The Work of Playing (Cont.)
On the reciprocal nature of creativity.
I am on a revival of playing and practicing instead of just writing because I realize the value of a creative process that includes manual skill. All levels of creativity are valid; It doesn't matter where you start, but matters where you go with it--up until the point it's finished and beyond when it is re-arranged, remixed, re-mastered, and so on. The best process involves all levels vertically (back and forth between the conceptual and analytical and the physical) rather than horizontally (only across one level).
The Creative Levels:
David Bowie groused that he hated singing, but he did it (well) because no one else would do it. Even if you feel somewhat confident about singing your own songs (just because you simply had to), people would be more inclined to see you attempting to be a singer and will not even hear the composition itself--or that it was your own composition. People assume you are singing songs already written by other people, or that they spontaneously write themselves just before the singer performs. Bowie may have had issues with that as well as he considered himself as a writer first and foremost.
Our brains are wired to focus on the personality and talent of the singer or reduce it to some kind of "soundbite" that they can collectively rally around. Take for example the artist Alexander Calder, who became known for his brightly-colored mobiles. His biggest fans were children, yet he wanted more engagement with adults. Bowie knew deep down that he was a good singer because it was required. If he found others to sing his songs he would have been another "Brill" songwriter. Alexander Calder might have been known as a maker of toys.
We can also get too isolated in the playing of our instruments, just as songwriters get too attached to playing around with metaphors and meaning. This is perhaps one of the reasons Sting and Stewart Copland were always at each other's throats while in The Police.
The Police were essentially Stewart Copeland's band because Sting had to capitulate to his heavy-handed style. This is also why Sting's solo material didn't sound at all like the Police and why they didn't sound good in the reunions: Stewart Copeland wasn't the Vinnie Colaiuta or Omar Hakim that he needed and so he wasn't completely present and going through the motions. I also saw a comment on YouTube that said precisely this, "I'd love to see Sting's solo work with Copeland on drums--I never liked his solo bands...". The drummers he used post-Police were just as excellent as Copeland but since they were for hire, Sting had the luxury of finessing the feel of the drums by what the songs meant (top-down). Copeland could also have this luxury if he found a songwriter that sang over drum patterns--which is what lots of really successful American music was.
From an elemental standpoint, music is naturally very bottom-up; The rhythm in the words dictate the underlying rhythmic feel and approach to the drums. It's hard to come up with introspective lyrics on the slamming of a snare, which requires a top-down strategy. The other issue is that re-interpreting meaningful songs at an instrumental level is difficult. An example of this is the re-interpretation of Sting's Sister Moon. It clearly doesn't work because you're attempting to map a metaphor over an improvised instrumental. A song with the word "moon" in it can't have a slamming snare unless it's supposed to be a double entendre, and it can't just be free-form jazz. I wouldn't put that idea past Sting, because he was in The Police at one point and had to become what the drums sounded like. It worked extremely well in my opinion and he would beg to differ, hence his solo work. Who else would you want drumming on Too Much Information? Not Omar Hakim.
- Bottom-Up (most improvisatory--analytical brain off): The words drive the rhythms, the rhythms drive the melody, the melody drives the harmony. Jazz is in this category, mostly with the harmony driving everything, "playing over changes", which ideally should NOT be analytical.
- Top-Down (least improvisatory--analytical brain on): The melody, harmony, and rhythm together drive the music. Performance of that music can access levels 1 and 3 as well. (A typical David Bowie performance was this mode: a blend of improvisation with spontaneous composition). In bands with a heavy drum sound, the drums take over the words. (See below on The Police).
- Median (mix of improvisation and composition--analytical brain on 'Auto'): This is when you approach it from all levels randomly, perhaps composing alone electronically by merely starting with any idea or sound. The recording studio is an instrument, compositions "accrete" through improvisation mixed with production. This level is cross-disciplinary where one can borrow from other domains and apply metaphors. (Example: Miles Davis' 70s and 80s music, perhaps conceived "on a napkin", then fleshed out in the studio).
