Category Archives: Creativity

Collaboration

Posted by Ryan Mark Elliott Music on

A few weeks, ago, I hit a brick wall.

I’ve spent lockdown relentlessly creating and whilst I’m proud of that, I’m also susceptible to getting into mental knots, especially when so much of the work I am doing is in solitude.

Cue a rest day, recharging my batteries and a walk for clarity. All of which helped, but when it came to moving my project forward, the key to unlocking it was two phone calls with my collaborators.

They were able to see things I could not, they brought a new level of energy, excitement and feedback that made me realise the further potential of the work I am doing.

Everyone who has ever made something, especially if it’s successful has had an environment and community around them to levitate their work, which is why the idea of lone genius is a myth.

Creative work happens when we do the work, but it also happens when we know to ask for help and welcome on board the expertise and insight of others.

Frustration can be a good thing.

Posted by Ryan Mark Elliott Music on

If you are working towards a goal and trying to achieve something, feeling frustration is a natural part of the process.

The frustration of not being able to succeed in what you are doing (yet).

If you are frustrated, you are working towards flow and conscious of the fact that you are making mistakes and not quite where you want to be (yet). It can be a useful motivator, a challenge to overcome and it is very often that moments of frustration also can lead to moments of a high level of learning.

If we can perceive the process of frustration as a good thing and use ‘yet’ as a useful lever to move ourselves forward, we will reap the rewards.

Keep going.

New creative paths.

Posted by Ryan Mark Elliott Music on

I’ve made 5 studio albums and I’m proud to say that each one of them is unique and different.

There are processes I repeat on a routine basis but there are other things I’ve moved away from, be it because my tastes have changed or what I did before was naive.

I’m working on my 6th album and I’m adopting new things I’ve never done before and it’s exciting. One thing I’m working with a lot more is synthesis and it’s uncomfortable because I’m working in an area where I’m not entirely sure what the creative outcome is. But that is part of the fun.

With each new project is an opportunity to try something different, follow a new path and evolve.

The Ravel Affair

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I am currently attempting to write my first string quartet. It is a significantly new creative path for me and very challenging but nevertheless rewarding.

Upon my research of different quartets, Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major is one of my favourites. I consider it to be a beautiful piece with extraordinary passages and details typical of Ravel’s musical personality that would continue to evolve later on in his career.

What I find remarkable about the story of this piece is that it was his final submission to the conservatoire de Paris and Prix de Rome competitions to which both rejected the piece. Aside from having mixed reviews from the Parisian press, his teacher, Gabriel Faure, to whom the piece is dedicated to, dismissed the last movement as ‘stunted and in fact a failure’. Ravel himself believed that the quartet was an inadequate realisation.

Thankfully Debussy, whose own string quartet piece, which was written ten years previously and most likely had some influence on Ravel, wrote to him a letter with some words of encouragement and insisted he did not touch a single note of the piece he had written.

From what I’ve read, the truth appears that Ravel was an unconventional character with unconventional approaches to musical composition that was difficult for the conservatoire’s ultra conservative director to accept. He had enough resilience, or indifference to any other criticism than his own to keep going on his own path and it just so happens that the frustrations and failure he dealt with led him to propelling forward in his career and eventually being revered as one of the greatest French composers of all time.

Sometimes, art and the work created just so happens to be received in a time where the culture is not ready to accept its value. Some works find that appreciation is manifested at a later date, in some cases even beyond the life of the artist. Ravel’s String Quartet is now one of the most played chamber pieces.

The reason I like stories like this is that it reaffirms that steering your own creative path and focusing on what it is you want to achieve is better than changing what you do and who you are merely to fit in.

More often than not, innovation comes from the outside.

Thrashing through bad ideas

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One of the interesting things about teaching composition is that it requires students to get used to exploring sounds, options and ultimately dealing with the fact that initially a lot of what they try isn’t going to work straight away.

There is a criteria you can set, you can work within parameters and music theory and other knowledge can certainly help in making choices that are suitable, but with that knowledge is also the willingness to take the rulebook and throw it away as that leads to innovation and originality.

Some students are so fearful of this, that it requires a Herculean effort to put anything down. To create, we need to get used to putting down bad ideas and then thrashing through them.

Almost always, there is potential to find something worthwhile amidst the ideas that are laid down, that is where thrashing can happen. What is worth keeping? What can we develop here? Will this work better if we get rid of this part or save it for later? What if we try this or that approach? How can we make this better? A myriad of questions to ask and plenty of creative possibilities.

Being open to the creative possibility is key and it comes when we give ourselves an environment where we can thrash through what we have without any judgement from the outside world. Just you and the work, and maybe some trusted people to advise you along the way.

Feeling like doing the work

Posted by Ryan Mark Elliott Music on

One of the key distinctions to tell if someone is professional or not is whether they are willing to show up and do the work, immaterial of whether they feel like it or not.

There are plenty of reasons to be distracted, tired or emotional enough not to feel like doing the work but when opportunity is there to contribute, it’s good to learn to put these feelings to one side (for the time being) and commit to getting ourselves over the line.

