Many would say that one way to inspire yourself to be creative is to step out of your comfort zone. I agree with that, but sometimes it can be hard to identify what your comfort zone is and even harder to figure out what lies beyond its borders. I’ve been happy for the last few days because I found something beyond my comfort zone. I was reading a music magazine and I came across an article on odd time signatures. Most western music uses even time signatures with 4/4 being the most common. A 4/4 beat contains 4 beats per measure – 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4. Odd time signatures like 7/8 get broken down into unequal parts, for example – 1 2 1 2 1 2 3.

Conceptually, it’s not such a great leap for someone raised on 4/4 to make, but in practice, wow! After reading the article, I went home and tried out a song in 5/4 and it was like I was learning to make music all over again. For every part I added, I had to rewrite it several times before I could get it to sound natural and not like a robot was playing it. While the idea is technically simple, it seems like a whole different set of rules applies when it comes to making 5/4 sound aesthetically pleasing. I was explaining it to someone and I said that it was like trying to write poetry in a foreign language. You understand what makes a phrase sound poetic and pretty in your language, and you may understand the technicalities of the other language – the grammar, the lexicon how to put sentences together – but you won’t automatically understand how to construct a poetic phrase in the foreign language. A sentence that may be beautiful in English may be awkward and ugly in that other language. The strange thing is, as unusual and unnatural as 5/4 seemed to me, I read that odd timings are very prevalent in some eastern cultures and in those cultures, it comes naturally to the people because they’ve been hearing it for all of their lives. It’s all about what you grow up hearing.

I’m going to work on that song and finish it, and hopefully it will push others to step out of their comfort zones. Because of the timing, it will not come out sounding quite like anything that people around here are used to hearing. I guess I found the easy way to get out of my comfort zone – step into someone else’s.

I’m sitting here searching for words, but I’m not sure why. I feel like I should say something, but I’m not sure why. Its strange – I’ve always wanted to keep a journal, but I could never get writing to be a habit. Now, with this whole blog thing, I’ve actually made it a fairly regular habit. Yeah, I’ve been writing poetry and lyrics for years, even a story every now and then, but that’s a different kind of writing. I am and have been happy with that sort of writing, but I’ve also wanted to engage in writing non-fiction prose. Something that if collected could give a person a good picture of my life way after it is ended. Once again, I’m not sure why. Well, with this whole blog thing I’ve been doing, I’ve finally achieved that goal. I’ve been blogging fairly often, and while these passages won’t give anyone a close up view of my day to day life, they will eventually (hopefully) create a very detailed picture of my beliefs, ideals, and hopes.

Wow. Pause to consider what I just wrote…I think I just figured out why I blog. I have other reasons, but sitting here and writing with no particular aim, I came upon one that had yet to be uncovered. I guess I’m saying that my songs, poems, and stories aren’t enough. As I think about it, yes, I think I do believe that. Art is beautiful, inspirational, timeless, and limited. Limited. Prose is quite a different story. Here, I can give a big middle finger to aesthetics, subtlety and beauty. Sometimes the truth is ugly. Sometimes its not but I still don’t desire to tie it up in a pretty little poem. So, I guess this is my place for those words that don’t necessarily make it into a poem or story or song.

Yet…I find myself going to through the same problems with blogging that I go through with creative writing. Sometimes I just don’t have anything to say. Sometimes I do, but I just don’t feel like saying it. I haven’t written a blog since May 24. Sure, I’ve posted, but those were pictures. What happened to the words? I’ve had two false starts. One is still in the works but the other is now dated and therefore will never be posted. I haven’t written a song or poem in a minute either. Maybe two weeks ago I was inspired. A first line came to me and I immediately began writing. The next few lines came fine, but I reached a point where I knew the poem wasn’t done, but I was, at least for the moment.

Don’t worry. I know it sounds like a sob story, but I’m not complaining! I have been writing for long enough to know my ways. I go through phases. Sometimes a write a lot, sometimes I don’t writer at all. It comes and goes. I’m aware and comfortable with that. Don’t worry, no complaints. As a matter of fact, this is my rejoicing, my celebration. I am doing now what I have never been able to do. I am writing during my writer’s block. I feel like the stock market just crashed and I am realizing the value of diversifying investments. I can’t write, but I can write about that. Folks, I am defying logic by writing this, and it feels good.

Now look at that. I started this having no idea what I was writing about, and I ended with a whole post.

Here we go again. Today I’m once again making claims about art. Maybe I’ll have to change them at some later point, but hopefully the gratuitous use of “in general”,”in my opinion” and other phrases meant to soften an argument will make my argument immune to exceptions.

In my opinion, one of the things that generally sets good art apart from other art is that good art can be described simply. No, don’t worry, this is not my argument for the legitimacy of southern hip-hop. The best art grabs your attention and keeps it. Art that initially comes across as rambling or convoluted doesn’t do that. If I’m listening to a poem and halfway through, I’m wondering what the hell the writer is talking about, that’s a strike against it. If I look at a painting and my first thought is that the artist is trying to pass off some random scribbles as art, that’s a strike against it. These first impressions are not always the ones I keep – sometimes after a second listen, the poem comes together and after learning the context, the painting makes sense – but in the best art, that second or educated look is not needed to grab attention. In my experience, the best art gets better with second looks and knowledge of context, but it can also grab your attention on your first uneducated look.

