What is Creative Energy? 

Have I got it wrong? Let me know!

Spot on! I do think sometimes it's helpful to say, "Well, that's been done, so I won't go down that path," but only if it forces you to think, be creative, and be true to yourself. You do that for the benefit of your own musical development, not for the sake of avoiding doing the "wrong" thing. Also, LOVE the comment about avant-garde music having its own clichés -- it's so true! For example, I think contemporary music's obsession with extended techniques, at least when not done thoughtfully, often leads to a kind of repertoire of stock characters -- instead of hearing sounds as part of a language, you just think, "well, there's a glissando, there's a piano cluster, there's a scrape on the bridge."

Beautifully said!

I've always had a huge creative block because of the mistaken assumption that acting from avoidance is the path to freedom. I don't know who I was trying to free, but it wasn't me.

I think this applies to all genres. I also think there is a third type that writes from anxiety. Another kind of avoidance but this time in the opposite direction. They want to avoid sounding too offensive. They write with the fear of the critic in their minds at all times, and their music often sounds bland because they get rid of anything that stands out too much.

Excellent and true. The more you try to "modernize' your music the further you will wade into idiosyncratic fragmentation. Musicians seem to focus more on style and technique over what their musical message is.

An incredibly meaningful and thoughtful talk and perspective in such a short amount of time!

And then there's Kenny G, who just thinks about golf or something.

I barely have the energy to write this com

A solution for me its to study everyday and make research about what has been done in avant garde, contemporary music and sound art. Greets

Thank you. That was helpful

I think it was Ravel who said, when asked how he developped his own style, that he tried to copy other composers, but by failing to do so he turned out to sound like Ravel. The same thing happened to the Beatles who tried to sound like little Richard but by failing to do so they stumbled upon their own style.

Wise and true

Don't abandon this topic!,...deepen it, it is more than important, we are at a moment in history, when a composer asks himself,....why continue?...and why not continue? ....

I felt identified with your video: I have been part of the first group, at the beginning, when I started composing, I wrote the music that I wanted to hear. Then, when analyzing what I had done, I felt that in some way I was repeating myself or resembling music from the past, I felt a huge frustration that made me stop composing for several months, everything I wrote looked like something I knew. Very astute observation, Samuel!

very succinctly put! I initial found myself trying to be more avoidant, but the idea of having things that you just cannot help but say or express, that rings much truer. thank you

Agreed, but with reservations. I know people whose idea of "healthy disinterest" takes the form of willful ignorance and a lack of curiosity. There's a juvenile, somewhat romantic notion of creative isolation. People get very smug about making art without having "gone to school for it" or "needing guidance". Linked to this notion is an anxiety about originality. "If I study too much or do research or read artist interviews, I'll wind up copying people. My imagination is pure and powerful and untainted." Ian McEwan said writers who don't read enough have a nasty tendency to plagiarize existing work without realizing. Historical and cultural awareness are crucial to not regurgitating stale ideas.

how true. thank you!

Exactly the insight I needed today. Thank you.

Great video... I compose because I have too... Because I have to say what it is I'm saying.

What a fantastic video. That last line shook me. Great, wise words.

Thank you for this, Samuel! I needed to hear it.

Build up, tear down, repeat.

Thanks very much for your insightful and brilliant short talk on creative energy. But I would request you to have a longer session on this topic. Because this is a highly interesting and controversial topic. As Eeistein said that Imagination is more important than knowledge, based on that theory, a group of Composer will create music using their vast knowledge , intelligence and exposure. But the other group can break all the rules depending on their imaginative capabilities and potentials. We can define and measure knowledge and intelligence but imagination has got no boundaries.After listening to your talk, I kind of divided creative energy into two types. One group has got originality with raw passion and another group has got knowledge with refined passion and according to me, we need both. Having my Indian roots and visiting different remote villages of India and watching the local tribes composing music, it did influence and change my perspectives about composition as a whole.So it will be fascinating to explore this topic once more in future, specially by a genuinely talented and knowledgeable Musician like you.

I've noticed these two distinct attitudes among composer colleagues. In my observation, delving deeply into your work with a sincere approach, unconcerned about the perceptions of others, often leads to originality. There are evident reasons for this: your mind is inherently unique to the extent that it is forged by its own individual history. Consequently, earnest mental effort naturally reflects the distinct history that shaped the mind. On the other hand, getting too invested in 'compositional etiquette' takes you out of the work itself, so your mind is therefore not really genuinely engaged while composing. Hence the unique conditions of the mind are not being expressed.

