Wait. Who is that singing?

I take some pride in my early discovery: At Ribfest 2005, September at Five County Stadium, Zebulon, NC., while there to support the featured band – good friends, great band – and, oh yeah, eat some ribs – surprise – a magnificent voice stopped our tracks dead. Rhiannon Giddens – wow – who is that, and why have we not seen her before?

We got home and I started a search. Turned out Rhiannon was a recent graduate of Oberlin Conservatory now singing fiddle tunes – how curious, how awesome. I fired off an introduction email and began arranging a photo shoot.

Schedules being what they are, it wasn’t until the Carolina Chocolate Drops had formed and were well on their way national attention before we met for a photo session at Stagville Plantation’s Slave Quarters in Durham, NC.

Prairie Home Companion, Grand ol’ Opry, NPR interviews, countless magazine articles, appearance in the film, “The Great Debaters”, and a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album – and 4 years later – I asked Rhiannon if she’d sit with Armand Lenchek and I for a video interview.

Here’s and edited 16 minutes of the 80 she spent answering our creative curiosity:

via Carolina Chocolate Drops website:
This is the story in a nutshell. Rhiannon’s father was a classically-trained singer whose legacy was a warning not to study voice before the age of 16. So Rhiannon waited until she was 16 and set off for choral camp. It was great, so she applied to Oberlin College and took on the deepest part of the classical vocal river, opera. “I did five operas and three main roles,” Rhiannon summarizes, “I got into it pretty hardcore.”

If you’re like me, you ask yourself this way too often. Here’s a good reminder from Maria Schneider of the proper answer:

Help me out.

Following the PermissionToSuck.com post from Jan. 4 about Jaron Lanier, I’ve had regular conversations, both online and off, about sources of creative artistic brilliance.  I’ve put hours of thought into it; hundreds even.  Here’s a quote I pulled from a 2010 post that I tweet regularly mostly to defensive responses:

Can a “10,000 hour” creative professional compete with 1,000 “100 hour” creative amateurs?

The real questions being, now that we live web 2.0 – with its many collaborative tools – what is happening to creative virtuosity? Why haven’t we seen a virtual avalanche of great literature and song writing? Shouldn’t the music industry explode beyond its traditional business model as promised? Is it because we have yet to fully embrace the tools?  Do we still need the Match.com of creativity?

I’ll confess that PermissionToSuck.com isn’t the most well researched blog out there, but then, blogs in general aren’t all that well researched; think “brain droppings”.  The best of the best are blogs from authors about their well researched subjects; think primary and secondary research data supported hypotheses.

Still, I do my share of listening, reading and surfing without finding evidence of artistic brilliance that originated online beyond the usual cleverness or somewhat unique mash-ups.  Musicians pass half finished ProTool files via the web, saving gas money and travel time, but is that really helping improve virtuosity?

We see youtubes of brilliant creativity that was recorded posthumously.  We see short films distributed via Vimeo or Vimeo-ish channels that would have existed without web-tools. Where is the promised land? Why do we continue to marvel about the success of Apple and speculate that Open Source is going to kick its butt? Waiting.

Side note on the Apple thing:  I have a friend who’s a staunch believer in open source. You know, “Android is going to kick iPhone’s ass – remember Microsoft v. Apple – same thing”.  But … what phone did my friend buy when he needed one that worked?  Yup, an iPhone.  Furthermore, which stock would you rather be gifted right now? Apple or Microsoft?  I digress.

Here’s a great example of “social net” collaborative creativity; Clever, yet nearly un-listenable.

[via B Flat website]

“In Bb 2.0 is a collaborative music and spoken word project conceived by Darren Solomon from Science for Girls, and developed with contributions from users.”

The In B Flat Project

The Johnny Cash Project is by far the best I’ve seen. It’s a mash-up of illustrations that create a music video that would otherwise not have existed if it weren’t for internet collaboration. I’d rate it Excellent but I want more; I expect more. Furthermore, as outstanding as it is, the Johnny Cash Project is build around a music icon from the 1960′s. Does anyone else find it odd that excitement for online collaboration needs an established “analog” artist?

I’m beginning to think true creative brilliance comes from a closed system – but I’m still open. Waiting.

