BE CREATIVE

I wrote a song once called "Myself" during a time when I was having trouble committing to being creative. It went "just spend the time it takes to write it down. Forget about the way the chords may sound. And just relax and let yourself come out." I was at NYU, going out often with friends and trying to grab as much as life as possible. What I discovered was that my time would get filled, and the creativity I had come to school for was getting bumped. It wasn't erased, just as I said earlier, I wasn't taking the time to write it down. There's another line that went "There's always so much to do. You think you'll do it later. Tomorrow. But never comes so soon and then you've forgotten it so start again cause unless it's written down, it doesn't count."

I find myself in a similar situation nearly 6 years later. Though this time there are some differences. For the most part I find that my desire to get things written down as a career choice is starting to stifle my creativity. Writing the perfect word or note or emotion often results in writing no word or note or emotion. I put a lot of thought into my work on A Superhero, but find that it's persuit of perfection can limit its potential.

So I've started a project with a friend who is a director and together we are creating intuitively. Going with instincts and writing to write. Brainstorming to just follow where it goes. Because what I love the most about writing is not that it might get produced one day or that it might be a big hit or that it might win me some award, it's that I love how it feels when I play a song back or read a line back that I wrote and I love it. It's when I feel something through writing that wasn't there before I created it and it makes me tear up or smile or cheer. That feeling only goes away if I push it away like I did in college or like I'm doing now.

In New York theatre, it's very hard to not get swept up into being better than your peers. At least it is for me. Many of us are born competitors and while competition can be exhilirating, it can also defeat the purpose of playing if it gets out of hand. I'm in this to play. I'm in this to experience that moment before my first musical "Tale" when the lights went down and the audience was quiet and the energy in the room was like nothing I had ever felt in my life. Anticipation. Excitement. At something new. Something original.

If I take a step back, I don't really care if when I say I'm going to write, whether I write or not. If that makes any sense. I say I'm going to write. I close the door. Sit down. Sometimes nothing is there to write down. What I really mean to say is that I want to be creative. I wish I could always be creative. Read something. Write something. Walk somewhere. Talk to someone. Do all of that to be inspired. Inspiration is where I find beauty in life. When I see beauty I want write it down somehow in a lyric or a song or a symphony or a requiem or a speech or a picture. I want to bottle up life as much as I can so that I can remember it when I'm not inspired. Or when I can't see beauty for some reason. But most importantly, I want to bottle it up because I love doing it. It clicks. Like my love for my partner. Like an apple cinnamon candle. It just clicks with me.

• Singing in octaves
• Conducting a really good build or forte passage
• Repeating one phrase over and over but over different music.
• Playing any kind of song slowly so that you can really hear how the harmonics fit together
• Playing any song that has a pulse so that you tap into it as a heartbeat so that when it stops you miss it.
• a good beginning, middle and end