Commenting on the Creative Process

[catbirdseat]

I heard a quote on the radio today attributed to Hogey Carmichael. He said that when he first heard Stardust after it had been recorded it seemed much bigger than he was. He hardly could believe he had written it. It was almost as though the melody was already there waiting for him to find it.

 

This remided me also of Michelangelo Buonarroti and how he spoke of freeing the angel that was inside the stone with his chisel.

 

Extending that analogy to the climber making the first ascent, creating a new route. The line was there. It was always been there. The act of climbing it turns it into a tangible thing, something more than it was.

[Dechristo]

These are perspectives of non-temporal, non-linear, irrational thought.

 

It may be difficult to have such a discussion here where so many critical-thinking-sharks are in the waters.

[catbirdseat]

A discussion isn't necessarily warranted. I just think that some people are so inspired that it can seem like divine intervention. They themselves can't explain the process whereby they create. Einstein also comes to mind.

[Dechristo]

Right... and I'm glad to see you bring it up. You're offering opportunity for comment on notions and experience with the "divine", intuition, the prophetic, awe, and beauty in a setting that won't get bogged down in rote rotten religious jargon - I like that.

 

However, the subject is antithetical to those that require cogency (cogence?).

[catbirdseat]

My thinking is generally linear, or that is how I've always regarded myself, but I'm beginning to realize I am also capable of intuitive thought.

 

Probably most folks now wouldn't even recognize Stardust if they heard it, but it certainly is what I'd call a "haunting melody".

[archenemy]

These are perspectives of non-temporal, non-linear, irrational thought.

 

It may be difficult to have such a discussion here where so many critical-thinking-sharks are in the waters.

 

These processes are not mutually exclusive.

[Rad]

The Sleeping Pen

 

When the pulse of pounding blood,

Tempest tossed in the human flood of tasks,

Ebbs into gentle waves and then still,

It all comes flowing back to me

Like the silent reflection of a beautiful peak

Brought clearly into focus as the wind-whipped ripples

Of the lake are silenced,

I am here,

 

I can't see in their eyes if they can see her too,

Forested green rising gray granite into windy blue,

Or simply concentric, amorphous rings on a green topo sheet,

Flat in scientific ignorance,

But I can smell the spruce calling beyond my roof,

Needles softly nestling deep in a million silent layers,

Connected like summer snowflakes

Under my sleeping spine,

 

I will not fight the sea of clouds in blue

Or try to channel the granite wind into human sails,

But simply let go in millions of tiny cells in tune

As it all flows utterly through me

In chaotic rhythms no voice could ever hope to capture

Nor words confine to flat, black lines,

There is nothing I need to know of how,

Only here and now,

 

How ironic then, the sleeping pen,

When we both are trapped in flatland square,

Craving ever twisting, curving lines,

Only to find in silence sublime

The great glory of life gushing right beside our path,

Burbling clear waterfall pools of mossy stones

In rhythmic, atonal synchrony inside these veins

If only we'd just stop to listen.

 

................

 

Perhaps all of us find a piece of inspiration there at times.

[Dechristo]

These are perspectives of non-temporal, non-linear, irrational thought.

 

It may be difficult to have such a discussion here where so many critical-thinking-sharks are in the waters.

 

These processes are not mutually exclusive.

 

Nope, not always.

[Buckaroo]

"" It was almost as though the melody was already there waiting for him to find it.""

 

Maybe because it was. Musicians may just be channelers for something that already exists. They just record it into a form that can be heard and recognized by all.

 

Melodies correspond with molecular structure.

 

""""Physicist Joel Sternheimer discovered that each molecule in the body corresponds to a specific melody. There is a distinct affinity between sections of the music of various composers and the melodic structure of certain molecules. Woven through the music of Beethoven, for example, are the melodies of ACTH (Kidney molecule), Anti-tripsine (Lung molecule) and Cytochrome (Liver molecule). Beethoven died from complications arising from these internal organs.""""

 

LINK

 

 

""the climber making the first ascent, creating a new route. The line was there. It was always there. The act of climbing it turns it into a tangible thing, something more than it was.""

