You've been working hard on a project and it comes to the point where you've edited everything out, added and subtracted every known plug-in, used different instrumentation, thought it would be a good idea to bring the synthesized Chinese Moon Guitar into the mix, took it out, decided to sing all of the lines and then play them backwards through a high pass filter....and there it stays.
Finishing. It is the one thing most creative people cannot get there heads around. At the beginning of an idea, at the genesis, you see it all in front of you; like what Frodo thought when Gandalf gave him the ring;
"I got it. Into the volcano. We'll be back in about a week. Yeah yeah yeah no no no I got it. Bang! I'm Frodo Baby!"
But as you start coming up to the sculpting and shaping, editing and thoughtful reflection on what the true nature of your work will be the direction and passion seep out. It's so much funner to say to a room full of people "We will eat freshly baked brownies!" than to be the person who now has to make a roomsworth of brownies.
Almost everyone I know who is a dreamer is awesome at conception and development, but it takes a certain person to deliver the goods. In Anthony Kemp's book The Musical Temperament he says that highly creative people who are successful, exhibit characteristics of both genders - the female ability to stop and admire the color, contour, scent, dynamism of a bed of flowers; and the male ability to schedule, appropriate, delegate, shape and process those feelings into a tangible product. I do not believe in gender stereotyping as such, and these terms are used to codify the point, not to exclude or deny anyone; the fact remains that to be a "successful" artist one must possess both the ability to dream and create, and a knack for getting things in understandable packets that folks can take with them.
The title for this post says it all.
Mountains start from a small pocket of gas somewhere deep in the Earth and slowly over time and with much refining they become majestically huge and objects of wonderment, except to the poor Sherpa who has to carry your Sleep Number Mattress to the summit.
Tenzig's number is 34.
Mole hills are made by moles I'm assuming; I'm not a mole man myself.
Mordor is explosively filled with dragons and all types of evil bad assery.
These things are not entirely linkable but that's not the point. The point is that your man Jake Sanders had an idea, and saw that shit all the way through! Finito. Done! Game = Changed.
Seriously:
Creation is half of the act of creating. It's the funnest part. The other half is sustaining, nurturing, guiding, plugging, and finally letting go. You can sit on a track or a painting or a script for YEARS and nothing will ever come of it because you may feel it's undone, or the mix is off, or just a little more exposition here would be... - it'll never get anywhere. My good friend Ben Senterfit says "Once your done, you're halfway there."
So what you can do is learn to slowly melt your ego off of your projects and learn to trust yourself and your networks. I believe a large contributor to the unfinished aspect of the creative individual is lack of organizational skills as well as lack of business savvy, but the core of it is plain old fear. What are they gonna say? It's not up to snuff with the material I listen to! I don't sound like Stevie! I can't orchestrate like Gil Evans! It's not country enough, those aren't real chinchilla screams, I'm not convinced....bottom line here folks - It's either gonna flop or fly - and both will ultimately leave you with the same question: What's Next?
With my latest album I have found all of these lessons out over and over again. The reason I wanted to post this is because if you feel this way, it's not gonna go away. It's always there. It's the fear of flying, it's the teary father at graduation, it's the feeling you have when you go up a flight of stairs and you think there's one more for you to land on - it's natural baby! It's how we go about the struggles of life that really show who we are - not the fact that we learned once and are better for it and thank God that's over! These things keep popping up because it's good to keep checking yourself - And it's been happening to artists forever - Emily Dickenson wrote -
This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me;
The simple news that Nature told
in tender majesty.
Her message is committed,
to hands I cannot see;
For love of her, sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me.
Written in the 1860's she is talking about her fears of unknown people reading her material and judging her. She's basically saying what Erykah Badu is saying when she introduces "Tyrone" on her Live album - "Bear in mind, I'm an artist, and I'm sensitive about my shit."
Everyone has hangups and just because someone is established in a field does not mean they're above these feelings. I just saw a YouTube video of the late and monstrous Michael Brecker talking about how he HAS to practice or else he feels like he's a scam artist.
Creative people out there: Finish your work and move on. Find a producer to help you, find a writing partner to help you, talk to your friends about how they finish. Check out David Allens book "Getting Things Done" - read THIS BLOG - find a deadline and go for it. The sooner you clear your head of the "Unfinished Symphonies" (which was unfinished because Schubert DIED) the sooner you can get to more creation -
Jake Sanders - The WhaleHawk
