Creative Steps

Can you learn how to do something by studying what other people have done?

Surely the answer to this question is yes. How else do we learn; from trial and error and always starting at first principals? This is just not possible; we are always building on what has gone before. As American Astronomer and Writer Dr. Carl Sagan points out “If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”

So how do we learn from other people? If I wanted to write songs like Bob Dylan should I learn my craft by studying his albums, which is precisely what so many people try and do?

Hear what Bob Dylan, himself, says:

“No, no, no. It is only natural to pattern yourself after someone. If I wanted to be a painter, I might think about trying to be like Van Gogh, or if I was an actor, act like Laurence Olivier. If I was an architect, there’s Frank Gehry. But you can’t just copy someone. If you like someone’s work, the important thing is to be exposed to everything that person has been exposed to. Anyone who wants to be a songwriter should listen to as much folk music as they can, study the form and structure of stuff that has been around for 100 years. I go back to Stephen Foster.”

(taken from an Interview with Robert Hilburn in The LA Times, April 2004).

Learning from others is sometimes called modelling behaviour. It is described as the “process of discerning the relevant states, behaviours and their sequencing and the thinking that enable someone to accomplish a task or to be a certain way.”

The key point is that we can’t just focus on output; we need to understand process – for Bob Dylan this included the things that a person has been exposed to.

In understanding another’s process it might be necessary to understand all aspects of their approach, for example:

• their behaviours and the environments in which they work;
• their capabilities;
• their values;
• their beliefs;
• and their sense of self.

The art of modelling is to know what the key pieces are – the difference that makes the difference.

What else does that interview teach us about Bob Dylan’s process?

There is certainly something in it about his sense of self and beliefs. Take this excerpt:

“I always admired true artists who were dedicated, so I learned from them. Popular culture usually comes to an end very quickly. It gets thrown into a grave. I wanted to do something that stood alongside Rembrandt’s paintings.”

Similarly, here, he talks about the spiritual dimension.

“It is like a ghost is writing a song like that. It gives you the song and it goes away, it goes away. You don’t know what it means. Except the ghost picked me to write the song.”

In the interview Dylan also talks about noticing the creative stimulation in the everyday. How he learnt to Pay Attention

“Chuck Berry wrote amazing songs that spun words together in a remarkably complex way. Buddy Holly’s songs were much more simplified, but what I got out of Buddy was that you can take influences from anywhere. Like his ‘That’ll Be the Day.’ I read somewhere that it was a line he heard in a movie, and I started realizing you can take things from everyday life that you hear people say. That I still find true. You can go anywhere in daily life and have your ears open and hear something, either something someone says to you or something you hear across the room. If it has resonance, you can use it in a song.”

Finally, we learn that Bob Dylan is not afraid to ‘Stand on the Shoulders of Giants’:

“Well you have to understand that I’m not a melodist. My songs are either based on old Protestant hymns or Carter Family songs or variations of the blues form. What happens is, I’ll take a song and simply start playing it in my head. That’s the way I meditate.”

“I wrote ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ in 10 minutes, just put words to an old spiritual, probably something I learned from Carter Family records. That’s the folk music tradition – you use what has been handed down. ‘The Times They Are A-Changing’ is probably from an old Scottish folk Song.”

When asked about ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ he says, “It’s from Chuck Berry, a bit of ‘Too Much Monkey Business” and some of the scat songs of the ‘40s’“

Creative Steps is dedicated to helping people become more creative and more fully self-expressed. It is your online creativity coach, mentor and guide; a single practical resource to help you take your creative project from concept to completion.

Creative Steps combines a course in creativity with online coaching. It is intended to instruct, inspire and motivate. It is designed to provide you with the tools you need to coach yourself on your creative journey.

One of our rules of the road is about learning from others:

Rule 8: You can improve your own performance by learning how others achieve.

Learn the other rules of the road for your Creative Journey here.

Posted in Case Studies, Creative Steps Coaching Course, Increasing Creativity, Module 3, Module 5 | 1 Comment »

I received a response to my recent post What would you choose, money or Creative fulfillment? It simply read: ‘Other variant is possible also.’

Although this looks like a spam post to me, it is a valid point and has some lessons for coaching, especially if we are looking to coach ourselves to increasing creativity.

The question, as I posed it in the post, is a classic example of a bogus dilemma; that is a logical fallacy in which the range of choices is much greater than we are making out and we indulge in the drama of dilemma when none really exists. For example;

“You could be an actor or get yourself a real job and be happy.”

“If you are not the best you are just another wannabe.”

“Art is for the lazy.”

This type of thinking is discussed in Module 5 of the multimedia training course Creative Steps; How to coach yourself to increasing creativity. In the course we call it All or Nothing Thinking.

All or Nothing Thinking is a classic creative block and a major barrier to fulfilling our creative potential. It:

• Obscures choices
• Focuses our attention on the ultimate output and takes away our enthusiasm for practice.
• Overlooks the fact that a first draft may not be great but it might be the seed of something great.
• Makes the achievements of others appear overwhelming.
• Overlooks the vagaries of taste and opinion.

If your aim is to coach yourself to increasing creativity then you need to learn how to avoid All or Nothing Thinking. Here are some tips:

1) Be alert to all-or-nothing words like ‘always’, ‘never’, ‘everything’, and ‘nothing’, ‘either’, ‘or’.

2) When you hear yourself say these words (or when they are said to you) check to examine if more choices are available to you.

3) Try re-adjusting all or nothing phrases to more realistic words like ‘often’, ‘for now’ or ‘this time’.

For example:

“I’ll have to give up work or I’ll never finish writing my novel” can be adjusted to “I need to find a little more time somehow.”

4) Practice finding the middle ground. List all the options available to you outside of the dilemma presented. How can you find more time? How can you get some feedback on a recording

5) Think of more than one perspective on the issue. What would others think? What would a wise friend, a tutor or a guardian angel say about the issue?

An example:

For example: You might think, “I’m never going to be any good – I might as well give up.”

A wise friend might say, “Do you enjoy the doing?”

A guardian angel might that many people who were ultimately successful had failures at the beginning, too”.

Most important is to be alert to when you are being influenced by all or nothing thinking and know that there are often a myriad of choices available.

I’m going to sell my house and put all the equity on ‘red’, if I loose I can really start to suffer and then I can write my symphony, but if I win I’ll rid myself of worry and knuckle-down and write that symphony.

A Final Thought: If the post was random spam it shows that how ‘random association’ exercises can add sparks to dry tinder and get the ball rolling. Of course, this is a good example of a mixed metaphor……more on that in the members area, too.

Posted in Creativity Coaching, Module 5, coaching concepts | No Comments »