 

First ascensionists even more so than musicians are just recognizing something that's more tangible and already there, cleaning and maybe putting in some anchors.

 

I've often marveled at how a long route can be continuous with no aid, a long crack sized for human hands and fingers that goes to knobs and face holds then to another crack. Outer Space is a typical example. Like the crux where it seems to blank out and then there's just one hold right within a humans reach. It's like it was created intentionally just for humans to climb. Then when you start looking at the NA map on El Cap and the heart. Or across the valley on middle cathedral, have you ever seen the large wizard with pointed hat and glasses? It's a perfect image and I'm surprised it's not a recognized feature. Has anyone else seen this?

[ScottP]

Or across the valley on middle cathedral, have you ever seen the large wizard with pointed hat and glasses? It's a perfect image and I'm surprised it's not a recognized feature. Has anyone else seen this?

 

[Stonehead]

I heard a quote on the radio today attributed to Hogey Carmichael. He said that when he first heard Stardust after it had been recorded it seemed much bigger than he was. He hardly could believe he had written it. It was almost as though the melody was already there waiting for him to find it.

 

This remided me also of Michelangelo Buonarroti and how he spoke of freeing the angel that was inside the stone with his chisel.

 

Extending that analogy to the climber making the first ascent, creating a new route. The line was there. It was always been there. The act of climbing it turns it into a tangible thing, something more than it was.

 

Seems the examples are two different things. The first appears to be deterministic and does not indicate a creative process. The individual merely discovers a pattern and reveals it. Our minds are great at seeing patterns. Sometimes we even see meaningful but false patterns.

 

I suppose you could write the song and do different variations on that song or theme to produce slightly different results. It's like when Dread Zeppelin does Zeppelin covers. The song is still recognizable but certain elements must remain the same.

 

The second example indicates the potentiality inherent in something, raw material, etc. There is a creative process but this creative process can lead to different results. There would be some physical limitations, e.g., fracture planes and other structural features, etc. that would tend to limit the potentiality of what a stone could be chiseled into. It seems the creative process is seeing in your mind's eye the finished product when gazing on the lump of material. The importance should be placed on the human action intended on the material, this unleashing IYW of an idea or pictoral concept.

 

I'd have my reservations calling route establishment a creative process unless you're chipping holds. I believe it's more seeing a pattern. But, I suppose in a general sense you could call almost any activity a creative process.

[catbirdseat]

I suppose you could write the song and do different variations on that song or theme to produce slightly different results. It's like when Dread Zeppelin does Zeppelin covers. The song is still recognizable but certain elements must remain the same.

An example of this is Donna Lee by Charlie Parker. He wrote a new melody using the chord changes to My Home in Indiana.

 

You can also reharmonize an existing melody, but would still be called an arrangement or a variation and not a new composition. I suppose an example of this would be Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphosis on themes by Carl Maria Von Weber.

[knotzen]

Spoken like a true jazz musician.

[Dru]

Is digging a fossilized dinosaur bone out of a lump of rock a "creative process"?

[Buckaroo]

I've pointed it out to people and always get an "oh yeah, I see it now". The light has to be right though, you can't see it all day. It's bands of lighter rock making an outline.

 

And no I'm not on any drugs other than adrenaline.

[Bug]

Ancient Eskimo artists would "live" with a piece of soapstone long enough for it to communicate what "spirit" was inside it waiting to be revealed. Does this negate the artistry of the "freer of the spirit"? The stone's "destiny" was simply exposed. The artist would then "free" the spirit by dropping it on the beach. Incredible carvings have been found this way.

In Islam, the mystics believe that the origin of all things was a Dot so small as to be incomprehensible. This "Dot" gained conciousness and self awareness and then loneliness. Eventually, It envisioned other beings and thus "relationship". As It continued to contemplate the possibilities, It developed "love" for Its creation. This "Love" became so overwhelming that it "poured forth" and created the Aleph. Aleph is the first character in the Arabic alphabet which was created by the cousins and uncles of Muhammed to record the verses of the Quran Muhammed was "channelling". The Aleph is also considered the "Pen" by which all other characters were created and thus the world.

