The Creative Process is Funny

I was sitting looking at the news headlines last night when this idea for a piece of music came into my head. These things often hit me all at once, as if packaged and delivered by my subconscious mind. I immediately fired up my music software (Acoustica Mixcraft 6, if anyone is interested) and started working on it.

One of the interesting aspects of my creative process is that very often I hear a sound in my head but can't reproduce it exactly as I want it on my computer or with my hands. It used to be that this would literally stop me in my tracks. My motto seemed to be "perfection or bust." With time and lots of self talk, I've become more comfortable making compromises so that I at least get something done, even if it isn't exactly what I heard when the lightning struck.

In the end, I was able to create and upload a two-minute track to Pond5 in a couple of hours. I want to be able to work quickly in this way in the hope that eventually someone (maybe you) will need a piece of work created on spec. The track itself is hardly an epic masterpiece. To me, it sounds like a mashup of Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells," which served as the theme music for the motion picture "The Exorcist," and something Jan Hammer might do. I like it though, and I hope someone will find a use for it. I'll post it here once it passes curation, maybe next week, and you can judge for yourself.

If all else fails, there's always the trash bin, right?