Inspiration, Comprovisation and Creativity

What I do/why I do it:

I create music in three genres: classical music, jazz, free improvisation

-none of these genres has much/any mass/commercial appeal

-why do I do it?

3 reasons:

-calling

-when it’s good, it’s incredibly enjoyable

-microcosm of spirituality

Inspiration and Comprovisation:

-inspiration sometimes gives everything, sometimes very little—very often in unpredictable/new formats

-sometimes hard to tell where inspiration starts and ends (good to be ok with this)

-sometimes hard to distinguish fake from real inspiration

-easy to use skill/experience to fake inspiration, sometimes easier than seeking/following inspiration

-have to nurture the gift

-forget how hard it is and where it came from, or to believe in it (when beginning new project)

-each new composition is a new problem

-never know when, what, with whom the magic is going to come

-be willing to create a plan

-be willing to significantly revise or scrap that plan

-be willing to accept tasks that are hard

-be willing to accept tasks that are easy

-be willing to throw things out

-sometimes use up all your licks – can be good or bad

-scary, taxing, existential

-never know what pieces are going to move people and when

These are attributes of spirituality

There’s a reason for this: music is divine

-creativity is divine

-all human activity is/can be creative

What is creativity?

-principal attribute of God

-collaboration with God

-raison d’etre

-key to joy and success in any endeavor

-wholeness, organicism: organization of intelligences

-preparation for godhood

-creativity synonymous with courage – not knowing the outcome

-opposite: compulsivity: doing something ineffective just because you know the outcome

-understandable: we’re strangers here

-we all have trauma – the unknown/unexpected

Creativity is also vulnerability (wind bloweth where it listeth)

-Jesus made himself vulnerable – other holy men also

-recognition that we are dependent

-response to dependence can either be trying to control as much as possible or accepting providential unpredictability

Scriptures:

Moroni 7:16-19

D&C 93:2, 29-30, 33-34, 36-39

D&C 88:6-13