Ideas make you Better…a catchphrase by Dr. Richard Niles

“Ideas make you better” is the catchphrase of my educational website and clinics, The Niles Creative Workshops. Everyone is creative. Just watch children at play and you’ll soon see potential actors, dancers, writers and singers. When those children are encouraged to develop their talents and learn artistic discipline they can become creative professionals. My teaching is designed to stimulate creativity in musicians.

Of course there is great potential for creativity in all professions—plumbers, scientists and accountants. When a plumber solves a mysterious leak, he is using his powers of deduction like Sherlock Holmes. When a scientist discovers a new way to build a mousetrap he is using something I often talk about: the power of asking “What if…” And we’ve all heard of cases where accountants become perhaps too creative—and their clients up in jail!

The career of creative professionals depends on their ability to generate plenty of ideas. The more ideas they have, the more successful artists they can be. Ideas make them better artists.

New, Interesting and Valuable

But what kind of ideas are we talking about? In order to be effective, ideas should suggest something new—a unique or unusual way of looking at some aspect of life. Old ideas are not necessarily bad ideas. But they have the disadvantage of having already been heard.

I often hear my students say, ‘How can I think up something new? Everything’s already been done!’ This, of course, is nonsense. As Maya Angelou said, “You can’t use up creativity—the more you use, the more you have.”

One of the wonders of life is that we have so much variety. Who cannot be amazed by a biological species that can produce voices as diverse as Tom Waits and Taylor Swift—or ideas as diverse as the Theory of Relativity and the Hula Hoop? Try listing all the different ways songwriters have written about love from the simplicity of Irving Berlin’s “Always” to the sophistication of Lorenz Hart’s “Glad to Be Unhappy” or the abusive obsession of Pink’s “Please Don’t Leave Me”. The universe is infinite, and so are the number of ideas it can generate through us.

Sometimes the new comes from subverting the old, or even trying it backwards. It can come from long dedicated research and exploration. It can come from a random system such as the ‘cut up’ technique of the Dadaists, later used by William Burroughs and David Bowie. Whether from a dream or by design, artists have been finding new concepts and new ways to express them since the first cave painting.

Ideas should also be interesting. The new is often interesting simply because it is new. But interest also comes from relevance. Some artists manage to express the spirit of their times as did Bob Dylan in the 1960s and Lady Gaga in 2011. The interest may be politically or socially thought provoking. Sheer entertainment can also be compelling—there’s nothing new about juggling but it’s fun to watch. The same could be said about sex – common to all of us since the dawn of mankind, but it still sells.

But I believe ideas must have a purpose beyond novelty and entertainment. Anyone who has ever felt that an artist had changed their life will understand how important it is that ideas have ‘artistic value’. This could be defined as illuminating the human condition and enriching our human experience. Ideas make us better. This type of idea helps us better able to make sense of this immeasurably baffling existence and helps us better able to appreciate the beauty and challenge of being alive. Ideas make us better human beings.

In this sense, it is simply not enough to be a powerful singer or a virtuosic instrumentalist. As admirable as that may be, it merely means that the musician has high quality tools. I’m much more interested in the table than the hammer that helped make it. An artist must have ‘something to say’ with their tools—a personal word-view expressed in their music or lyrics. And I would contend that the ideas artists express should be uplifting.

Money – is that what I want?

Artistic value becomes even more important in a culture where success is more and more measured in financial success. But the truth is that despite what the media screams at us, performer is not a valid artist just because they win a TV contest or sell 12 million CDs or stars in the latest blockbuster.

We live in a world where the amorality of bankers is openly rewarded and the media creates truth instead of reporting it. Sadly, many musicians today are training to achieve the money and fame, not to bring some new, artistically valuable insight to the public. At the time of writing, it would seem that entertainment and novelty are all an ‘artist’ needs to have a successful career. Money therefore takes precedence over usefulness or spiritual enlightenment.

Wanna-be artists are overly cautious about possible reactions to their ideas. They know some people will ‘get’ their concept and they’ll be Lady Gaga touring the world and receiving world-wide press for wearing a dress made out of carpaccio. If people don’t ‘get’ them, they might end up like Vincent Van Gogh starving in a garret searching for your right ear. They’d rather have the accolades and the meat. They want to fit in rather than stand out.