The Johnny Cash Project

Any new clever combination of A + B = Creativity, and there is more access to “A” and “B” than ever and more tomorrow than today. This is obviously true. Also obvious is the love of creativity in everything; people who never thought of themselves as creative are feelin’ it, and those who are in traditionally creative fields are pressured to be more imaginative.  Isn’t technology wonderful?

Well… to be honest, I’m getting little tired of hearing about how creative I must be; F%$# you, I’ll be who I am – you go and be fresh and new and different, I’m going to concentrate on being a better me.

Yes, we were born to be creative; hell, we were born out of a creative act. But here’s the thing, while creativity is the core of human existence, aren’t we all powerfully drawn to virtuosity? Virtuosity is human excellence of skill, fluency and style. It’s the heart skipping grandness of human achievement.

Creativity is a common and natural act. Yet, being a virtuoso is the ultimate analog goal requiring sacrifice. Great musicians, fine artists, writers, and even athletes inspire awe in what is possible when a life is devoted to skill honing and potential accomplishment. Success is visceral.

For example, when we think “virtuoso” our thoughts go to great musicians. Mastering an instrument isn’t something one can hand off to a machine in order to further increase skill complexity [architecture for example]. It takes a lifetime of devotion and it’s that devotion combined with accomplishment which draws our admiration.

The devotion to a skill that produces useless beauty is virtuous. Aesthetic aptitude + highly skilled craft + just enough creativity to be interesting = Virtuosity. This equation says nothing about being original just to be original.

No matter how fresh, mediocrity is the middle state overflowing with human weakness and unevenness. We’re pushing for fresh creativity but Larry Bird in the ’86 NBA Championship game defines virtuosity.

Virtuosity demands respect; it’s the complete loss of static in communication, it’s the defeat of flaws in the act of performance with a resonance that sends the human spirit. The virtuoso is a supreme victor in a battle over the average creative mediocrity.

Ira Gitler is an American jazz historian and journalist, listen to how he describes Art Tatum, the virtuoso pianist, in this video. Gitler is in awe of the skill Tatum achieved in one lifetime. It’s spectacular, it’s unique and it’s original Tatum. Tatum’s level of virtuosity set him apart; his virtuosity was freshness, everything he did was newly created because his level of musical skill is so rarely reached.

Zenph Sound Innovations is a creative company designing algorithms and deliverable software able to reproduce the virtuosity of artists like Art Tatum or Rachmaninoff on stage. It’s further demonstration of the lengths we’ll go to experience virtuosity. A recording isn’t good enough, we want the experience. We want to be intimately familiar with the performance down to what it feels like to be him.

Zenph’s obsession will succeed in creating a performance snapshot, a clearer portrait of virtuosity; the result, not the origin. Their technology is exciting. Our understanding of performance will be enhanced but it’s still a copy closer to a parlor trick than virtuosity.  To be authentically original is to make the sacrifice to be a virtuoso.

I’m willing to bet a huge ransom that an original low tech recording of Tatum will retain an higher value than a masterful performance reproduction of Tatum’s playing a la Zenph.  What does it say about virtuosity when reproduction quality isn’t worth as much as being closer to the authentic original?

Take a look at the technology behind performance reproduction in this video. John Q. Walker, PhD – Chairman & Chief Technology Officer at Zenph Sound Innovations.  Gave this presentation for TED in 2007.

Originally Published on Nov. 2009 – try it

While interviewing Will McFarlane I was reminded how critically important it is to avoid getting caught up in the nuance of our creative fields.  “Music can be math without feel or tone” is one of my take away quotes in part II.  Extending that, any field can be dry when devoid of feel or tone”.

It’s way more about what we do with what we know, than what we know.  How extraordinarily remedial is that?  Yet, how much time do we all spend in the pursuit of technique at the sacrifice of feel and tone?  Some players get more feeling out of 3 major chords than others do with a full knowledge of music theory.  Some photographers have an intangible spirit to their work that leads others to a fruitless study of lighting technique.

Technique is great.  Lack of it is limiting.  Then again, tone and feel is worth a constant reminder of its importance to great work.

Biography:

It’s hard to imagine how many 12 year old young men watched the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1963 and were inspired to pick up the guitar saying, “I want to do that”. Many, I’m sure. Voice lessons at six years old and piano a year later, young Will was clearly better primed than most.

Motown’s R&B captured Will’s imagination in High School while

growing up on Long Island, which helped him develop as a fine rhythm guitarist.

