Brick by brick
on building music and creativity one brick at a time
When my brother and I were kids we had a Humpty Dumpty game, consisting of big blue plastic blocks and a cheerful, chubby Humpty Dumpty.
The object of the game was to build a wall, place Humpty on top, and then take turns removing bricks. You lost (and so did Humpty) when he fell off.
These days, I find myself talking to my piano and singing students about brick walls quite a lot. But this time it’s all to do with building them instead of knocking them down.
The frustration is real
It can be so frustrating when you’re working on a piece of music or a song and it just doesn’t seem to be working, or it’s not coming together as fast or in the way you’d really like.
The logical thing to do would seem to be to play or sing from the beginning to the end, over and over until you get it right, right? Almost like you’re going to beat it into submission, last one standing is the winner (like Humpty).
Well, no, and despite what every music student on the planet thinks when they first start learning.
If you really want to take control of whatever it is you’re playing or singing, or of a creative project in general, there are a few techniques that really work well.
In last week’s newsletter I talked about the benefits of slowing down, and how choosing how you’re going to play or create gives you agency.
Without that sense of choice, music, and creativity in general, have very little space to breathe.
This week, I’m talking about bricks and how really focusing on the details can make all the difference when you’re creating something.
Brick by brick
I tell my music students to think of their piece or song as being like a wall they’re in the process of building. By the end, they want it to be strong and beautiful, and able to withstand the harshest weather.
Slapping bricks together as quickly as possible and without care isn’t going to cut it. The wall will be shaky, some bricks won’t fit properly or might be in the wrong place, and some will be in danger of falling out, ruining the whole thing.
The trick, I say, is to work on the individual bricks.
This kind of brick-by-brick work is where agency really starts to appear, because instead of hoping the wall improves, you’re actively choosing what to work on and how to work on it.
For my students, a brick might be a single note, a phrase, an entire melody or section. It could be the way the notes are being played or sung: are they loud or quiet enough? How fast should this bit be? Are they using the best fingering, for piano, or technique and breathing, for singing? What do the words really mean and how should they be sung?
For other creative projects it could be anything: a section, a technique, a single line of text, a word, a colour choice, a brush stroke, or a single movement.
Whatever it is you’re doing, considering the elements individually as well as how they work together will create something strong. You’ll also not only know it inside out but be able to go in and change it if you decide to.
It’s not easy
It can be hard work, though. You’ll need a different kind of focus, one that’s more critical. And you’ll be having to make lots of technical and creative decisions, which can feel confronting if you’re not used to being the one in charge.
And that wall? It’s not going to be a thing of beauty right from the start.
In fact, it will probably be downright ugly at times. And it might feel like you’ll never be finished, or as if the whole thing could fall down around your ears at any moment. But as I tell my beginner students, this is what progress actually looks like.
But the beauty of being the one in charge is that you can also choose to step away from the bricks so that you can see the entire wall again. Focusing in on the details and then stepping back to consider the whole is a magic combination.
Creative brickwork
Too often we don’t think we have the ability to be creative when the truth is that care, attention, and choice are all creative acts.
For beginners especially, creativity can feel like something you’re not doing yet. But if you’re actively choosing which brick to work on today, and noticing when a brick needs more work or is already doing what you want it to do, then you’re already being creative.
In other words, creativity doesn’t start when the wall is finished. It starts when you zoom in and choose your first brick.
I have no idea what happened to that Humpty Dumpty game. My brother and I played it so often, willing the wall to crumble so Humpty would hit the ground.
That was our goal, but I realise now that we spent just as much time building the wall in the first place, brick by brick, long before we tried to knock it down.