Este artigo é escrito por um amigo meu de Dortmund, Alemanha, que frequenta o mesmo curso de Professor de Música de Elite que eu. Vai abrir a primeira escola de guitarra professional de Lethbridge e, tal como eu, tem uma paixão por fazer dos alunos os melhores guitarristas que possam ser.
Myth 1: You are creative or you are not
True, each person will have a natural inclination in one direction or another, just as there are different character types, but that does not mean that you are locked in a box and can´t develop your innate creative potential and apply it to your guitar playing or songwriting.
Creativity is like a muscle that has to be trained to become strong. Only a fool would sit on the couch all day, waiting for his arms to become stronger without any physical training. It simply won´t happen and anyone in their right mind knows that.
If you, on the other hand, constantly push your body and force it to adapt, it will. Same with creativity! If you push yourself to be more creative (this can be done almost anywhere throughout the day), you will become more creative. Simple as that - it´s a choice you make.
Myth 2: You need to be inspired to create
There are various variations of this idea: you wait for the creative spark, the muse…whatever.
This is a really poisonous idea, because it places all power outside of yourself and plants the idea that creativity is something external firmly in your head. Don´t believe it!
You are a creative center and the power to create something from nothing resides WITHIN YOU! It is not external and it´s not something you have to wait for. You can write a song, a story, a poem or build your own business – whatever you want to create, you have the power to create it inside of you, but you must learn to exercise that power.
Sure, you may have days when ideas don´t seem to flow well or you feel stuck when composing a certain part of a new song, but that´s just part of any game and the sports analogy still holds up – just as you won´t set personal records every day in the gym, you won´t write masterpieces every day. Sometimes you shine and sometimes you struggle, that´s life.
The best thing is not to worry about it and simply do the best you can each day. Show up, do the work and place your focus on the process itself, the results will come in time.
Have faith – just as it´s impossible to train with high intensity on a regular basis and not get stronger, it´s also not possible to train your creativity and not get more creative.
Myth 3: Creativity is limited to certain creative fields
Another limiting belief is the idea that there are certain creative fields such as music, painting and writing and the other aspects of life are simply not really suited to exercise one´s creativity. This is wrong and I´d like to challenge you to replace this idea by thinking of creativity as a fragrance that constantly surrounds a creative person. Although certain fields offer more room to express creativity (simply because of more freedom and available options), the external activity itself does not matter that much. You can quickly recognize a creative person, because whatever they do, they will have an air of playfulness around them and whatever they get their hands on, they will try to have fun with it. When they write a shopping list, they might scribble some weird face below the cucumbers, when they talk, they will come up with jokes, word games or silly ideas – the options to be creative in life are endless. Look at children – they spread their arms and run through the house, pretending they are flying planes and they constantly invent stuff and play games in their heads. That´s creativity! The cool thing is that developing your creativity in any area of your life transfers to other areas of your life. So, start by analyzing what you think about creativity. Do you believe any of the myths I described above? If yes, where did they come from? What do you gain by believing them? Who would you be if you didn´t? Would you be open to try new things and surprise yourself?
About the author: Derk Stiepelmann loves playing and teaching guitar and is the founder of the Songwriter´s Shed guitar school. If you are looking for guitar lessons in Dortmund, Germany, you can contact him by clicking the link.