Bonnie Raitt enlisted the 23 year old college escapee McFarlane as a member of her band one night when she heard him play at a Cambridge, MA night club. He toured with her band from 1974 – 1980 before leaving the road to move into the studio.

While with The Bonnie Raitt band, Will shared stages with living blues and folk legends. That’ll do wonders for your playing but more importantly, Will learned to listen for what guitar licks to leave out to best play up the band.

In 1980 Will McFarlane joined the famed “Swampers”; He moved to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to play and learn from Jimmy Johnson and the boys. Bobby Blue Bland, Little Milton, Etta James and Johnnie Taylor are a few that get off hand mention as clients of Muscle Shoals Sound.

Since 2001, Will McFarlane, his Wife Janet, their three children, and five grand kids all live in North Carolina’s Triangle Region. The Will McFarlane Band plays regionally but Will continues his studio work in Nashville and Muscle Shoals as well as live gigs both nationally and abroad.

Frank Stasio, WUNC Radio interview of Will McFarlane

I saw a video of Graham Nash playing Buddy Holly’s guitar [embedded] and picked up on this quote:

“I think part of the process of this whole thing is to get as close to the flame as you can get without being burned” – Graham Nash

Buddy Holly died at 22 when Graham Nash was 17 – clearly it affected him deeply; you can feel the emotion of the moment as he holds Holly’s guitar and says, “Touching the Flame”.  The guitar isn’t the flame but is there any doubt about which fire Nash refers?

Every creative soul is capable of  a 5 minute monologue about their creative flame.  Odds-on it’s a semi-coherent ramble of disjointed thoughts spoken through a struggle to put feelings into words.  Go ahead, give it a shot: What is the flame and where do I find it? Is it passion, obsession or spirituality? Give me a definition please.

Independent of definition accuracy, I’m convinced that we can’t own the flame; no personal flame exists so it’s not ours to sell, only ours to find.  An artist’s most valuable time is spent seeking the flame and, if lucky, we’re allowed to feel occasional warmth.

Additionally, a great piece of creativity isn’t something that needs explanation. You react to it as a pyromaniac would to flame; drawn to it by curiosity, sensuality, warmth and fear.  Inexplicably, the feeling it gives you is like fitting an ocean through a straw.

All my adult life I’ve played the game of creativity for money: You pay me to add value to your idea of what a photograph should look like – I do my best. Together we’re capable of interesting surprises, but I’m fairly sure the “flame” isn’t warming us; we are simply using the memory of warmth to make a living. It’s as though the better we are at making money the less chance of getting burned, on the other hand, stay away from the flame long enough and you’ll go broke.

Execution is a commodity, yet the talented manage to add original value to an execution. Perhaps original value is the byproduct of near burns. Like internal scars on the imagination we execute personal originality that requires intense heat for renewal. No flame yields stagnation or – worse – a talent void.

Permission To Suck Manifesto Law #16 revisited:

Flame finding is your talent. Imagination is hot, execution is cold. The flame is illusive; if you must obsess about something, make it a flame search. “I think part of the process of this whole thing is to get as close to the flame as you can get without being burned” – Graham Nash

What I find absorbing about imagination and creativity are the unlimited ways to frame it, yet at its core is the essence of being human. If you ask me, it’s the meaning of life and just as slippery.

To be creative is to develop intuition, shut down what makes sense and follow the feeling. Feeding the hunger we’ll look, listen, study and practice, but if we try to follow information to a commonsensical conclusion, there are no surprises only boredom.

[via The Woodstock Channel] Bob Dylan talks about how creativity happens, in this case, the writing of “Stardust” by Hoagy Carmichael. Part of David McDonald’s series, “The Mystery of Creativity,” about the connections between creativity and spirituality.  Mr. McDonald is also the director of a film called “Woodstock Revisited” which features several Dylan and The Band-related chapters.

Just for a moment act as though all the creative works you’ve ever done are gone and untraceable.  They cease to be.  There is no memory of your body of work except for what you own; friends, family, colleagues, students, peers – all have no recollection of your work or your reputation.  There is no longer a creative history to foster your pride.

Assuming your passion is not make-believe and your ability to produce remains, now what?  Your beautifully clever, well crafted, richly toned works are disposable.  a.k.a – You’re free.

