Why must musicians explore disciplines outside of music?
“However, growing experience in a domain does not necessarily result in improved performance. Up to a certain point, growing experience contributes to improved performance. Beyond some level, however, performance may actually decline as expertise continues to rise. The decline in the performance may stem from the fact that highly expert individuals who have extremely well-developed cognitive frameworks, rely increasingly on them and on relatively automatic modes of thought. As a result the performance declines.
They can become “locked in” by their own cognitive frameworks (eg: prototypes) if these become too strong or well-established.”
To be future-proof, one of the must-have skills that we need to work on is cross-pollinating ideas across disciplines. This idea is expressed in the book, The Spark by using Cirque De Soleil as an example.
One of the aspects to Cirque's extraordinary freshness and vitality is how the artists cross-pollinate ideas from outside influences such as painting, film, and music. Many great artists get inspired by ideas and events totally unrelated to their chosen field. Cutting off from outside interests may limit our thinking. To accomplish this, Cirque deliberately teams up people from different backgrounds with different personalities to come up with something original.
A good starting point would be to take other people's ideas and run with them.
“The worst thing someone can do to me is give me a blank white page and say, ‘Create something.’ I don’t understand people who say, ‘it’s not my job to be creative.’ Well, then, you’re selling your job short!. Your job is what you make it.”
The below excerpt from the book illustrates the idea of cross-pollination in music.
“As the show began, I was struck by the music, a fusion of vastly different styles, from Argentine drumming to Opera. Johann had told me about it the day before. ‘When creating the music, the composer found it challenging to bring the theme of urban life to the score. So he imagined what it would sound like if he drove his car through a city like New York with the windows rolled down; he would hear everything from rock to African to classical music. And that’s what he tried to capture, the diverse sounds of urban life in a cosmopolitan city.’”
Turning these random ideas into art requires focus and one way to achieve that would be deadlines. Limitations in terms of time and resources can be a good thing as the panicked mind starts coming up with crazy ideas it would never have otherwise.
However, in an organizational setting, as more layers of hierarchy adds up, new rules will get in the way of creativity. When there are too many restrictions, they deaden the magic, and you start thinking about what you cannot do instead of what you can do.
The author leaves us with some food for thought.
“Picasso did not ask for approval from the legal department before he started painting Guernica.”
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