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For those of you who have written to me about creativity, asking how to get inspired, here are some tips that I think should help. These are excerpts from a book I've started writing called Unleashing Your Creative Superpowers. But first, let's start with a few basic, but utterly essential, rules to follow: 1. No TV No kidding. Creativity requires lots of quiet time, and TV is the worst thing for creativity there is. Unless you're an actor (and my book is not for actors), turn off this evil device because it mushes your brain. Give it up. 2. No Radio If you're trying to write songs and develop your own unique style, don't listen to other people's music. Even if you're not a musician, you need to have silence so you can learn to recognize the voice in your head. That's where your ideas will come from. Now we can go ahead and talk about how creativity happens... how we make art. 1. Inspiration/Idea 2. Surrender 3. The Creative Variable 4. Time INSPIRATION/IDEA: You start with your initial idea - the inspiration - and you play it over and over with the intention of becoming lost in the music and letting it take you away. Even if it's just a few measures, play your idea repeatedly, like you are chanting a mantra. Be sure to relax, and don't worry about making mistakes. You don't have to force yourself to hit the "right notes," because Inspired Songwriting writes itself, through you, and the notes can change at any time, many times, very much like a seed changes on its way to becoming a fruit bearing vine. Your initial idea is the seed from which your song will grow. But just like a grape seed doesn't turn into a fruit ladened vine overnight (no matter how good a farmer you are or how good the seed is), crafting an inspired song is a process. Changes transform the seedling many times before it is mature enough to bear fruit. SURRENDER: Once you have the initial idea, or "seed" that Inspiration has planted, you have to Surrender to your creativity. This is the hardest part to explain, but the most essential element of my process, where your subconscious mind overpowers your conscious mind, and the world of dreams and your imagination collide to send rhythm and pitches to your brain. For me, the less I think about what I'm doing, and the more I feel and trust my instincts (read: surrender), the better I play and write. I just try to relax and let the music take over me. For many artists, consciously manipulating their ideas through intellect and discipline is the hardest habit to break, but if you want to become a truly Inspired Songwriter, you have to stop fighting for control and allow your creativity to work its magic. THE CREATIVE VARIABLE: When you allow your creativity to take over, you are opening yourself up to infinite possibilities: as you play your idea repeatedly, little things can and will start to happen. They can be very subtle (an unintentionally hit note can turn a simple left hand cadence into a more interesting, syncopated progression) or not-so subtle (you separate Major sixths into two separate notes, then turn a progression of quarter note diads into a fluttering series of broken eighth note pairs), but the bottom line is that something will happen to your original idea, if you play it enough times, and it will mutate. This is a result of what I like to call the Creative Variable. So remember: instead of stopping when you hit a "wrong" note, keep playing! Little accidents happen for a reason, and they can change a song for the better. You want to open yourself to all the possibilities. TIME: Although I compose a ton of songs impromptu, the updated versions that I develop later always make better songs than the first-draft "stems." That's because a good song needs time to evolve. If you have a million dollar idea, let it evolve naturally. In my experience, the very best ideas can take a long time to ripen, so don't force things. Play your idea enough times to allow its natural evolution to take place. Over time, your ideas + the creative variable will make for a great song. Just be patient with yourself, and continue to stimulate your inner artist with walks through nature and creative visualization. Practicing the Orange Method twice a day (once before songwriting and once before bedtime) helps promote creativity in a huge way, and it also prepares the mind for lucid dreaming. Fun stuff!  Rx: Orange Method Creative Visualization Technique To do this exercise, you must first be able to visualize. You must be able to will an image to appear in your mind, and keep it there. A true visualization will be as clear as a dream - you literally see shapes, colors, pictures, etc. on your mental landscape, and you will be controlling them. This takes lots of practice! What you do is close your eyes and clear your mind of all thoughts. When a thought comes into your mind, just push it away - turn it off. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, slowly and deeply, and begin to build an orange in your mind. You start by making a circle. Notice how round it is. Now give it three dimensions and turn it into a sphere... all this with your imagination, of course. Now give it color - make it orange. And texture - make it dimply, like the skin of an orange. Is there a leaf or a stem? Pull those off and stick your fingernails in the orange and peel the skin off. Does it come off easy? Do you keep it in one single twirly piece or do you pull it off in strips? Peel the orange completely and feel the naked fruit. How does it feel? Pull a wedge from it. Are your fingers juicy? How does it look? How does it smell? Taste it already!! Mmmm! Oh, this orange is delicious!! Proceed to eat every wedge of the orange. Repeat this exercise every day, twice a day, immediately before songwriting and immediately before bed. Try not to get too frustrated if you don't see the images you are trying to visualize at first. Just do your best to imagine them, and they may flicker into your visual field for a moment. The more your practice this technique, the better you will get at creative visualization, and the longer you will be able to hold the images in your visual field. I did this exercise every day for several months before I got really good at it. That's it for now. Hope this helps! Feel free to discuss your thoughts in the Army of Dreamers forums. Musically Yours, Christine
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