The source of creativity has strange roots but no matter where it’s origins are from it passes through humans that allow it to. If you ignore its call for something more statistic; you’ve then defaulted on your natural ability to use intuition.
The erosion of our intuition has ramped up in my lifetime alone. In my observations, even women who are typically more in tune with human intuition are having trouble using it correctly or at all. What has happened is that reality as we know it is becoming founded on completely made up occurrences that aren’t even real.
Case in point: A meme can become a reliable source of information. Even if it’s false and can be proven to be so using common sense (intuition) alone. We wholly trust these types of things, and make decisions based on them! We submit to them in areas of our life, health and creativity where they have absolutely no place at all! And in that sense we are completely under control.
Yes. A lot of things happen in this world that we know are straight up illusions and we forgo our intuition and accept them because everyone else has done the same. It’s the same old story of cultural programming. But……… who or what is doing the programing these days? Let’s find out.
By the way! Thanks for hanging out here on B(L)og 0016. Much appreciated!
def - Intuition
1. The ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.
2. A thing that one knows or considers likely from instinctive feeling rather than conscious reasoning.
I’m A Dude Bro! Men Don’t Use Intuition!
Really. Have you ever had a “Gut feeling” about something? Oh never mind. Here’s a better question. How do you follow your purpose if you’re relying on something other than yourself to tell you what you ought to be doing with your life? Following your dreams is the intuitive decision which is then passed to your practical decision making side of your brain in order to increase the likelihood of success. For music you need to tap into your intuition as a guide. That guidance will then instruct you on where and when to apply your logical and constructive energies. There is no one without the other you require it all and if you haven’t strengthened any of your natural senses your music will suffer.
Yep! Unfortunately with music the same psychosis applies. We trust what’s outside of us so much that we have next to no interest in what’s going on inside us. What’s going on outside that’s so compelling you ask? Nothing but confirmation and a comfortable safe thought processes.
Examples Please!
Take the SP404 community for instance. This community generally thinks that what they’re doing is original and doesn’t stem from Boom Bap Hip-Hop (despite the moniker Lo-fi Hip-Hop that’s been adopted to describe the typical music made via the SP404).
Socially, community members generally adopt the same mannerisms once indoctrinated. Whether they had any previous inclinations towards these behaviours. This includes things like watching anime, an odd childlike affinity for the 80’s and sitting cross legged on the floor in a circle with other like minded folk while making beats out in public. There’s a singularity about it. You could replace any one artist with another and be hard pressed to know the difference.
Why it happens is because the “culture” as it were, is far greater than any of it’s individuals. It dictates what is and what isn’t acceptable. There’s very little room to do your own thing. This etiquette is disseminated through the world wide web. It maintains uniformity and consistency throughout the community. And what is presented to the average SP404 minion on this web based medium is dictated by an algorithm! Not even a human. And they listen to it!!! It tells them how to act and ultimately what their music should sound like. Yes, I’m picking on the SP404 community because it’s amusing to do so but in all seriousness; this applies to any genre. What sets an artist apart from the general guidelines of any genre is their ability to follow the intuitive direction of their own desires.
def - AI aka Artificial Intelligence
The theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.
- For more on AI and samplers check out Episode 02 of The Samplers Podcast - Will Artificial Intelligence Have A Large Role In Future of Musical Sampler Technology
Danger Ahead
Here’s where it gets dangerous. To relinquish your right to be who you are denies you the opportunity to find out who you are. In order to become a great artist, you have to understand yourself. Know yourself. Once you got this out of the way your purpose in art/life will be easier to identify.
We all subscribe to things to tell us who we are. Religion, Your Job, Family Structure…. The list goes on an on. We often use these things to define who we are and what we are to do with ourselves in life. And our newest addition to the fold is the internet and all it’s variants, from VR to AI. It promises a world with no pain or consequence.
We think we’re moving towards a world where traditional roles and rules are being broken for the betterment of society as whole right? That would be an improvement if possible. But in reality we’re being asked to put aside our humanity; Our identity and join the collective intelligence. An existence where right and wrong aren’t needed. Only compliance with the agreed Terms of Service. Creativity need not be decided by you or anyone else. It will all be an algorithmic outcome that all will accept as ideal for all. If you choose to be an individual outside of this, it will come at a cost that you might not want to pay. And it’s all happening right here, right now.
But Hold On! How Did We Even Get Here?
Yeah! How exactly did we even come close to a state where we generally prefer not to think? My observations are as follows.
It starts by you simply being yourself. That’s a great start! You have ideas and aspirations that you want to put into action. So you give these wonderful original ideas a shot. You do what it takes to bring them out of your creative brain and into the real world. If all goes well, that’s a beautiful experience and you relish in the reality that ideas can so easily become real. If it goes wrong…………… well, then it stings! And that’s painful! That’s failure for you. It’s hard to separate your idea from your identity; and who wants to feel like a failure?
Too many of these types of negative experience can cause you to look for ideas that are more liable to be successful. And so far your track record as far as this example goes isn’t going too well. So what do you do? You go to the internet. A place where there’s an answer for everything! Great answers too! Why not just bank on the ideas you find on “the web”?
And before you can say “Google it” you’ve found yourself caught in that very web that you willingly went to. You’ve just put aside your ability to think for yourself and let the internet think for you.
And it gets worse. There’s a lackadaisical charm to the internet. In terms of efficiency; the less effort you have to expend looking for an idea on the internet the better. A simple search query is often considered too much for today's impatient addicts. This is where the homogenization of thought gets solidified. Everyone is looking for the easiest quickest solution and when they find it they (along with everyone else) believe in it. Lock, stock and barrel.
These quick and easy reservoirs of solutions are now seen as reliable sources of instruction on how to live our lives. How we ought to think. Today any random meme can change the thoughts of many in one simple viewing.
So to make it more pertinent to what we as musicians gotta deal with. We have completely decided to rely on any creative direction that we see in any form of media over what we might think. If we think at all!
I’ve run a YouTube channel for the better part 13 years. I made videos that displayed the possibilities of what samplers are capable of. My naive hope was that my videos would trigger viewers to explore their samplers and come up with their own creative ideas and uses for samplers. Guess what happened? The overwhelming majority of viewers were mad that I didn’t tell them what to do. They had no interest in thinking for themselves. No intention of creating something on their own at all. I was supposed to do that for them via a very rudimentary hand held tutorial. I’ve since left YouTube and created my own media library called NTSC/PAL where the subscribers are creative people who think for themselves. Conversely I’ve been experiencing more creative surges of my own in the process. Yes! independent thought benefits all! A tell tale sign of creative thought is balance.
How Do You Cultivate Your Intuition?
We really just can’t run away from the reality that the influence of the internet is everywhere. My only advice in this matter would be to do what we’ve always been asked to do throughout history. Think! Audit the information that you allow into your brain. Consider it after your own thoughts. Make sure that you even have thoughts. If you’re presented with an idea that perchance you’ve never thought of before. Stop and think about what you…Yes You, think about it! Not what other’s think about it. By actually finding out what your actual opinion is on any given topic, you’ll find out that your ideas are often better and more tailored for you. Especially in the creative department! Finally, I'll say this; As an artist and company that creates influential creative media. A video or a course. A tweet or a meme. An IG quote or any other flash form of algorithmically curated media can’t think or be more creative than you can. The problem is many of us don’t really believe that anymore.
Thanks for reading!
TDS
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