But it is very important for all of us to decide whether we intend to be artists who use money to enable us to create art or merchandizers who use art to enable us to make money.

Art or Reality?

I care passionately about the artistic value of my content. Art matters because it stands as an alternative to the heartlessness of society and the politics of greed. It offers a utopia where the ideal can be defined and attained. Without this, I believe we would all go mad. As Nietzche said, “We have art so that we shall not die of reality.”

In these times of economic austerity music programs have been removed from schools and funds for the arts have plummeted. Many educational institutions teach students to pass exams rather than understand the significance of history, language and science to their own lives. They are taught to memorize facts rather than use them as a vital resource for their own lives. This condemns us to a life of depressing, acquisitive pragmatism making us fear or distrust the miraculous. But as Roald Dahl said, “Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”

I create music for the same reason I teach: in order to create a world where people can not only dream but learn the practical ways to make their dreams effective in the real world. As Hamlet almost said, there’s a methodology to my ‘madness’. I not only stimulate ideas but I provide more ideas to empower them -“creativity unlimited”.

So my catchphrase is actually something of a crusade. As unfashionable as it may be, I believe there is a moral imperative on all of us to make the world a better place. This can be done by developing strong concepts to make ourselves more effective communicators of positive thoughts. I’m doing what I can with my ‘idea business’ because ideas make you better. And if you’re better, I’m better.
©2013NilesSmilesMusic

Innovation and the Creative Imperative

Dr. Richard Niles

 Colleagues and students have often asked me how they might develop their own original style. I usually take a deep breath and strive to tailor the answer to the individual. I often begin by saying that to even ask the question is a creative step in the right direction.

Many musicians are quite happy to be brilliant technicians capable of interpreting any music at any tempo. This is an accomplishment to be very proud of. But some feel that it’s not enough to be an excellent musician in either a technical or professional sense. They understand that there is indeed a creative imperative – a duty or commitment to go beyond reproducing the great tradition of music. There is a case to be made that if one has achieved excellence, the ‘true artist’ is even more obligated to serve Art by contributing to its development.

How is this achieved? One way is for the artist to see themselves in context to both the past and present of their art. Analysis and study can help identify the methodologies of the great innovators. What exactly did they want to express and how exactly did they do it? Similarities and differences in approach soon become apparent. Humans tend to solve problems in similar ways, and there are patterns specific to influential artists.

In music, the new concepts and styles of artists such as Mozart and Bach, Duke Ellington and Miles Davis, Bob Dylan or The Beatles, did not develop by accident. Artists exist in a kind of cultural ecosystem, their point of view derived from their point in time and frame of reference. But presented with this data to process, some artists develop a vision that looks beyond the zeitgeist to break new ground.

This is not to say that great artists ignore their environment or resist influences. Mozart was influenced by Bach while Beethoven was influenced by Mozart. They did not merely copy but added their own elements to create their own original body of work. Both Bill Evans and Duke Ellington were influenced by Ravel and Debussy but each added their own sensibilities to that influence with different but equally groundbreaking results. Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett were both influenced by Evans but took that influence in very different directions.

Fusion is often the key to innovation.  The blending of seemingly disparate styles can often result in a new direction. It is a rewarding and enjoyable exercise to choose two genres at random, put them together and listen to the result. This can certainly break an artist out of a creative rut. Try mixing traditional Norwegian Sammi music with 1950s New Orleans Rock ‘n’ Roll. How would 80s Techno Pop sound with the vocals of Le Mystere de Voix Bulgares? Even if these combinations are artistically unsuccessful, they are enjoyable to try and can open up new possibilities.

Jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton is a fine example of this. He fused mainstream jazz with country music and rock rhythms and electric guitar to create what is arguably the earliest example of jazz-rock.  (Although serial innovator Miles Davis is often credited with creating jazz-rock, Burton’s “Tennessee Firebird” [1966] slightly predated “In A Silent Way”.) Burton also took a new approach to his instrument, playing the vibraphone with four mallets and ‘bending’ notes. This new performance methodology is another element found in many pioneering artists.

Pat Metheny brought together a love of Burton and Davis with the soul of Wes Montgomery and the melodic clarity of the Beatles to create his own unique body of work. Frank Zappa joyously mixed the concepts of 20^th century composers such as Varese with San Fernando Valley rock and downtown LA doo-wop.

