As a musician myself, I can relate to needing tunes as the backdrop of my thoughts. Right now, Debussy in hammering away as I work and I find he’s great for concentration. Concerning the “central self,” I think about the guy I am, late at night listening to Coltrane and I have forgotten the pressures and demands of the world. I like to be that guy more often just like I’m sure you miss the free spirited kid who listened to scores to fall asleep. I think that’s what Zander was getting at. Finding our own personal catalyst for creativity and holding on to that.
We are also both teachers, I can definitely relate to the feeling that maybe I’m stifling creativity in the name of order and control. It’s hard to find the balance though.
As I finished reading this week’s passages from The Art of Possibility, I let whatever was in my iTunes playlist play on in the background. I find it often impacts the way in which I read the material, and also how I perceive it. Most of my reading was over the influence of Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho score from the Hitchcock film. If you don’t know me very well, you may find that an odd pairing – but you know me, you probably aren’t surprised. I would say much of my center self, as a Zander would put it, starts with the musical scoring of a film. I have always been fascinated by it. In fact, as a child I would ask for film scores for Christmas or birthday presents, and put them in my walkman and listen as I drifted to sleep. I’m sure my dreams were quite interesting. But this practice allowed my creativity to spark and think of all kinds of visuals – some being in a dramatic form, but sometimes just the image of the players in the orchestra – what they might be feeling or concentrating on to record this track. How many times did it take to record the perfect take? Then my mind went to the actual film it was created for. What process did John Williams go through to score Jurassic Park (which was a frequented score of mine)?
All of this thought was brought forth from reading this week. As a teacher of music, sometimes I wave the authoritarian stick quite a bit, hoping to instill a sense of discipline – the kind it takes to be a musician, and also hoping the dedication to a common goal would carry on through the lives of my students. After reading Leading From Any Chair I thought about my childhood, and then the teenagers in my classroom. How much engagement am I allowing them? In my courses of Radio, Film and Television that I teach, how much am I giving their insight? As a budding pipe-organist, how much am I enjoying the music being created? Most people would agree with my father’s description of his son as “high-strung” on just about everything – including myself. I tend to get extremely emotionally invested in the smallest things, and personally this has an effect on me, but also professionally. It is not a dampering issue, but still is something to note. As I read Rule Number 6, I realized how much life I could possibly be wasting by assuming my stride for excellence is of large consequence. Maybe I’ll try to enjoy life a bit more this week.
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