Creativity Waits
Sometimes computer musicians get so caught up in technology that we forget to actually get down to being creative; and sometimes it’s hard to get those creative juices flowing, whether you be a musician or a writer, Tom Waits or Elizabeth Gilbert…
Tom Keeps It Together
The first Tom Waits album I ever heard was Bone Machine, and it remains a firm favourite of mine to this day. The interview below was conducted around the time of Bone Machine’s release in 1992, and shows Tom trying to express his take on the dual challenge of creativity in music, and fatherhood.
Grasping Creativity with Elizabeth Gilbert
It may be that Tom was feeling the strain of artistic endeavour in the above video, but someone who is clearly operating at a level of maximum articulation is Elizabeth Gilbert in the next one. This is a great TED talk about the vagaries of inspiration, and well worth watching through. Although there are many ways to engage creativity, I think the most important element will always be ‘simply turning up and doing your job’….
Elizabeth recounts a tale of Tom Waits about half way through her presentation; her view of genius reminds me of Philip Pullman’s realisation of personal daemons in Northern Lights; to wit, genius is not something that one is, but something that one associates with and incarnates on special occasions…