David Bowie groused that he hated singing, but he did it (well) because no one else would do it. Even if you feel somewhat confident about singing your own songs (just because you simply had to), people would be more inclined to see you attempting to be a singer and will not even hear the composition itself--or that it was your own composition. People assume you are singing songs already written by other people, or that they spontaneously write themselves just before the singer performs. Bowie may have had issues with that as well as he considered himself as a writer first and foremost.
Our brains are wired to focus on the personality and talent of the singer or reduce it to some kind of "soundbite" that they can collectively rally around. Take for example the artist Alexander Calder, who became known for his brightly-colored mobiles. His biggest fans were children, yet he wanted more engagement with adults. Bowie knew deep down that he was a good singer because it was required. If he found others to sing his songs he would have been another "Brill" songwriter. Alexander Calder might have been known as a maker of toys.
We can also get too isolated in the playing of our instruments, just as songwriters get too attached to playing around with metaphors and meaning. This is perhaps one of the reasons Sting and Stewart Copland were always at each other's throats while in The Police.
The Police were essentially Stewart Copeland's band because Sting had to capitulate to his heavy-handed style. This is also why Sting's solo material didn't sound at all like the Police and why they didn't sound good in the reunions: Stewart Copeland wasn't the Vinnie Colaiuta or Omar Hakim that he needed and so he wasn't completely present and going through the motions. I also saw a comment on YouTube that said precisely this, "I'd love to see Sting's solo work with Copeland on drums--I never liked his solo bands...". The drummers he used post-Police were just as excellent as Copeland but since they were for hire, Sting had the luxury of finessing the feel of the drums by what the songs meant (top-down). Copeland could also have this luxury if he found a songwriter that sang over drum patterns--which is what lots of really successful American music was.
From an elemental standpoint, music is naturally very bottom-up; The rhythm in the words dictate the underlying rhythmic feel and approach to the drums. It's hard to come up with introspective lyrics on the slamming of a snare, which requires a top-down strategy. The other issue is that re-interpreting meaningful songs at an instrumental level is difficult. An example of this is the re-interpretation of Sting's Sister Moon. It clearly doesn't work because you're attempting to map a metaphor over an improvised instrumental. A song with the word "moon" in it can't have a slamming snare unless it's supposed to be a double entendre, and it can't just be free-form jazz. I wouldn't put that idea past Sting, because he was in The Police at one point and had to become what the drums sounded like. It worked extremely well in my opinion and he would beg to differ, hence his solo work. Who else would you want drumming on Too Much Information? Not Omar Hakim.
Takeaways for thought:
- Both songwriters and drummers are always at the controls, which is why Sting felt comfortable with jazzier, melodic drummers, or jazz musicians in general;
- Jazz musicians, or people that simply like jazz will expect cerebral approaches. For example, Neil Peart could have worked well with Sting because he understood words and language and was more open to taking direction from writers;
- Lyricists that play drums/percussion only at an amateur level would be better than most rock drummers because they "drum the words", or understand the rhythms in them;
- Writers that start with words and use a guitar or piano won't typically like heavy drums, or will find a way to adjust the meaning based on how a drummer plays. Sting surely doesn't.
- You can use the 3 Levels from creativity to production to performance, or in any sequence.
- Make the music studio the music school and vice versa. A studio gig might have lessons and quizzes. (Top-Down)
- Vertical vs. horizontal (all 1 or all 2 or all 3)
- In any kind of idea-generation situation and subsequent production, the issue is whether the original seed idea can be generative and produce "plants". Can it be played manually from sheet music or a score? If the original idea didn't survive did it generate other ones that did/do
- Introduce specialization as certain points in the process to strengthen the core ideas, with little tests to see if they hold up as ideas.
- Ship of Theseus: If you keep replacing the ship is it still the same ship, i.e., if you keep revising the song, is it the same song?
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