Re: What do YOU do when creativity dries up?

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 1:35 PM, Louie Angulo
<louie.angulo@googlemail.com> wrote:
> I read David Bowie does something like this i believe,he writes a
> feeling or lyrics every day on a card then pulls them all out and
> mixes them and constructs lyrics with them
> you could try the same with musical bits and pieces i suppose


Bowie got the idea form writer William S. Burroughs ("cut-up method")
that got the idea from the dadaist movement of the twenties. Bowie
extended this game to pick up cards that tell his playing band mates
what chord to move into on the next bar change. Some of that stuff got
into the album Lodger, where he also forced the musicians to switch
instruments (just on one of the tracks) and play an instrument they
didn't master. Guess they had a lot of fun and the music in fact came
out... well, in a different way ;-)

Another interesting story here is that ensemble piece of John Zorn
where a big ensemble of musicians is given the task to improvise
according to his directions. The musicians do of course believe that
the piece is about "making interesting music by utilizing this form of
conducted group improvisation", but the real purpose is much more
sinister than that... the piece really is about performing a practical
demonstration of how rude and selfish many people become when
interacting in a social situation and how other individuals tend to
diminish themselves when stepped on.

Per