Monitoring who?

I've been working through a pile of thoughts captured on Evernote and as draft blog posts.

I came across these words I'd written ten months ago. I sounded much more intelligent than I feel right now:

Something about listening and being listened to.

It's part of the development from radical to accepted to normal to hackneyed to outdated. At the point of moving to accepted to normal, we start to categorise risk and exercise control. In many, many cases, this kills innovation and restricts growth.

And so something else will come along that challenges the measures, risk-controlled norm and we call that *radical*.

And so it goes on.

Art is often the radical. The fringe. The outcast. I've said before that I like the outside view. I'd like to be more creative with that view. Intentionally and spontaneously.

I wish i knew what I was talking about and what I'd been thinking about.

So I thought I'd just post it and see if anyone could help... I'm not daft enough to think I have all the answers.


Help me out, if you can. 

Boys do cry

from Indexed

Art isn't perfect

It's slowly getting into my head that like everything in life, art doesn't need to be perfect.

I used to have this notion - probably driven by an assumption made as a child - that when someone publishes something, or shares something - that it is "finished".

But here's the thing.

That's nonsense.

It's not to be spotless. It can't be.

Many products and services are sold with the gloss that makes them appear "perfect", and we feel let down when something doesn't come up to that standard. But wait, most products and services aren't perfect. They reach the point of being "good enough", but perhaps not perfect (exceptions to that being boxes of Lego, and perhaps some precision engineering instruments).

"Marketing" can shoulder some of the blame for trying to convince us that brand X is perfect over brand Z. We can also bear some responsibility for swallowing all those messages.

I'm thinking that it's all about interpretation and that means a lens.

The lens we view the world through - and also the lens of expectation. If I pay £5 for a meal in a bar, I'm not expecting that it's perfect. I'm expecting it's cooked enough, has no hair in it and at least some nutritional value. If I'm paying £25 for a meal in a bar, I'm expecting much more. However, I can't expect it to be perfect.

We can't do perfect as we're not perfect. We can work hard to get better (known to those who care about such thing as practice). We can apply ourselves to improve. But ultimately, we have to recognise that there comes a point when it's good enough. When it's just got to go.

And what of art? Well, art is by nature unfinished. It reflects a thought, a moment, a concept, the faintest of ideas and the energy that the artist could through at it.

The music I hear recorded in a studio was not meant to be perfect. It was meant to reflect the reality of the songs as well as they can.

That sermon I heard at church was not meant to be perfect. Even if it was highly polished and full of wit, truth and reality.

I guess that's why I've come to terms with music I've made in the past not being as polished as I'd like and why I can enjoy the process that an artist has gone through as much as the end result.

Anyway, a bit of a rant, but I wonder what your views are.

Do you think that things can be perfect? Am I missing the point of art?

PS - in this post about change, Seth Godin hints that we need to get over our fear of things not being okay. I TOTALLY agree.

"the whole"

Yesterday, I had the privilege of being back in a recording studio playing some drum tracks for a new project.  Inspired by a conversation with David Stewart on Facebook, here's the story...

Clive Parnell,  who was also part of IndigoEcho, managed to get some funding together (through his employer UCCF) to get some worship songs recorded - with a view to giving over 1000 CDs away to students.  I've heard the songs over the past few months as he has worked the melodies out, thought a little about structure and pace and all that good stuff.  Despite my best intentions, I've not been able to contribute much to this process - time & energy being considerable factors in that.

So, last week I had the chance to jam through the songs with Clive, Gary Francis (also of IE *fame*) and Thomas Dean (not of IE, and in fact far younger than I like to consider at this time.  We played through some ideas and I came out pretty confident that I had some good ideas.

In the past when I have recorded, it's been songs that have been played for a year (at least) so the parts were pretty much sorted out live and we were just replicating that for the recording.  Even when I helped on the Mystery Tent recording two years ago, while I'd not been playing the songs, we had a clear idea of how things were to work.

Clive had recorded the guide parts for the tracks in Monday.  When I turned up at Foundry Music Lab yesterday, got set up and ready to go, I wasn't quite prepared for what happened next.  We basically re-wrote most of what I was playing on the spot.

I had a few choices to make - either spit the dummy, get all precious about *my parts* and go in a huff or just respect the perspective of the producers and get on with it.  I went with the latter (part of me thinks 10 years ago I would have gone with the former, but that's what 10 years will do for you).

Why did I *submit* to these guys who I don't really know?  Three reasons - they do this for a living, I don't and they had a wider perspective than I had at that moment.  They were seeing (okay, hearing) things that I wasn't.

I recognised that we also had a common purpose.  To make the best recording that we could.  We all have a stake in adding to the whole rather than trying to be the whole.  I think you learn this the hard way. Or at least I am!

My experience on the day was great - we got some tremendous sounds (once I figured out what I was supposed to be doing).  I'm eager to hear the other parts (I won't get that until the mix is complete this is a simple session gig for me).

My thought on production - live or recorded

Musicians (as with many artists) can be a fickle lot.  But for anyone involved in doing collaboration as part of a team (musical or otherwise). Spending a day watching and listening to an experienced producer at work can open our eyes to what is possible when it's a team blending their sounds together.

There's a great many cliche's about teamwork, about seeing the landscape as others see it, so let's avoid them, but basically, having a sense of the strategic view can really help people contribute to "the whole".

Or being humble enough to listen (and respond to) the request of an arranger/producer. 

That said, the producer/arranger has a huge responsibility to foster trust with the people they are working with. Trust is not a right, it must be earned. You can have all the experience or musical ability in the world - but if you can't interact with people and understand their map of the world then you run a huge risk of people disengaging from the process and then it's just conflict - which left unresolved doesn't help anyone.

While there's really not a formula to make successful music, there are principles here about honesty, trust and (ahem) harmony that can be practiced - that can be worked at to improve them.  If you want to get better at team *stuff* then you can do something about it.  First, get your house in order (ie get over your pride!) and then share your views by listening (!).  Hear what people have to say, try it out.  If it doesn't work, talk about it and have some real reasons why.  Get beyond *just 'cos* as a reason because, frankly, that wasn't any good after Primary 7!

If someone is better than you - find out why.  What's the difference?  Do you need to be as good as they are or are you able to be excellent at what you do so that you can make a unique contribution to "the whole".

At risk of sounding like a marketing slogan - be all you can be!

/rant

What about you - what's your view on contributing to "the whole"?  Have you done this in a musical sense or otherwise?  Have you learned when to shut and let other things happen?