Welcome

If you do good work, whether at your job or your art, you will be praised at one point or another. This is generally a welcome thing, of course, to feel that what you do is appreciated. However, what if the work you did was "easy"...according to your own exacting standards, of course?

There are certain projects I need to work hard on, especially longer choral works or personal web designs. However, most of what I do just doesn't take me a very long time to do. An award-winning piece of mine only took 6 hours to write (granted, it was only 2:30 minutes long, but still), my latest electronic piece only took a half hour or so (and that's only 2 minutes long again, but still). I'm a web designer by trade, and as all of us know, most of "design" is actually updating and maintenance. Once the design is in place, things can get very simple. I made exhibits for the Historic Commission, which I felt proud of, but updating them is very simple. However, I get unadulterated praise for these updates.

It makes me feel a bit confused. Grateful, because I seem to be doing a good service, but also rather guilty. I don't deserve this praise -- it was too simple! It was "easy" for me! Other composers/designers stuggle in turmoil, working all hours, creative process churning, and I just do it!

I don't know about other artistic people, but I'm a background processor. When I need to write some music, I futz around, look at the theme, look up lyrics, play Peggle, until I finally sit down to write, get the idea on paper, go away for awhile, repeat. If I need alot of ideas, this can be a process of weeks, but if the one idea is completely sound, it goes very fast.

I suppose what we all need to remember is that we do have special talents, and the important thing is to improve those talents. If you can do something both good and quickly, you've probably improved your skills alot! What impresses others may seem like child's play to you. So take praise to gain perspective on your own abilities - I have gotten better, and there's more I want to do.

I personally want to challenge myself more if I can, write something longer or more challenging. Any ideas?

Labels: the process

I'm not a visual artist. I can't draw on paper or in Illustrator, and I'm not sure if I've ever come up with a new graphic idea. Logos, fine, but not actual art.

So how do I design? I piece it together.

I don't design from scratch, drawing my own art and creating something out of it. What I do is scour the internet for ideas - icons, textures, fonts, collections of sites, whatever else I can find. Often I'll play with some awful ideas for awhile until something just clicks, after which the layout itself will take a matter of hours to create. This site's layout, for example, took two months to background process, and three hours to create.

Similarly, I have trouble planning out entire musical works, even short ones. I try to do this in a number of ways, but I always stray from the plan. Usually, a piece comes together by playing in Finale (I don't hand-write anything) for a half hour, putting it down for a day, playing again, until a piece begins to form. Even when I have a concrete idea, it will turn into something different once I start working with the pieces (so to speak) of music.

You don't need to have a fully-formed idea to start creating. Just search, play, and get something down! Designing (and composing) from pieces, fragments of ideas, has almost always worked for me.

Labels: the process