Music is a magical, breathtaking and passionate enigma.
Even for us musicians.
While some things are certain about creating quality music, the depth of emotion we feel when creating is understood to us as much as someone in love understands love. When you have it in your grasp you know it to be true, you feel the magic and when it isn't there you have to work on it, invest yourself and you will again be able to see it.
I'm going to try and explain a few points that will help you understand the creation of that which makes our ears orgasm. I will explain the inner things musicians do to create music, the outer will be analyzed in my next post.
The state of mind that we need to achieve is similar to nirvana, we have to be free of desires and just feel the juices of life flow through us. I will separate it into two parts, equally important, body and soul.
Also, I would like to point out that a lot of music in our days is made purely to satisfy the market, manufactured (intentionally didn't use the word created) without tapping in the reality of being human. There are ways of discerning that music, but that's a subject for another post.
The Body
Our body is an instrument on it's own, we use it as an outlet for our soul which is why we should charish it and take care of it.
1.) Time
While everyone should take care of their health as a predisposition for living and loving life the ways differ between, lets say, an athlete and a guitarist. Both of them have to invest great deal in their physical prowess to be able to perform. An athlete trains every day, he has to or his form will start dropping. The same goes for a guitarist. From my experience if I do not spend 2 hours a day practicing I start rusting. If I want to improve I need to invest even more time.
Many people think inspiration comes in an unexpected moment and that you shouldn't force it, which is partly true. But let us think of it this way. If you invest more time the chance it will come is greater, simple math and statistics.
2.) Tehniques
Everyone knows the feeling when you start doing something new and you just don't have the hang of it. That's because your brain, the most important part of your body, didn't get used to the action you are doing.
And how do you make him learn?
Try and fail, try and fail . . . . . . try and succes! Woohoo! But then you try again and fail, that's just how it is. No need to feel bad, that's called progress. In time you will feel your tehniques improving and look down on the man you were before and feel proud.
This is the simpler part of tehniques, the more complicated one is to know which one to practice which involves your unique expression. We will cover that in the soul part.
The Soul
When the body is prepared it becomes a vessel for something greater, our soul. A great part of our lives is to get to know ourselves, get to know our souls. This gives us insight into how we want to express ourselves and finding the tehniques in which we want to improve ourselves.
1.)Ego
A musician once told me that all he needed to do while playing a piece is to step aside and the better he could do it the better he played it.
The point of the story is if you want to create in the moment you have to put your ego aside. You don't matter at that moment, you don't play because you look cool or because you want to make the best melodies, you play because you feel the music, it is inside of you.
That is how you make place for inspiration to come in and fill the room through you. Now you are the instrument holding the instrument.
2.) Inspiration
Where do we find inspiration? I would say everywhere. Some is positive (the birds singing, a girl smiling) and some is negative (the death of someone close, deppresion). The emotions we feel on those occasions make us want to express our souls, to show what can not be seen. And is there a better way to do it than throught music?
As I said in the body part, we can not express ourselves if our body can't handle our soul or vice versa. That's why we have to grow stronger in body and soul.
Inspiration is fuel in the adventure of traveling through the realm of music. Fuel yourself with all you can.
3.) Soul signature
My free opinion is that all human beings are different, not only because of different suroundings and genetics, but because there is something deep inside of us that makes us what we are. Our task as artists is to tap into the depth of who we are and find our expression, I like to call it the soul signature. When we see who we are then we know what we want to express, the only thing remaining to do is learn how. The how tells the body what it needs to know to choose the right tehniques. This communication of the body and soul is what makes us feel happy and whole as persons.
Conclusion
The creation of music is in fact preparation more than work. Know yourself, learn your tehniques the best you can, invest your time accordingly and then . . .
Just step aside.
Let the beautiful being that you are do everything else.
I hope you enjoyed this post and that you will follow me in my series of posts about the depth and metaphysics of music from a perspective of a musician and a phylosophy enthusiast.
If you are interested in my music check this out.
Live and love!