Individual Expression (4 of 5)

Individual Expression (4 of 5)

So, to you, Miles of Music means...?(Launa is quoted in blue, Bill in red.)

Well, great creative environments like Miles to Music enable people to just get started, and then they learn to strengthen whatever they produce, through a process that everyone can apply.  

How about your vocations… Launa how has teaching influenced the way you create?

Being surrounded by middle school students every day is a great reminder of the value of effort,... and the value of failure. Middle school students — as awkwardly unfinished as they tend to be — go through huge amounts of growth, in part by working hard each day just to stay afloat socially, emotionally, and academically. We tend to throw work at them that they can’t always do easily. That reminds me of how much adults have to learn from children about being confident and soldiering on in the face of uncertainty.

Have you ever seen people struggle with the frustration or discouragement that stand in the way of expressing oneself?

Yes. I know that is a part of the process.  I have watched students struggle with what they call “writer’s block.” However, a lot of people misinterpret that frustration as a sign that they aren’t good at what they are doing, or that they can’t create.  Most of the time, it’s caused by a mismatch between what someone thinks is great work and what they are able to produce on a first draft. 

That's a hard lesson to learn. But the creative process means constantly learning, don't you think?

I do know a lot about the writing process, and literary technique from teaching writing. But, early on in my songwriting life, Laura Cortese asked me to think about imagery from all five senses when I was writing a song. The first draft was really general — about how great I felt in my friend’s kitchen. However, I was using facile rhymes and abstract images to convey the happiness I felt there. She encouraged me to really “go there” in my mind — to write down what I actually saw, tasted, smelled, heard, and felt,- the physical sensations of being there. 

It was like a lightning bolt for me to hear that. I said, “Oh!  This is exactly what I teach my own students about writing fiction and poetry!” I don’t know why I hadn’t made that connection before, but once I did, I it seemed so obvious. 

I’ve had that experience when it takes a bit to realize you can apply something from one part of your life to another part of your life. That realization comes like an epiphany. 

So, Bill, what qualities or experiences from your law career have influenced your creative endeavors? 

There are some things from my law career that have influenced me. First, preparation. Conducting a hearing or writing a good brief or making a good oral argument is all about a very high level of thoughtful preparation. Performing music is very much the same way. It’s all about how much preparation you put into it, and how thoughtful your preparation is!

The other thing that has come from my law career is an analytical approach to songwriting, music and creativity. Before I went to Miles of Music camp, I thought that creativity was something you either had or didn’t have. I thought that the way to create was to sit down with a blank page and come up with something amazing by yourself. That’s absolutely not how it works for me -- and I don’t know anyone who creates things of value that way. It’s a myth. Applying my analytical mind to the problem of creativity has been helpful. 

Just like in the law, real creativity takes analyzing what came before and breaking it down into parts, then reassembling those parts in a way that is new,… but not so new that it is totally unrecognizable. 

Yeah, when you really analyze it, you see it takes more than "artsy" qualities to be creative. Creativity combined with a methodical approach, patience (with ones self and the process), focus, etc.- things that aren't associated with being creative- come in to play throughout the process...