Knowing Is Inspiring
I am both a musician and a music industry professional. Generally, most people who are musicians themselves do not seek jobs at labels. These two groups being at odds with each other seems to make the world go ‘round – well the music world at least, but personally I’ve found that having knowledge on both sides is a great asset. Here’s why: the business plan of this entire industry is changing (mainly out of necessity, if you’ve been reading the news) and in this period of flux the question everyone has been asking is, to borrow a phrase from Murder by Death, who will survive and what will be left of them?
The answer, in my opinion is that it can only be the creative people, which is why being a musician with behind-the-scenes knowledge is such an advantage. In this industry, as with other similarly creative industries, you must innovate or perish. I’ve found personally, that such a sword of Damocles is the surest way to shut down all creative processes, so in the name of staying alive professionally, I’ve been trying to work out a strategy for getting creative as though your life depends on it, without feeling like your life actually depends on it.
This concept reminds me of an anecdote from Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, in which he extols the virtues of having Central American cooks in his kitchen. When yelled at about the status of a risotto that is behind in schedule, his fellow white C.I.A. educated cooks tend to get flustered and simply hand over the underdone risotto. A Central American cook, on the other hand, turns his back, ignoring the increasingly apoplectic cries of his chef and waits for a minute or so until the dish is exactly as ready as it should be. Although the chef may be purple with rage at having to wait, he sacrifices getting something immediately for ultimately getting what he really wants – a perfectly done plate of risotto. Later in the book Bourdain also notes that the last thing he wants in a line chef is creativity - far better to have someone consistent and able to deliver the same dish the same way over and over. But the true lesson here is in learning to manage the emotional response to pressure - for nothing clouds our true inventive selves more than being controlled by reaction, which renders action impossible.
My dear readers, people may yell at you. People may scream at you. People may make threats on your well being and that of your dog/mom/career/reputation. But we must never let the bad behavior of others affect the good creative output, of which we know we are capable. ‘Innovate or perish’ may be the ultimatum but, at the end of the day, “Under Pressure” is a phrase that only works in the form of a Queen/David Bowie collaboration.
Having said this though, I can also think of moments when the delirium of deadlines has been the source of much resourcefulness. For example, I’ve been asked to come up with ideas for how to do something easier/faster/better than before in job interviews, marketing meetings and other such high pressure situations - and initially haven’t had the slightest clue. But then I would take a deep breath (buying my brain a few more seconds) and like magic, the answer would come out and the audience would think my ideas were brilliant. I’m not what some would call innately gifted when it comes to what I do - far from it in fact. But I do, however, know the projects I work on from all angles. And this, I have learned, is the key to being able to think creatively on any given subject. Remember college? Your professors thought your most brilliant papers were the ones where you’d synthesized an entirely new idea out of multiple old ideas, the brilliance of which was perhaps lost on you at 4 in the morning after six Red Bulls. You didn’t think you were breaking any new ground by referencing the exact same Foucault piece your entire class was also looking at. But you underestimated yourself, hot stuff!
Knowledge of all sides of the situation helps when it comes to making connections that others wouldn’t see. For example, when my job is to organize and approve schedules, knowing how the bands would likely be feeling on the road was invaluable to preserving their (and, in turn, my) sanity. As a musician, I understand all too well the ordeal that is driving for 12 hours to the next town for a show. Others might not see what the big deal is about sitting on your ass in a van all day –– it’s boring, so what? But it’s more than just boring. It’s being trapped in an aluminum tube surgically attached to your band mates - uncomfortable, unshowered, unrested, and hungover…
It might also be unapparent to less knowledgeable industry folks that having a few beers with a band you work with could get their tour sponsored. A conversation over beer one night could lead to an interesting story about the kind of beer from the last job that the singer held down before making the album. And that could, in turn, lead to a promotion with that beer company on tour. In that instance the fellow musician in me knew what questions to ask, then the industry professional kicked in and parlayed the info into a creative idea.
So if creativity is finding new patterns in what we already know, inspiration is what lets that knowledge loose in a fresh way. And that’s the beautiful thing about inspiration: having confidence in your abilities allows for your various sources of knowledge to do all the heavy lifting.
In this way, knowledge is like a security blanket: with it comes confidence. One without the other is disastrous, but the two together are unstoppable.
