This article is inspired by Realizing the Power of Now, a series of talks by Eckhart Tolle. Don’t worry skeptics; I’m going to be talking psychology, not spirituality, today.
As I’ve written about many times previously, there is a great deal of conflict between the brain and body, or if you like, the conscious and subconscious. And it does NOT help you compose or produce any better.
The brain tends to be the biggest troublemaker, mostly because it doesn’t know when to shut up.
It will try and make creative decisions, but these will be based on logical factors like what your contemporaries are doing, what riffs worked for you in the past, etc.
This results in one-dimensional or ‘pandering’ music, where it sounds like a washed-out clone of it’s brethren.
The body is rather more mysterious in the eyes of science, expressing itself through sensations and emotions. The upside is those vague perceptions are informed by a LOT more information, as when we have an intuition about something.
Ideally the subconscious is the one pulling the strings, with the brain stepping in for more calculated decisions, like the length of reverb time, or the best mastering settings for a particular streaming service.
In practice however, the conscious brain is all too comfortable overriding the body’s intelligence. One way to prevent this, is by focusing on the present moment, or the now.
Okay, a little background: Our consciousness generally works by drawing from the past, or planning for the future. There’s some in-the-moment calculations, but most activity falls into the other two categories.
This can (and usually does) turn dysfunctional, as when we ruminate about the past, and/or worry about the future.
So to eliminate that, we can learn to keep our focus on what’s happening in the present moment – what Eckhart Tolle has called the razor’s edge of now.
Here’s a useful trick: Ask yourself, what at this very moment, is lacking?
You can probably think of tons of things you wish were different – the difficult client, the track you have to finish by tomorrow, etc. – but if you really think about it, these concerns only exist in the past or future.
What’s lacking at this very moment? Well, my back is a bit sore, I’m tired from a long week, but these are minor things. Nothing that would stand in the way of creating music.
And by the way, this does NOT mean you just go through life never thinking about the future. You still plan for the future, but you do so in the NOW, allowing your brain and body to work together.
As the picture above illustrates however, this is not so easily accomplished – the brain LOVES to get involved, so much so that as soon as you think about staying present, you are no longer present. You are just watching the thought.
When in front of your DAW or score sheet, your brain may try to assert itself with various thoughts and opinions, or even co-opt your body sensations of anxiety or impatience.
In time however, these feelings will start to die away, and ideas start to gently present themselves.
Which is great – in theory. So, how do we go from here to practicing our presence? (How’s that for alliteration?) Well please…
I’ve already talked about the advantages of improving your focus through meditation here, so “now” (heh) would be a good time to review them.
The more familiar you are with producing or composing music, the more easily ideas will come when you focus on the present. Keep honing that craft!
Also, it will take a little time, especially at the beginning, for your brain to quiet down and make way for the subconscious. Be sure to leave some extra time for your projects – rushed deadlines kill creativity.
Even when your brain calms down, ideas don’t always appear automatically. In that case, try something, anything, to get the ball rolling. Transpose a chord. Throw in an unusual plugin. Go outside and run around the house three times.
As you become more experienced, pay attention to the moment in which you hear each new or altered sound – before the brain kicks in.
As Eckhart explains, there’s a moment, when we first perceive something, when the brain has not yet analyzed and labelled it. There is only pure, undiluted, awareness.
This is where our honest feelings about what we hear surface, where we can genuinely tell whether we’ve created something beautiful to our ears, or it isn’t quite hitting the mark.
If we miss this, a moment later the brain steps in with, ‘ah, my fans will love this!’ or ‘ugh, that sounds so raspy’, or something, and then that thought will dictate how we feel next.
But developing this skill of staying in the now allows us increasingly to know what we are creating isn’t just generally ‘good’ music: It’s aligned with the kind of good WE want to create.
So learning to stay in the now is vital to getting our mental chatter out of the way and improving the quality of our creative insights. But it’s usefulness doesn’t end at the studio door.
Imagine going through your day without all the worrying, all the ruminating, about what was and could be. How much more pleasant would that make the experience?
One of the best things about staying focused on the now, is you can start practicing – right now. When else is there?
Credits:
‘A Barber Shaving a Client’s Face’ by Los Muertos Crew
‘Brain Anatomy Human Science Health’ by holdentrils from Pixabay
‘Close Up Photo of Men Having Conversation’ by ANTONI SHKRABA
‘Dreamy ethnic businessman thinking about project’ by Michael Burrows
‘Round Mirror’ by Ethan Sees
‘Woman making heart with hands while having video call’ by Artem Podrez