Momentum
How movement shapes creativity
I’m a pretty mediocre skier.
And there’s only so much blame I can place on the fact I started in my twenties. Picture me trying to slide down a tiny patch of snow in Victoria, Australia, wearing borrowed clothing, and with skis that felt as slippery as an eel.
What I remember is the terrifying lack of control.
What do you mean I have to point these treacherous skis towards the bottom of the hill and let them take me with them?
I have partially redeemed myself since that day, mostly because we moved to Switzerland. This is a land in which all kids can happily throw themselves down a mountainside without stocks by the time they’re three or four. An army of fearless ants going full speed, supremely confidence in their ability to stay upright to the very end.
And now I can do it, too, albeit much slower and with more trepidation.
The secret for me, leaving aside technique, practice, and a fear of being left behind by my family, was realising that my chances of falling over were diminished if I actually picked up a bit of speed.
Momentum, in other words, is key.
My skiing technique, or lack thereof, is one of my favourite analogies for talking to my music students about the role momentum plays in music.
The image of me falling over is funny but, this being Switzerland, they also know exactly what I mean when I say that your chances of remaining upright and getting to the bottom in one piece are increased by moving.
Momentum is what makes the music feel like it’s going somewhere and taking you, the performer or the listener, with it.
It could be in any direction, including back to where you started. It might loop back, twist, pause, or surge ahead. What’s key is that there is a sense of motion and the energy that naturally comes with it. Without it, it’s as if you’re standing still.
So how do you do it?
This can feel like such an abstract concept. My students think, at first, that surely simply playing or singing the notes should be enough. After all, the notes come one after the other, and isn’t that a form of motion?
It is, but there’s a difference when you hear a song that might have every note in place but feels flat, and one that has the emotional intensity that comes from a bit of momentum.
I tell them that the easiest way is to visualise this movement while they’re singing or playing.
I have my singing students imagine themselves moving forward as they sing. They could also move their bodies or just an arm, anything to make this idea of momentum feel real.
On a more concrete level, it’s also about making small shifts in how you play or sing.
A shift in volume, for example, or tempo (speed), or in intensity. A change in the way you sing or play a single phrase or sentence compared to what has come before, or even the move from silence to sound, or sound back to silence.
All of these small shifts can create an energy that gives the music shape and movement that wasn’t there before.
Creative momentum
This idea isn’t limited to music.
It applies to anything you can create, because all creativity thrives on this same sense of movement and the emotional resonance that comes with it.
We see a painting and imagine ourselves in it, we lean into photos as if we were there, too. We watch a dance and feel the movement along with the dancers. We read a story or a poem and play out the visuals or the story in our head. We hear the emotion in the voice of an actor and are carried along, too.
Conversely, we can tell when something doesn’t resonate in the same way. Maybe the words are getting in the way, or a song feels as if it’s not going anywhere. Something can be note perfect but still not feel like it’s moving or move us.
If you’re doing the creating
There’s a slightly different kind of momentum that can come into play when you’re creating something.
I know from my own creative work how important this can be. Sometimes, something I’m creating feels flat or I become uncertain about what to do next, and the whole thing feels like it might stall.
It’s as if I’m standing on the top of that icy hill all over again.
This is where a different kind of momentum comes into play. For me, it’s taking one tiny step, one mark on a page, one note, one sentence, anything to get me and my project moving again.
My skiing days are temporarily over (thank you, knees). But take it from me: if you find yourself paused at the top of a ski run that feels too icy and narrow, remember: the only way down is to get moving.