonplace.

Agreed:)

Another example: early in his career, Scriabin sounded a lot like Chopin. Later in his career, though, his music turned into something truly original and one-of-a-kind. It seems necessary to start out imitating your idols, but at some point true artists aren't content with imitating and have to find their own voice.

Completely agree. Imitation is a great way to learn. But yeah, then typically you need to extend with your own ideas

Yes! I find that whenever I try to steal something, I end up taking some of it's essence, but I end up modifying it so much that it's not really that thing any more anyway.

So I want to be less afraid to do that. Because at the end of the day, if I decide it's too stolen, I can always just not release it.

Agreed... and am realizing, especially with themes/melodies, sometimes it's not always easy to modify them enough to the point that it's unrecognizable, but even then, you could be said to quoting their theme - although, am of course not talking about quoting popular music melodies, no one wants a lawsuit:)

This is really what all art is anyway, a collection of your own past influences.

Some also argue it's what makes AI "not stealing" although many artists disagree with it.

Interesting. There is of course be a line between condoned use and unwanted stealing. And now that you’re mentioning it, think there is a higher tolerance for humans using a person‘s ideas versus AI. Think this is not only because a human is a real person and typically is also associated with music who has studied it to some degree, but also because when AI uses your ideas, you’re basically giving free access to them for any of the millions of users of the model. Hmm, Useful to think about

ok, sure, but for a stone cold autodidact it actualy is an effort to remember the last thing that worked rather than just figure something out that works now, sometimes it is a bit ridiculous as I will catch myself spontainiously comming up with a completly new method to do something mundane, and realise, no I dont have all day for this. the best way I get around it is to build tooling, which I will then remember I have, and can then look at and see how to use. on the guitar side , improvising constantly can as the author states, make finnishing songs immpossible, so I bust them.down to two or three chords, and put my efforts into HOW I sing the words, which realy does take focus, or just go for lead lines, and or arpegiating chords, and trying to match vocals with that.Doing nothing but solo work now, so there is nothing to hold me down or work with or too. In any case, I do agree with the author that strategic narrowing of focus does bring benifits, but nothing feels as good as pulling off a big flex.

I was programming a lot and felt that my mind was getting somehow rigid, for lack of a better term. So I took up scrabble since I thought that that maybe is a different type of thinking, but it really isn't as you are just using logic to predict valid words that may or may not exist. So I took some creativity courses, mostly painting, and those were great for my brain. But then the pandemic happened and they were shut down.

I've taken some hobbies since then and haven't felt the need to do something other than programming and my hobbies since then - having these other interests (mushroom collecting, weightlifting, hiking, etc) has been enough.

Why does every article have to start with a biography these days?

[flagged]

No personal attacks, please.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Well, that's how I read the comment I was responding to, which insulted the author's writing style right to his face.

I thought the commentor might like to see how it feels to be on the receiving end of that.

Responding to an insult with an insult isn't likely to do any good, and is against HN's rules.

It's the NPRificiation of everything. I had to stop listening to BBC Radio 4 because most documentary programmes have basically just become This American Life with British accents.

You might enjoy this Portlandia send up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsufMtUOXtI

Where would you have started? I've had about five drafts of this piece and kept walking away saying "why does anyone care?"

This was the first shape that seemed to have a kernel where if you related to as a reader, I thought it was a good indication that you'd enjoy the whole piece.

Related, Dan Harmon on writing and lowering the stakes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6DDCA0GwU4

"You can just start taking what you do less seriously"

"When we consider it our job to do better than we can do, then we don't do anything, because you are waiting for you to come up with something you don't come up with. By contrast if you simply shit it out, and consider it your job to do it wrong, to do what you would do, and embrace the idea that you are going to suck, that's closer to what chefs do carpenters do..."

Love this!!!

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