Stellar video! I believe all the arts are facing this same issue nowadays. Originality was supposed to be a means of creating, not a goal (let alone _the_ goal)

Eclecticism in music opens new doors.

Spot on. A very helpful thumbnail, thank you. For many, composition is slowed-down improvisation, and what is improvisation but allowing a library of deeply absorbed clichés to flow freely and spontaneously? The originality (by which I mean how you touch the listeners' hearts) comes in how you do that. We can't avoid our conditioning. As a respected composer once said to me: 'write what's in your DNA'. I like your notion of 'lean into that and see where it leads.'

You have a great point here. It is similar to the difference between trying too hard and not trying at all. If you're making what you're supposed to be making (whoever you are) the creative aspect of it shouldn't be a struggle (the technical and musical-problem-solving can be a struggle sometimes, but that's FUN). I won't start on a project until I come up with a central concept that seems so ridiculous and impossible that it makes me laugh. Then I set about figuring out how to make it exist. Thank you for these videos; you're one of a kind!

Based

What about the role of playing around, and experimentation? A curiosity and exploration of what's possible rather than what MUST be said. Is there a place for such an attitude in your mental model?

Composers,...currently, can use the system that interests them most,...the important thing is:....if they have something to say!!!...or is everything a mere game of chess? ...being creative at times,...does not mean achieving objectives,...that may not even be maturely clear....you should philosophize a lot about it,....but having something, even a copy, It's better than nothing...here the existential suffering begins.

Yes, this reminds me of reading a student review of a performance of a piece by Arne Nordheim called Monolith. I was present at the performance and thought that it was a great piece of music. The reviewer, however, described the piece as 'old fashioned'. The idea is that composers should be constantly striving to be as daring and 'original' as possible. Everyone then just tries to outdo each other in being daring and 'original' and you end up with a lot of music that's totally unlistenable.

I have a question. It might have been more suitable for a Q & A but here it is. In Hindemiths book on composition I read on page 12 : " the initiated know that most of the music that is produced everyday represents everything except the composer : memory, cheap compilation, mental indolence, habit, imitation and above all the obstinacy of the tones themselves". I was thinking about the idea of "compilation" and I wonder if that is not what most composition comes down to in the end. Consciously like with Stravinsky and Messiaen or unconsciously with more intuitive composers : separating the usefull from the unusefull ideas that are part of a shared musical language.

A long time ago, when I was a driven young composer, a comp teacher asked me why I composed. I told him I didn't know, it was because i just had to! To me that was enough justification. But he had a seriously worried look and told me that people who were "compulsed" to composed often gave it up in the long run; their compulsion ran out. I didn't believe him at the time. But yeah, I eventually "ran out of puff" or need.

it's a tough balancing act. There's nothing worse than being completely uninformed about what's going on in the world of contemporary music, but at the same time 90% of the composers I've come across fall into that latter category of falling into cliche by trying too hard to reject other cliches (myself included!). I think this question runs a lot lot deeper - I recently went to a major European festival of new music and despite listening to over 100 new pieces, there was nothing which actually sounded unique to me. The problem surely lies in the infrastructure of contemporary music - money, 'gatekeeping'/curatorial concerns, education, the inherent limitations of score-based composition, the expectations of audiences etc etc. If you're one of the lucky few with enough conviction and self-assurance to buck the trend then I envy you!

Sometimes I experimented a kind of compositional paralysis, being trapped between the intellectual ambition of moving forward, for trying new things, and the pleasure of using known harmonies, melodies and common practice stuff. This paralysis leads to a lot of self-doubt and second guessing every choice, resulting in a lack of conviction and ultimately in abandoning the drafts (or even more complete compositions). It´s sad, because you feel frustrated. I think that we must be guided to some degree of conviction to permit the creative energy to flow. But where is this conviction ? Is it an emotional thing guided by a gut instinct ? Is it an intellectual construct guided by reading and exposure to culture ? Maybe a combination of both ? Thanks a lot for this video and channel. All the best !

Energy = Music * Creativity^2 🤔

I find I get obsessive when I'm in the middle of writing a concert work. I cannot shut my brain off and I'm always figuring things out in my head in terms of development of a piece. It's worse when I'm juggling multiple pieces at a time.. But it certainly drives me to work on the music. My composer friends luckily don't seem to have this trait so I guess it's just my messed up brain. Oh well.

Just write

Great video Samuel, would love to see a video of a dissection of some work by ex AMM members Rowe, Cardew, or Tilbury; very curious to know your opinion of them.

❤

Do you have a link for recommended readings?

