Creative Razor: How to Stop Making Dull Music

To learn more about clarity, read my essay "Get Clarity" here, and consider subscribing to my weekly newsletter: https://calebcreates.substack.com/p/g... When I started composing, I had a few good ideas but they often got overshadowed by my inability to execute them. I didn’t know it then, but I was falling into a common trap that all artists face: a lack of clarity and internal structure in their work. When trying to identify a lack of clarity in art, we run into problems of subjectivity. however, if we look for commonalities in people’s subjective responses to inchoate art, we find a common theme. “It’s too chaotic”, “It’s confusing”, or “I feel uneasy and uncomfortable”. Often we see this type of reaction to Art that is too experimental, or unskilled. This is because experimental or novice art is often contaminated by too many ideas that conflict with each other and don’t have much internal structure or logic. So how can we improve our clarity as artists? There are many solutions to this problem, which is why I’m writing a book on it. However, something that I realized as a young artist helped me. When it comes to creation, input = output. What this means is what we consume is what we create. If you’re a composer, the type of music you listen to influences the type of music you compose. The same goes for all other creative fields. One of the ways we can improve our input is through attention. Musicians call this active listening, but the idea holds everywhere. The more attention you can muster while you are consuming art, the more you get out of it. So we can improve the clarity of our art, by improving the clarity of our attentive consumption. "One of the great misconceptions about the artistic life is that it entails great swathes of aimlessness. The truth is that a creative life involves great swathes of attention. Attention is a way to connect and survive." — Julia Cameron Pay attention. Try to notice the little details. Could be the subtle high-hat pattern, could be small changes in the timbre of a singer. Could be the use of a different green on a painting. Don’t just zoom in though, try zooming out! See the big picture. Ask yourself: how does this part connect with the larger piece as a whole? Since my teenage years, the clarity of my compositions has improved significantly. My ability to pay attention has no doubt helped me do this, and it will for you too.