Dimensions

Enigma

I have two distinct memories of the first time a creative work didn’t resonate with me.

The first was at age six. I attended a live piano recital, featuring an artist I was encouraged to meet for my own career development.

The first half of the recital was Schumann and Brahms; the second half featured Chopin and Rachmaninov…my dream program.

By that point, I’d gained experience as a performer and had fallen deeply, passionately in love with music. I remember giddily meeting the artist with my mother and anxiously waiting in the audience for the music to begin.

The crushing disappointment of that performance still stays with me to this day. 

Prior to the concert, I’d memorized most of the scores on that program. Every note, every tempo change, every dynamic and rhythmic articulation was there. Physical fluidity and a certain flashiness defined the pianist’s virtuosity.

He played what was on the page perfectly.

But my mind drifted from boredom. 

I left the concert confused. How could I listen to works I love yet have such an emptiness in my chest? 

The second memory was at age seven. I’d just finished reading Stephen King’s Carrie, the first novel I enjoyed in that genre. 

It would be near impossible to describe the effect that book had on me. Carrie’s alienation and inevitable horrifying end interwoven with themes of religious fanaticism and the brutal coming of age in small town America brought to life possibilities in language and story I hadn’t experienced before.

The next time my mother took me to the bookstore, I eagerly selected a book prominently placed at the front. 

Bold signs showcased it as the debut work of an author touted as the next Stephen King.

It was the first time I did not finish a book. 

Reading it was a frustrating exercise in which I hoped to grab onto the solidity of a diamond, but only touched grains of sand. 

Nothing existed for me to hold on to.

I’d expected what I experienced with Carrie, a visceral, richly textured exploration of individual human horror within the lens of societal and cultural norms.

Instead, the words rang empty.

At that age, I couldn’t grasp what I disliked about those experiences. 

It takes time to develop the ability to articulate what we enjoy; the same applies to what we don’t.

All I sensed was a particular kind of disappointment, a cold distance in my interaction with these creative endeavors that left me questioning my connection to these mediums. 

It wasn’t until a meeting with an artist in Japan a year later that I finally discovered my answer.

As the head juror for a university music competition, this pianist kindly invited me to observe the preliminary round which was closed to the general public.

After a long afternoon of listening to a dozen students performing one after the other, he took me out for an early dinner. 

I remember his thoughtful gentleness, the seriousness with which he spoke to me as if I were an adult. 

“What did you think of the students?” He poured a cup of green tea, the steam curling around his large hands. “Of what you heard?”

As a musician, I felt uncomfortable when I didn’t like music. To admit it aloud felt like a betrayal to the art I loved.

But something about those performances had felt alien and disconnected, almost robotic. Technically perfect, but soulless.

There had been no pleasure or joy for me that afternoon.

Since I didn’t know how to articulate this, my eight-year-old self simply expressed my thoughts in the only way I could.

“The notes were there.” I paused. “But I didn’t feel them.”

He sipped his tea and studied me. 

That moment hung suspended for an eternity. 

I wanted to hide from the words that had come from my mouth, of what I’d put out into the universe.

Shame rose. Was I a terrible musician because I couldn’t feel music that day? 

“That’s because they weren’t making music.” A slow smile spread on his face. “Music lives behind the notes.”

He had finally put into words what I couldn’t define.

Technique or skill has zero resonance and impact without substance or meaning.

We can program a robot to perfectly play notes on an instrument or to produce an endless stream of words onto a page.

But without intent – without the human desire to communicate and connect and express – creation becomes empty.

Technique is simply the means by which we realize a creative idea.

Its role is not to be the star, but rather to blend into the background.

This is why the most accomplished virtuosos in any field – music, art, writing, film, dance, sports – create in a way that seems fluid and effortless. Easy.

Technique becomes invisible in service to a larger human ideal.

This invisibility allows what exists behind to shine. 

Story lives behind the words.

Music lives behind the notes.

Meaning lives behind construction.