If a piece can only sustain interest during that first look, I’d hardly consider it among the best. I love complexity in art. I love to listen again and find connections that I didn’t even imagine existed the first time. I love to learn the context of art I already appreciate and see new hidden meanings I hadn’t glimpsed before. Good art is like wine. If you let it sit on your tongue, you will begin to experience its complexity. My point here is that no matter how good a wine tastes over time, if when it first touches your tongue it doesn’t stand out, it is not the best wine. When the first glimpse of a work of art reveals a large amount of complexity, the art can be overwhelming and seem unfocused. Good art is vertically digested rather than horizontally – as you grasp one layer, a slightly deeper layer is revealed. When we are forced to digest everything on one layer at the same time, it can be a little hard to swallow.

So where does this leave the would-be artist? I started off by saying that good art can be described simply. Think of it as a far away view of the earth. It can be correctly described as a ball. The closer you get, the more you come to realize that what lies before you is far more than just a ball, yet, “ball” was not an inaccurate description. When an artist is working on a piece, there are questions that should be kept in mind that should be answered in the artwork. There are many questions, but the one I’m concerned with here is “what is this about?” Even if it is about 7 continents and 4 oceans populated by a wide variety of life-forms that experience complicated interactions with each other and their environments, there should also be an applicable answer that is analogous to “ball” in its simplicity.

The other day I was having a conversation about poetry and I said that poetry should make use of rhythmic and literary devices, otherwise, it’s just prose. Ever since I said that, its been running through my thoughts. The more time I’ve spent considering it, the more it bothers me. It seems like however you try to define good art, there is always an exception. I’m trying a new revision: Poetry should still be something beautiful, appealing (or whatever) if the meaning of the words were put aside. If you listen to the cadences and the rhythm, you should still get something from it. I’m not saying poetry should be meaningless. that just makes for bad poetry, but I think you can look at it like people. A person can be beautiful on the inside and a person can be beautiful on the outside. Good poetry is both. The packaging is aesthetically pleasing and can communicate emotion on its own. The inside, the meaning, is also beautiful, making you think, learn and feel.

This opinion is subject to change.

This is a repost from my Yahoo! 360 blog

Thursday January 19, 2006

I don’t know if I’m misreading people, but sometimes I get the impression that a lot of young well-read people aren’t very impressed by some of the more known classics. Well, I just want to say that I am impressed. The other day I was reading Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” and, as it does every time I read it, it amazed me. This time though, I had hip-hop on my mind as I read it and it struck me – Poe was into wordplay. The type of wordplay many MCs would be proud of if they could claim authorship. The poem came up in conversation with a friend of mine, another MC, and he made a similar comment. The value of certain works of art are very much connected to their placement in time. Think of that song that makes everybody go back to a certain era of time whenever its played, but if the song were to come out now it would’ve been laughed off of the airwaves. We move forward, certain forms get more developed, certain things that were once original and rare become cliche and boring, and interests change. You have to respect a piece of art that can pass through time without succumbing to those threats and remains valuable in different contexts because its true value is seperate from its original context.

As if that wasn’t enough, while I was searching the web for a link to the poem to post here, I came across an essay that Poe wrote detailing how he went about writing “The Raven” and why he made some of the decisions he made regarding. This man was a genius. He treated writing this poem as if it were a math problem and he came up with a formula that led to a poem the stepped out of the formulaic box poetry tends to fall into. No rant today, just a recommendation.

Read the poem.
Then read the essay.

This is a repost from my Yahoo! 360 blog

Friday January 13, 2006

Do you write poems? I think at least 85% of the poulation in this country writes poetry. OK, maybe that number is slightly arbitrary (how can something be slightly arbitrary?), but you get the point. A lot of people write poetry. I bet you do. Are you a poet? That’s a different question.

Our current era is like a bootleg rennaisance – everyone is doing everything….kind of. We’re living in an age of dabblers. These days terms like “starving artist” are starting to make less and less sense because that “starving artist” is more than likely an accountant (or something slightly less boring) who writes poetry in MS Word, does photography with his digital camera, records music with Garage Band, makes movies with iMovie, etc. Technology makes many different pursuits extremely accesible to us and it also helps us to get the leisure time to take them up. In response, we pack in as many disciplines as we possibly can. But, if everybody is making movies, what does it mean to be a producer or director? What does it mean to be a poet if every Tom, Dick, and Harry AND their mommas are writing poetry?

Look back at artists throughout the ages and you’ll find the answer. At home I have copies of the complete works of Shakespeare and Edgar Allen Poe. These books are pretty hefty volumes with small print and thin pages. These guys put in much time and effort until they reached a point where there was no questioning it – they were writers, not just people who wrote. Doing something on the side does not make you a specialist. Being a writer requires the same things as being a doctor- hard work, dedication, and focus. Talent isn’t enough. You could be a brilliant poem writer, but if you only have two poems, you are hardly a poet. If you’re fine with dabbling, then that’s not a problem, but if you consider yourself an artist and you’re not putting enough work in your art to break a sweat every day, its time to re-evaluate. Maybe you’re not following the right calling, or maybe its time to buckle down and get to work. Either way, it can only help to know where you stand. Are you an artist or are you just someone who does art?

Agree, disagree, have more to add? I have friends now so I can ask for feedback! (Thanks Audacity)

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Today’s rant actually came from a decision I had to make about myself and various pursuits a few years ago. Part of what made me start thinking about the poet vs. one who write poems thing was a completely tastless joke I heard once. It went something like this:

Two men were sitting in a bar having way too many drinks. One, clearly the more inebriated of the two, decided to share one of his gripes with the other.
“About a mile down the road is my farm. I built the house and barn from scratch. Still, no one calls me a builder. When foxes were getting my chickens, I put up a wall. No one calls me a mason. If you plant one plant, no one calls you a gardener, if you paint one wall no one calls you a painter. But, dammit, I molest one child . . .”