Take with you the vitality and new discoveries of modernism and the avant-garde, not its pseudo politics and dogma

Wonderfully said 👏

I think you hit the nail on the head as it regards the 2 basic paths of the modern day composer...and it's bizarre, when you consider that now, more than any other time in musical history, "anything goes." Yet, many composers in the last 30 to 40 years seem to be reacting to this fork in the road, by some extreme measures in either direction...i.e., when it was apparent that Schoenberg and the twelve tone serialists had all but alienated the general public from the modern concert hall, and their stranglehold over the 'acceptable' academic discourse had waned, then we got minimalism...perhaps a necessary reaction, but extreme nonetheless. So once tonality and the constant pulse were reinstated and 'accepted' as popular-at least by comparison-there was another reaction with the New Complexity, and again, very extreme in the opposite direction...so what we are left with, in my opinion, is a complete lack of syntax, and so, a complete lack of pure melody on either side...I think your advice for composers to find that discourse where they cannot prevent themselves from expressing what they HAVE to say, melodic or not, is the only way forward...as long as it's genuine and not so concerned with revolutionizing the art form with every single gesture, we have a way.

Any good composer is motivated by creative energy and a sense of what must be sounded and heard. But I think the opposite of a composer overly-concerned with avoidance of anything worn out, or no longer relevant, is simply a composer overly-concerned with avoiding anything not supported by a shared vocabulary of some sort. Either type of composer may be competent or not, inspired or not. It's possible that great composers are motivated solely by their own artistic vision, but it's certain that many terrible composers are as well. In some cases this seems to go along with a general unconcern for what others are doing, even for what others have done before.

Composers,...currently, can use the system that interests them most,...the important thing is:....if they have something to say!!!...or is everything a mere game of chess? ...being creative at times,...does not mean achieving objectives,...that may not even be maturely clear....you should philosophize a lot about it,....but having something, even a copy, It's better than nothing...here the existential suffering begins.

Today was an interesting synchronicity of creative energy strangely centered around you. Before teaching this morning (I'm a theorist) I watched your wonderful video on Stravinsky's late style, was inspired, so found a chord I loved from Requiem Canticles (a 4-13 set class) and made a set of piano voicings I liked from using Stravinsky's own rotational manipulations, then took the same set and looked it up in Masaya Yamaguchi's wonderfully quirky little book "A Lexicon of Geometric Patterns for Jazz Improvisation" where he takes every 3 and 4 note set, himself does the rotations transposed to the same pitch, and then works out every contour variation. I took a couple of his patterns and transposed them to highlight guide tones lines from "All the Things You Are", then put them through a few Coltrane cycles, and made some saxophone phrases for a friend of mine. My office door was partially ajar and a number of students came by asking what I was working on, I showed then the Stravinsky score and the Yamaguchi book, and they got very excited, asked for photocopies, I sent them a link to your channel... Then came home and saw this video, which reminded me that I in no way keep up with compositional fashions (or theoretical fashions, which are arguably worse), and how right that feels. Rather, just harness the energy that arises... and see what it wants to do... I wouldn't say I composed anything but it was nevertheless very gratifying to do the pre-compositional work to set up a few templates that could, in turn, perhaps generate some interesting musical ideas. A whimsical day, chasing some sounds that you very much inspired, and then reflecting on the day with this video -- again, not really composing, more of an active mode of deep listening inside the sounds in a way that, by touching them, transforms them... Keep 'em coming! Your work here is working. A continued thanks from Mississippi :)

Truth

Nah, I appreciate the sentiment you're trying to convey but the attitude that you're calling "avoidant" has lead to some of the most important musical innovations of our time, especially in the realm of combining technological advancement with the musical process. Digital synthesis comes to mind. But you're right that there's a balance when struggling between the two.

I've noticed a different dichotomy - probably orthogonal to the one you mentioned. Some composers will work with a very detailed plan in the back of their mind ("traditional composing", "away from the piano", etc) whereas others prefer to experiment with instruments or processes and accumulate happy little accidents which (inevitably) occur (more like "generate and test"?). I guess in many compositions there's a mix of both.

The point about avant garde cliches is very powerful. To piss people of i like to say that no one has had any new ideas since Stockhausen, not necessarily because that's literally true, but precisely because much of the contemporary music scene just seems stuck in repeating old avant garde/ experimentalist stuff. The question that follows is of course why these composers feel they have the right to look down on people writing more traditional music, when they themselves aren't really innovating that much either. It seems to me we're at a moment in history where the traditional and modern can finally converge. The dogmas of anti-traditionalism are losing strength and authority

im just gonna put it out there. I think the composers whos entire musical identity is to avoid what others are doing, often write music that do not last the test of time. I say often, but there are great exceptions.