What should be in every Creative's office
As the father of a young son, I’ve been amazed at how wonderfully inventive young children are. They synthesize concepts quickly and effortlessly without all the emotional baggage or shame or fear of embarassment adults have. The number one creativity rule for kids is – “what else could this be?”
At the 2008 Serious Play conference, Tim Brown, co-founder of design firm IDEO, discusses ways in which his agency promotes creativity through creativity rules, having materials on hand and rapid prototyping aiming for quantity not quality thereby circumventing the dreaded “self-editor.”
It’s the same way I work in music. I usually will create multiple quick sketches of musical ideas whether they are melodic, harmonic, textural, or just strange instrument juxtapositions (what I call a palette.) Some of these forced palettes have created wonderfully inventive film and theater scores. By working within my self-imposed creation rules, I am forced to seek greater results.
For the film Noelle, I utilized a palette of celesta, acoustic guitar, harp, jar drum and strings to evoke the wondrous magic of Christmas without the muzak-ness. Just having these instruments put together suggested certain melodies and harmonies – it practically wrote itself. You can view an old work clip of the opening for Noelle here. ( It’s the first in the gallery) Note, the clip is an outdated edit of the film, but you get the idea.
On Music, Creativity, Art, and Commerce 