There will of course be times and specific circumstances where it’s really important to take time out but more often than not, once we get stuck in to the creating, we can actually end up feeling better for it.

Any worthwhile path

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Any worthwhile path will probably involve risk, discomfort, adversity, suffering and pain.

It is the reason why people don’t write a novel.

And systems have made sure we avoid that pain, that we stay comfortable, avoid risk and stick to complying, showing up and doing what we are told and expected to do without finding our own path.

I see it happen all the time. I hear people say they won’t do something because they are setting themselves up for disappointment, I’ve seen children denied a pathway because they parents are scared stuff of the risks involved.

The pain is real and it’s only natural to avoid it.

But the things that that part of us dares to do, feels compared to create is hard to ignore when we dig deep and listen to our desires. And I think it’s worth leaning into the tension to pushing ourselves to do it. There are choices to be made.

And one choice we have is to build the skills necessary to achieve what we want. With that comes the acceptance that if we want to write something good, we are probably going to spend significantly more time writing stuff which is bad. It’s only through the ongoing process of attempting, failing, failing more, failing again that we find ways to make things better. It may take years or decades to achieve your best work, but it can happen if you’re willing to pay your dues.

I thoroughly dislike the way ‘talent’ and ‘genius’ are used. As if a scarce amount of people are blessed by external force. Nonsense. This kind of limelight success story is more a tangled web of exceptional hard work, a supportive environment, benefit of the doubt, luck, being in the right place at the right time and often privilege.

You have the potential to create and make something. You just need to decide whether taking the path with many dips is the right choice for you.

The edges is where it is at.

Posted by Ryan Mark Elliott Music on

Now and then I check the Spotify top 50 charts and my gut reaction is a wince.

I approach the music without prejudice and will always be fascinated by what makes a hit a hit, but other than my musicological curiosity. The music more often than not, is not for me.

I’ve come to learn that there is are fundamental reasons why the chart music does not work for me.

One reason is that my musically trained ears usually require something with a bit more sophistication.

Another is maybe that the production is a bit run of mill. Super loud, super compressed and sound choices that are being used at the time simply because their fashionable.

The most important reason is that my values as to what music means to me is rarely aligned with what is in the charts.

As a result. If I mentioned my top favourite albums to anyone around me, it is unlikely they have heard it.

I choose music that speaks to me in a way that is more personal, weird and interesting.

That is okay.

We are an era where hits mean very little. TV especially seems to be going through an extraordinarily exciting period of creative development where shows are coming up that are unique and tailor made for an audience with a specific taste.

If you aim to target only 1% of the population of the U.K. with what you create, that’s still 660,000 people.

It’s good to have a space in your creative output where you maintain a full sense of integrity, stay true to what you want to achieve and work in your niche.

Everyone else is already taken.

P.S. If you might like the music I like, below is the playlist. There is no better marketing tool than word of mouth.

A day at a time

Posted by Ryan Mark Elliott Music on

Matthew Kelly said in his book ‘The Long View’ that ‘we overestimate what we can do in a day and underestimate what we can do in a year’.

As we progress through each day, a lot of our feelings are driven by the story we tell ourselves and I am really good at telling myself I have not achieved enough in the day. In some ways that can be a good thing, because it is driving me to make forward strides towards my goals and other times it can be not so feel good and leave me feeling tired and defeated.

This is a mini battle of perception and goals can be outlined into longer term, medium term and short term goals. When I start telling myself I am not getting very far I find this writing these down helps me put a perspective on where I am, where I am going and what I can do next.

Sometimes it is important to take the pressure off. Especially now, when there is so much uncertainty and disruption going on. For the struggles many of us are having to go through, it can and should be considered an achievement enough to have gotten out of bed, gotten dressed and taken in the surrounding area or appreciated something like the simple delight of a hot drink.

It is important to monitor our energy levels, accept that what we can do in a day may be enough for today and tomorrow, we can build on it. We may surprise ourselves when reflecting over a longer period of time how these far these little drips of progress got us.

Positive habits for each day

Posted by Ryan Mark Elliott Music on

Since the lockdown, my routine has gone flying out of the window. In response to that I have since incorporated habits into my daily routine that would allow me some sense of structure and help me achieve some thing positive each day.

Here are some of the habits I have steadily included in my day:

Drinking water at the start of every day

Doing some form of exercise each day (Running, cycling or full body at home) for at least 20 minutes with one rest day a week.

Going for a walk each day

Eating food and vegetables and cooking most of what I eat from scratch.

Doing some form of creating – time span ranges from half an hour to 8 hours depending on my day.

Writing an article each day

Reading for at least half an hour a day

Allocating specific times to check social media, news feeds, emails etc.

With the exception of creating, which is essentially my vocation, everything listed above are small and incremental. Most things are half an hour long in duration. I can confidently say that these have really helped me maintain a positive outlook during what is an otherwise uncertain time.

* I really recommend ‘Zen Habits’ by Leo Babauta. It is a great little book that offers great insight into making positive transformations. One of the reasons so many people cannot commit to their resolutions at the start of every year is that they are expecting too much change in too short a period of time. What we should be instead looking for is small incremental changes gradually over time.