Divergence

A strong creative work is jealous and possessive.

It fiercely grabs you and refuses to let go.

This is why when we listen to great music, read a gripping book, or watch a captivating movie, we cannot do or think about anything else.

The work cannot be reduced to background. It demands you pay attention.

How can we apply this to our own creative output? What should we develop to strengthen the substance and meaning of our work?

Here are three elements to focus on when practicing creativity:

1) Improving emotional nuance 

Art’s power resides in how it affects the audience.

Works that explore complex emotions challenge us to think and actively interpret. This is why it absorbs our attention.

In the beginning, your creative work lacks deeper resonance because you’re learning how to express the most basic of emotions (anger, sadness, joy).

Just as I lacked the words in my childhood to describe complex emotions, creative work follows a similar developmental arc. You must identify, understand, and articulate the fundamentals first before proceeding any further.

With practice, you learn how to explore a broader range of nuanced emotion with subtlety and finesse (grief, love, fear, humor). 

This requires a deeper observation of human nature, the indirect ways we interact and perceive ourselves and others.

When you reach a certain level of mastery, you can take greater risks in complexity by entwining individual human experience with universal themes (freedom, bigotry, struggle, time, rebirth, existential angst).

The greatest impact exists when we’re able to examine a personal journey within the larger scope of what it means to be human.

2) Developing personal insight

Creating is the realization of a vision.

The conviction of that vision rests upon the questions we ask ourselves as artists and creators. 

• Is this work honest and authentically expressive? Is what I’m creating aligned with my curiosity? 

• Is this work challenging me? What am I afraid of? Where am I being asked to grow as I create? 

• How can my work get closer to the truth I’m seeking?

• Am I enjoying this or doing it because I think I should?

• Is what I’m creating intentional and reflective of who I am?

Individual growth and creative growth are inextricably intertwined. One cannot happen without the other.

The more you create, the more connected you’ll be with what you want to say (your vision) and how you want to say it (your voice). 

3) Strengthen thinking 

Creation makes the intangible, tangible.

Abstract, complex ideas percolating in our brains transmute into words, sounds, and visuals that communicate and connect with others.

This process necessitates thinking.

You can write an 80,000 word novel rambling on about every imaginative thought fluttering through your mind.

But without the critical thinking to provide shape and structure, no reader will understand what you’re saying.

Creativity requires a fine balance between subjectivity and objectivity, individuality and relationality.

The more you practice and strengthen your creative expression, the more you strengthen and clarify your thinking.

Catharsis

A few months ago, I attended a concert at Lincoln Center to hear a performance of the Shostakovich Violin Concerto (one of my favorites) with the New York Philharmonic. 

I left the performance frustrated and disappointed.

Maybe the soloist was having an off night, or maybe there were other factors inhibiting him.

It was technical perfection. I have perfect pitch and not a single note in the massive work was out of tune. 

But the performance was clinical, cold, and sterile. The violinist simply seemed to be going through the motions.

Whenever I don’t enjoy a concert, the sadness I felt at age six looms, lingering in the background like the lonely inflection of an unfinished song.

The unique pain – almost regret – arises from witnessing the potential of something unrealized. 

Human creativity is exceedingly precious and fragile – and like all things human, it is both bound and freed by how we address our own limitations. 

A week later, a friend sent me a video of another violinist (one of my favorite artists) performing the Brahms Violin Concerto (also one of my favorites).

A simple text accompanied the video: Just listen.

I loved this performance: expansive, tender, brave, pained, joyous, and vulnerable.

Explicitly human and unerringly profound.

It has something to say.

By expressing it with such conviction, it evoked the same feeling I had when I first heard Bach as a child or read a story that burrowed into my bones and vibrated in my soul. 

For such exquisite beauty to exist gives me hope.

I am a different person than I was before I listened to it.

It left me changed. 

And perhaps therein lies the real power of creation: in transforming ourselves, we transform others.

.

---

---