But ‘fusion’ is defined as ‘the process or result of joining two or more things together to form a single entity’. My italics are important because mixing red and blue should result in purple. Mixing A with B should equal C, not A + B.

Herbie Hancock’s unique fusions of jazz, rock and electronic music work have made him one of music’s great innovators. Yet an example of fusion which does not work so well for this author would be his Imagine Project (2010). This admittedly enjoyable and polished album of mildly jazz-influenced arrangements of pop songs features singers drawn from the pop/rock genre. They sing in their own pop/rock/soul styles. Accompanying this, Hancock plays in his style, unrelated to the singers or the tracks. He ‘takes it out’, playing ‘Herbie licks’ that are either in a different key or willfully chromatic while the rhythm section remains resolutely straight. The result is A + B, not C. This is a bit like a joke that is funny the first couple of times you hear it, but eventually becomes tedious.

Self-analysis is key in the process. It can be very difficult for an artist to objectively evaluate themselves. One of the most useful guidelines is songwriter Johnny Mercer’s lyric “accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative and don’t mess with Mister In-Between.” I often liken a musician’s development of a concept to the subtractive method of creating a piece of sculpture—the work of art is revealed by the marble that is taken away.

As a trained professional, you may be able to do many things. But what do you do best? What is particularly unique about the way you sing, write or play? What have you received the most compliments for? (Your relatives don’t count!) Pat Metheny recommends that an artist should “follow what they love.” What aspect of music do you love most? What aspect could you literally not live without?

Eliminating the negative is somewhat simpler. Polite applause or rotten tomatoes are very good indications of which marble to chip away. Again, ask yourself which aspect of music you are not good at or simply don’t enjoy. Your own technical facility can be another guideline here. Miles Davis is a very good example of an artist who avoided his somewhat limited technique, instead concentrating on his phenomenal ability to create lyrical melodies with a very personal, emotive tone. Turning a negative into a positive, his ‘cracked’ notes only intensified his human impact.

Most artists I’ve worked with over the years find ‘Mister In-Between’ to be the most difficult to identify and to eradicate. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. ‘Good’ is not good enough in art. The Good can actually dilute the great. By getting rid of aspects of your art that are just O.K. you can sharpen the focus on “the positive”. Make it as easy as possible for your audience to identify ‘your thing’ and don’t clutter up the really special stuff.

It can also be valuable to go back to go forward. This can mean two things. The first is returning to your own past—the original influences that first inspired you to become an artist. That first moment you saw your place in the world defined by a word, a sound, a style or an artist is the key to finding your essence.

Another way to progress is to find inspiration from a past you might be unaware of. Endless ‘eureka moments’ from the history of the creative arts can be found in the treasure trove of YouTube. Sadly, many young aspiring artists are very limited in their awareness of the past. They know little of the history of the art they profess to be dedicated to. With so much information available on the internet, there is simply no excuse for this. Not knowing what has already been done can lead to ‘re-inventing the wheel’. One of my students excitedly ran into one of my lectures with his new band demos. I listened to it and said, “That’s very good, but have you ever heard of Genesis?”

Even music you hate can be useful. Many people put down any successful music as being mindless, crass commerciality. But isn’t it interesting to know why the music has been embraced by the public? What subject matter might you also be addressing, in your own way. Identifying what you hate can also help clarify what you love. Moreover, listening to and analyzing successful music can lead to appreciating certain elements you may want to use in your own music.

I have often heard people say, “But everything has already been done! How can I come up with something new?” I can imagine people with this same negative attitude saying this throughout history, and being proven wrong when innovators such as Bach, William Blake, Charles Ives, Salvador Dali or Bob Dylan came along. The universe offers infinite possibilities and it takes a certain type of person to strive to find the next undiscovered territory. Are you such a person?

The creative imperative is not a ‘fluffy’ thing. It involves having a strong enough respect for the artform to dedicate yourself to endless study and backbreaking work. It involves the humility to surrender yourself to a power greater than yourself. You must be an explorer willing to expose yourself to the danger of failure because you believe the only real risk is not taking one.

©2012NilesSmilesMusic