I’m sitting in my car, thinking about my next creative move.
In the selfie, you’ll see me behind the wheel, probably looking more serious than I realize. Turn the camera around, though, and you’ll see something completely different: a beautiful, sunny fall day. The leaves are changing, the air is getting brisk, and the whole scene feels like it should inspire me.
Sometimes it does. Sometimes I have to wait.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve noticed that finding time for creativity has become harder. It isn’t because I’ve lost the desire to create. The desire is still there. What’s harder to find is the right combination of time, energy and inspiration.
When I was younger, I could spend hours making music without thinking about anything else. Now, my regular job and the responsibilities of everyday life can keep my mind running long after the workday is over. It takes time to quiet all of that down before creative ideas begin to surface.
Getting older also changes the way I think about risk. When you’re young, it feels as if there will always be another opportunity to recover from a mistake. As you age, those recovery points seem farther apart. Decisions carry more weight, so I find myself waiting, planning and trying to make the logical choice.
That carefulness sometimes follows me into the studio. Something that once took a few hours may now take several days. I’ll start an idea, walk away from it and return when my mind is ready to hear it differently.
My Creative Process
Everyone who makes music probably has a different way of getting started. This is a small window into mine.
I don’t listen to much commercial radio anymore. Most of the time, I turn to jazz or classical stations. Part of that comes from my background as a composer, but I’m also drawn to music that takes unexpected turns. I want to hear unusual harmonies, different textures and ideas that don’t sound like everything else.
Lately, I’ve also been listening to the Deeper Shades of House podcast. It introduces me to sounds and moods from different parts of the world. Classical music helps me slow down, while house music can wake up a completely different part of my imagination.
Rachmaninoff and Debussy are two of my favorite composers. I first heard their music when I was around ten or eleven years old. At that age, I didn’t know how many other people already loved them. I only knew that their music sounded different from anything else I had heard. It felt as though I had stumbled upon a private world that somehow belonged to me.
Their music stirred emotions in me that I was probably too young to explain. I didn’t have the musical vocabulary for what I was hearing, but I could feel it. The harmonies, the movement and the changes in mood stayed in my mind long after the music ended. That may have been one of the first times I understood that music could tell a story without using any words.
As I got older, I realized that I hadn’t discovered a secret at all. People all over the world loved Rachmaninoff and Debussy. At first, that realization was almost funny to me. Something that had felt so personal was also deeply personal to millions of other people. It taught me that great music can belong to everyone while still feeling as if it was written directly for you.
Good music travels. It reaches people who live in different places, come from different backgrounds and may have nothing else in common. Somehow, the same group of notes can make all of them feel something.
The season affects me too. I tend to hear music in colors, and fall has its own palette. Here in Queens, New York, the temperature today is somewhere around 55 to 60 degrees, brisk enough to wake up the senses but still comfortable. The sunlight looks different. The air feels different. The changing leaves add their own colors to the scenery. Even an ordinary drive through the neighborhood can create a mood that follows me home and finds its way into the music.
I used to spend a lot of time listening to what other people were doing and wondering whether I should move in the same direction. That becomes frustrating very quickly. If I want to be happy with what I create, I have to follow what I’m feeling at that moment.
This is “Next Movement,” the track that came out of this period of reflection.
So, for now, I sit in the car and take in the day. I may not know exactly what the next song will be, but the process has already started.
Sometimes creativity doesn’t arrive as a finished idea. Sometimes it begins with a little sunlight, cool fall air and enough quiet to finally hear yourself think.