My daughter gave me a copy of David Byrne’s How Music Works a while back. I highly recommend it. I have worked through it slowly, studying it like a textbook.
Byrne thinks deep thoughts about music, prompting me to ask serious questions about mine, questions you might want to ask about your own creative efforts, whatever they might be, such as —
How do I view the world? What world am I inviting and allowing others to enter?
How will I alter my listeners’ view of the world and their place in it?
What are the contexts that surround my music, and how do they shape my music?
What pre-existing formats, constructs, and restrictions am I working with and working against?
Since we create work to fit the venues available to us — to fit the circumstances of performance, the physical, acoustic, social situations where music is heard — what are my venues?
What gestures -- and what *size* gestures -- are appropriate to these venues?
What defines my performance style? How can I avoid tropes that are already taken?
What is the narrative?
How can my performances be an affirmation of community? And what are we sharing in that shared experience?
What tightrope am I walking for my audience? How can they feel like they are supporting my risk-taking?
I will post more of my notes from this book in the future, but in the meantime, get a copy of How Music Works and read it carefully. It is a rich resource for those who want to be more thoughtful about their work.