It’s important that we know our best work is yet to be produced.  Our best is what is in us now, not what we – or others – admire about the past.  The current creative paradox or those conflicts that remain unresolved are in front of us and are what needs examining.

Maria Schneider has a story to illustrate this point.

Maria Scheider Biography (via Wikipedia)

Schneider was born in Windom, Minnesota. She moved to New York City in 1985 after attending college at the University of Minnesota, the University of Miami and the Eastman School of Music. She studied under Bob Brookmeyer and Gil Evans, working on various projects with Evans, including the film The Color of Money and Absolute Beginners. Her works share many characteristics with other jazz composers influenced by Gil Evans, including Lou Marini, and Grammy Award winning composer Bob Belden.

Schneider formed The Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra in 1993, appearing weekly at Visiones in Greenwich Village for five years. Her orchestra performed at many jazz festivals and toured Europe.

Schneider was one of the first artists to use ArtistShare to produce an album. Her 2004 album, Concert in the Garden, became the first Grammy Award-winning recording sold exclusively via the Internet. It was named Jazz Album of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association, which also named Schneider Composer of the Year and Arranger of the Year and named her group Large Jazz Ensemble of the Year.

Schneider’s ensemble is now titled “The Maria Schneider Orchestra”. Their new album, Sky Blue, was released in July 2007, also via ArtistShare. Schneider’s composition “Cerulean Skies,” from Sky Blue, won a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition in 2008. Schneider is an avid birdwatcher and enlisted band members to contribute bird calls on “Cerulean Skies.”

If you think about it, whether you’re a visual or auditory artist, or author, it’s about the conversation with your audience. Oddly, you may not be immediately included in the conversation but without recognizing it you’re forgotten quickly.  We continually hear advice to listen twice as much as we speak and the reason is simple: it’s the only way to stay open.  If you’re curious your work is vibrant; you’re vibrant. In clip 1 of this 2 part interview, you can feel Will’s passion for listening.

Biography:

It’s hard to imagine how many 12 year old young men watched the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1963 and were inspired to pick up the guitar saying, “I want to do that”. Many, I’m sure. Voice lessons at six years old and piano a year later, young Will was clearly better primed than most.

Motown’s R&B captured Will’s imagination in High School while growing up on Long Island, which helped him develop as a fine rhythm guitarist.

Bonnie Raitt enlisted the 23 year old college escapee McFarlane as a member of her band one night when she heard him play at a Cambridge, MA night club. He toured with her band from 1974 – 1980 before leaving the road to move into the studio.

While with The Bonnie Raitt band, Will shared stages with living blues and folk legends. That’ll do wonders for your playing but more importantly, Will learned to listen for what guitar licks to leave out to best play up the band.

In 1980 Will McFarlane joined the famed “Swampers”; He moved to Muscle Shoals, Alabama to play and learn from Jimmy Johnson and the boys. Bobby Blue Bland, Little Milton, Etta James and Johnnie Taylor are a few that get off hand mention as clients of Muscle Shoals Sound.

Since 2001, Will McFarlane, his Wife Janet, their three children, and five grand kids all live in North Carolina’s Triangle Region. The Will McFarlane Band plays regionally but Will continues his studio work in Nashville and Muscle Shoals as well as live gigs both nationally and abroad.

Frank Stasio, WUNC Radio interview of Will McFarlane

Like his work or not, Neal Young is fearlessly devoted to his creativity.  He does what he wants without looking back to check for followers.  He is singularly devoted to his creativity; it’s his life not his work.  He doesn’t think about being different so that his work is easily marketable.  Instead, he is genuine and protects his authenticity, therefore he’s different by design.

Passion.  Neil Young is an owner of his passion who fearlessly shares it with others through his craft.  He is creative in a way no one will commoditize. You don’t get this from Crowd Sourcing over the internet.

Your creative source is unique, it’s your  experiences and your emotions about those experiences.  Tap into those and communicate it well, your creativity will lead to innovation that is impossible to commoditize.

Referring to dry periods, he says they’re relief, don’t fight it, walk away.  Talking about his inspiration he says, it’s going to happen if you stay open; If he feels it, he’s open to it.  Don’t think about it, accept what happens.  Respect the gift; respect the source.

Neil Young has a direct line to his emotions, his creativity is not over-thought, over-prepared or forced.  He ignores everyone.  He’s the prototypical creative soul.