In Christianity, fate vs free will, is the question being discussed here. If everything is pre-ordained then we are only following our intended path and are not inherently evil. If we were "created" for "relationship" then we had to have been given "free will" and the real power to say "NO". This allows the infinate variation of human initiated potentialities in all human endeavors. To "follow God's path in all things" could be argued to be canceling the individuality we were created to provide. Thus, a chipped hold is just as much an expression of relationship with God as a pre-existing line being followed.

Good vs Evil on cc.com?

[catbirdseat]

That heavy, man. Way to lay it down.

[Stonehead]

Ancient Eskimo artists would "live" with a piece of soapstone long enough for it to communicate what "spirit" was inside it waiting to be revealed. Does this negate the artistry of the "freer of the spirit"? The stone's "destiny" was simply exposed. The artist would then "free" the spirit by dropping it on the beach. Incredible carvings have been found this way.

In Islam, the mystics believe that the origin of all things was a Dot so small as to be incomprehensible. This "Dot" gained conciousness and self awareness and then loneliness. Eventually, It envisioned other beings and thus "relationship". As It continued to contemplate the possibilities, It developed "love" for Its creation. This "Love" became so overwhelming that it "poured forth" and created the Aleph. Aleph is the first character in the Arabic alphabet which was created by the cousins and uncles of Muhammed to record the verses of the Quran Muhammed was "channelling". The Aleph is also considered the "Pen" by which all other characters were created and thus the world.

In Christianity, fate vs free will, is the question being discussed here. If everything is pre-ordained then we are only following our intended path and are not inherently evil. If we were "created" for "relationship" then we had to have been given "free will" and the real power to say "NO". This allows the infinate variation of human initiated potentialities in all human endeavors. To "follow God's path in all things" could be argued to be canceling the individuality we were created to provide. Thus, a chipped hold is just as much an expression of relationship with God as a pre-existing line being followed.

Good vs Evil on cc.com?

 

Tantric Buddhism has something similar called the 'seed syllable. Other philosophies refer to the 'monad'.

 

That Eskimo story makes one consider the meaning of individuality, whether our individuality is actually constrained by this 'boundary' of skin or whether our individuality extends beyond our body, an interaction with the environment whereby what we think constitutes our being also includes our surroundings to an extent.

[archenemy]

"Seems the examples are two different things. The first appears to be deterministic and does not indicate a creative process. The individual merely discovers a pattern and reveals it. Our minds are great at seeing patterns. Sometimes we even see meaningful but false patterns."

 

Why wouldn't the process of discovery be considered a creative process?

 

Why would a pattern that an artist/discoverer sees be considered false?

 

Would you say that a climber climbing off-route is no longer climbing?

[Stonehead]

 

Why wouldn't the process of discovery be considered a creative process?

 

Why would a pattern that an artist/discoverer sees be considered false?

 

Would you say that a climber climbing off-route is no longer climbing?

 

Sure, why not? In a general sense, you could call every action a creative act when we bring a mental concept into physical manifestation. But traditionally, I believe that the creative process tends to refer to what artists do, as opposed to what scientists do. Scientists tend to unveil the workings of nature or the laws of nature.

 

As far as false patterns: Picasso says-"Art is a lie that lets us recognize the truth." I would say, sometimes, if I had to choose between 'beauty' (the illusion) and truth, I would choose the illusion.

[archenemy]

Thus, the truth is ugly?

[minx]

Thus, the truth is ugly?

 

duh! why do you think revelon and marykay are such successful companies

[archenemy]

Marketing.

[Bug]

"Seems the examples are two different things. The first appears to be deterministic and does not indicate a creative process. The individual merely discovers a pattern and reveals it. Our minds are great at seeing patterns. Sometimes we even see meaningful but false patterns."

 

Why wouldn't the process of discovery be considered a creative process?

 

Why would a pattern that an artist/discoverer sees be considered false?

 

Would you say that a climber climbing off-route is no longer climbing?

The climber is not climbing unless he has followed an established route.

He can reference a transcendental experience by recording a first ascent.

[archenemy]

Established route?

 

So a hiker isn't a hiker unless they walk on a trail? (or unless they summit, or ask dumb questions, or what?)