@songwritinguniversity www.songwritingu.com facebook.com/songwritingu THE CREATIVE PROCESS

LESSON SUMMARY

Why do we create? Where does creativity come from? How do we get into a creative headspace? These are large questions that philosophers have been grappling with for ages. Mike shares his thoughts on these questions as well as his own creative process including the importance of es- tablishing a scared creative space and be- ing okay with not being okay. As a trained

“Most of what I do when I work, most of what I do isn’t very good. It doesn’t KEY TAKEAWAYS & QUOTES work.”

• I think for some people the ineffable, the classical pianist, Mike has learned from his intangibles are often what we live for. mentors the value of loving and knowing your instrument well. He’s a proponent • Creators break the world out of the habits of improvisation as a means to get into a of the everyday. creative space but also to create work it- • Creative spaces are important, sacred. self. We often walk through life with plans and habits that obscure the true nature • Fall in love with your instrument. put your of things. It is our job as creator to notice hands on it everyday. what lies beneath the surface of the ev- • Improvisation is just as important, possi- eryday and expose it to our audience. bly even more important than planned play.

MIKE REID CREDITS INSTRUCTOR • Grammy award-winning songwriter After a pro-bowl career for • Co-wrote “I Can’t Make You Love Me” the cincinatti bengals, mike turned his focus to music and • US Country #1 Single “Walk On Faith” worte hit country songs and • Inducted into the Nashville Songwriters music for the stage. Hall of Fame 2 Songwriting University

FULL TRANSCRIPT What is the purpose of songwriting? I could...I’m not going to do this, but I could answer that with a question. What is the purpose of any- KEY POINT thing?

Why make something that doesn’t exist? Why not just do your work and work in the fields and eat your food and raise your children and love your spouse, your wife or husband? You know, these are the things we do to live. These are the things that enable us to live...to eat and to do work and to procreate. I think for some people the ineffable, the intangibles are often what we live for. Marcel Proust said a wonderful thing among many wonderful things. He posits the idea that we we lose the observing, the majesty, the magnificence of being alive. We Creators live for the lose the capacity to see the magnificence of simply existing. And the intangible. reason we lose that is we begin to view our lives habitually. We begin to see things habitually. Songs are our attempt to describe the indescribable. Love, pain, joy, sadness. This is our work. We cannot help but be curious about the origins and effects of these unseeable, unknowable things.

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“That’s a bird. That’s a tree. This is a friend.”

We have a habit. You take the joy of a child, for example, the joy that a child looks at the world seeing this amazing bug, this amazing thing for the first time. What’s the difference between the child and the adult? There are many differences. A big one is the child has yet to de- Break out of the habit. velop habits about how to live in the world, habits about how we exist The grind of the everyday in the world. The more we develop these habits, as a way of getting can send us into habits that through the world, the greater the chances are we’re gonna fail to see stunt our ability to see and the magnificence of what we are involved in. describe the beauty, agony, wierdness of the world. I tend to believe Proust’s idea of the creator - I hate to use the word artist and I try to avoid the word art now because it’s a pejorative. I don’t want anything, any word, that separates me from my family or

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from anyone I might know. Proust’s idea is the creator songs, poems, theater, make things that break our habits of how we engage world.

That’s enough purpose for me. Beyond that, I’m not sure. I know the KEY POINT purpose of anything. We’re here. One of my favorite things I ever read was Schopenhauer, the philosopher said, “Life is something that should never have happened.” And I always say, “No, but it has hap- pened and it appears as though it has happened to you, what do you plan on doing about that?” You’re here, right? Make something, make some little form.

Creating a sacred space.

Allow yourself what you need to create. This may take trial and error. It will certainly take listening and observing what allows you to think in a creative way. Be good to yourself and your space.

I believe that creative spaces are important. The great American writ- er, Joseph Campbell, would refer to it as a sacred space. He probably KEY POINT had more influence on me than anyone in my life as a literary figure. He referred to it as a sacred space. The sacred space is a place where you go where the environment has no claims on you whatsoever. And I think that’s important. I’ll stop a writing session, a co-writing session if the person I’m working with continues to answer the cell phone. Then I’ll say, “Look, you deal with your calls. We’ll do this some other time.”

I think there’s another aspect to having a space. It doesn’t mean you’re not going write other places. A great line might come to you in the morning, in the bathroom. It may come to you in the evening when you’re having a little scotch or you’re cooking dinner. Always, always The Uncreated Space write that stuff down when you are in a writing situation, whether it Ideas may come to you at is a creative space or not. I spend a lot of time in my work room being any time. Write everything wrong, being not very good, being foolish. If you’re in a collaborative down. If you’re collaborat- situation with a fellow writer, sometimes it takes a while. If you’re going ing, ensure there is space to collaborate with someone, often it may take a while before you get for every idea no matter comfortable with each other enough to be foolish to say the dumbest how small or how “dumb” things that have ever come out of your mouth. you may think it is.

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Most of what I do when I work, most of what I do isn’t very good. It doesn’t work. I think the other thing too, I would get off your own back. There has to be a willingness to write poorly. No one wants to create poorly. No one wants to do that. Don’t get comfortable with writing KEY POINT badly, but get a little more accepting of it and know that whatev- er you’re writing that’s not working is leading you to something that might work.

Give yourself a break.

No one likes writing badly but it is an inevitable part of anyone’s process. Don’t feel okay about it but under- stand that one bad line gets you closer to the line you really want.

I started piano lessons when I was six years old and then in college had a teacher named Earl Wild. He was one of the only geniuses, authentic geniuses I ever encountered. One of the things Earl did is he taught me ears are secondary to hands. Okay. Really, really, really listening, really listening. I’ve spent my whole life playing the piano. But it took me well KEY POINT into my forties to really fall in love with the instrument, to really fall in love with simply being able to put my hands on a keyboard and make any kind of sound. So I do that every day.

I do these little things I call morning benedictions. Earl also opened my mind up to improvisation. He was a huge proponent of improvi- sation. Do the lesson, do the notes on the page, but then improvise. Improvisation means you gotta be willing to be wrong, willing to screw up, willing to not get it right and improvise. Sit down and let the hands glide over the keyboard. Let the hands glide over the strings. If you’re a guitar player, pick up your guitar, love your guitar, look at that thing. Fall in love with your You’re making sounds that only human beings can make with it. As far instrument. as we know, no other living creature can make this sound. Spend time Whether it’s your voice, your with it. Improvise with it. guitar, your piano or your mind...getting comfortable with your instrument is vital to creating music.

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Joseph Haydn, the first thing he would do in the morning is he would teach the student, and then he would have breakfast, and then he would sit down and he would improvies until he heard something he liked. This is Haydn, one of the titans of Western music. When I read KEY POINT that, I thought, that’s what I do! So if it’s good enough for Mr. Hyden, it’s certainly good enough for Mike. I believe in improvisation, getting comfortable with your instrument, loving it before you ask it to do things for you.

“Live from your writing room, it’s Saturday Night!”

Improvisation can be a fan- tastic way to warm up and get ready to create music. It can also be another way to move past the conscious and into the subconscious thought where ideas thrive.

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Make music!

We are the only creatures on Earth, as far as we know, that can pick up an instru- ment and make it make sounds. Find joy in each note and embrace the mu- sic within.

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