Garcia quote on creativity

[Charlie Bernstein]

I just watched a YouTube interview with Jerry Garcia. One thing he said was: "I have an infinite amount of material that's been deposited, and all I have to do is tune into it . . . which is really easy to do, because it's always there."

Though I don't have the vast reservoir that he did — who does? — I've never had to wait around for a song to come to me. Any time I sit down with a guitar, I'm ready to invent something. When I sit down at a typing keyboard, I'm ready to write, when I sit down to draw or paint something, I just do it.

And from where I sit, it seems like everyone has that capacity. How could we not? Some are just better than others at (as he put it) tuning in to it.

Anyhow, that's how I see it. How do you see it?

 

[BelindasShadow]

I know the vast resevoir he's talking about, but my access to it is limited. It's there for everyone/anyone who can access it.

 

[willietheweirdo]

You have to be in the mood. Some folks are almost always in the mood. Some are never in the mood for "that."

Know anyone who can't stand one of your favorite foods? Same same.

I think I could probably do anything if I really actually wanted to—loved to—because it would be fun the whole way through. If you only want to do something as if to get it done, like a chore—"sure would be nice to have that under my belt"—well...

 

[Dukex]

I know the vast resevoir he's talking about, but my access to it is limited. It's there for everyone/anyone who can access it.

Napolean Hill described it as Infinite Intelligence. Our subconscious can tap it.

Of course, Garcia was a genius, so that helps.

 

[Dukex]

I just watched a YouTube interview with Jerry Garcia. One thing he said was: "I have an infinite amount of material that's been deposited, and all I have to do is tune into it . . . which is really easy to do, because it's always there."

Though I don't have the vast reservoir that he did — who does? — I've never had to wait around for a song to come to me. Any time I sit down with a guitar, I'm ready to invent something. When I sit down at a typing keyboard, I'm ready to write, when I sit down to draw or paint something, I just do it.

And from where I sit, it seems like everyone has that capacity. How could we not? Some are just better than others at (as he put it) tuning in to it.

Anyhow, that's how I see it. How do you see it?

I pretty much agree with this POV. The subconscious is a powerful thing, and it can be harnessed by all...to a degree...even trained/exercised...to a degree...but never tamed/controlled/mastered...

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

. . . Of course, Garcia was a genius, so that helps.

Wish it helped me!

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

. . . I think I could probably do anything if I really actually wanted to—loved to—because it would be fun the whole way through. If you only want to do something as if to get it done, like a chore—"sure would be nice to have that under my belt"—well...

Jerry's sidekick Bobby Weir said pretty much the same thing. He says he's as lazy as the next guy, but making music is fun, so he's never gotten tired of it.

Probably true. I heard recently that he holds the world's record for the most stage performances.

 

[catdaddy]

I agree about the infinite reservoir of material/ideas that are "out there" for creative types to tap into. I know for me, I can't just will myself to tap into it, I've got to be in the mood to want to work obsessively and be willing to devote whatever amount of time I'll need to bring a song to fruition. Sadly, the older I get, the less I feel inclined to make that commitment on a regular basis. What all of this fails to account for are the times that an inspiration/idea just drops out of the sky into my startled lap, leaving me no choice but to proceed.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

. . . Sadly, the older I get, the less I feel inclined to make that commitment on a regular basis.

Same here. These days I put almost all my music energy into learning songs I wrote a long time ago. I figure, who else is gonna?

Actually, I do play with a singer/guit-picker who does cover a few of my songs. I'm lucky that way.

What all of this fails to account for are the times that an inspiration/idea just drops out of the sky into my startled lap, leaving me no choice but to proceed.

I sort of envy you. I'm 0% inspiration, 100% perspiration.

 

[frisco slim]

I can sit down and write a passable tune any time I want to.

Words, however, are a different story. Total writer's block.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

I can sit down and write a passable tune any time I want to.

Words, however, are a different story. Total writer's block.

And yet you just wrote twenty-three of them!

 

[KokoTele]

You have to be in the mood. Some folks are almost always in the mood. Some are never in the mood for "that."

Truly creative and productive people don't need to wait for the mood. They've learned how to focus on creating, so that when they grab their instrument/brushes/keyboard/etc. they can channel their creative processes. Some can even schedule it. Most of Nashville works this way.

When I was in my 20s I studied poetry at college and had become close with several accomplished writers. They all had to make their living with other jobs, so most had a regular schedule for their writing. One would write for 2 hours after dinner every night. One wrote for a couple of hours before work every day, while the house was quiet. The point was that they recognized that most of what they wrote would never go anywhere, so they had to produce enough work to cull out the bad stuff. I knew a painter that basically made painting their 40 hour a week job so they could manage family in the evenings.

I never developed this skill. But I haven't set aside time for creative production in 25 years, either.

 

[catdaddy]

I sort of envy you. I'm 0% inspiration, 100% perspiration.

Please, save your envy for someone more deserving! Just to be clear, having song ideas fall in my lap is an extremely rare event, ie maybe 5% of my total songwriting output. I'm probably in the 95th perspiration percentile.

 

[Holy smokes]

The brain people say that people who are good at the written word make poor musicians and vice versa. My apologies to you keyboard warriors. As I get older my tapping into whatever that is is lessened by a lot. Dang old age

 

[Holy smokes]

When Thomas Jefferson got out the violin everybody would run including the dogs

 

[teletimetx]

I’m thinking on this.

For me, yeah, the music stuff is always there and I frequently make lyric notes. On my phone, of course, because there’s an app called “Notes”.

But the always available, easy access isn’t always compelling. So I might poke around it, swear at it, switch gears, grease the skids; see what it’s made of. Or should I say, the stuff of which it’s made.

What I really look for and want is the compelling stuff. The songs I want to play, like all day long.

Mrs. 3T might say, “don’t you think the dog might want to hear something else today?”

The dog is either on the couch with me or at my feet. He doesn’t mind, or if he does, he never complains.

This morning I was thinking about a possible song called “Scrambled Eggs and Everclear”.

Hold the eggs, please.

I was once helping my son check the drain on his sprinkler system in his basement, following the pipes through the floor joists above. Found a pint of Everclear, half full, left by the previous owner.

“I’ll be down in the basement, Ethel, uh working on the water heater.”

Humans.

 

[telemnemonics]

I was thinking of Jerry having said "Find something you love to do and do it".

As for all the deposited material, I seem to have good but mixed access to it, as in the early Rev Gary Davis think is buried in pages of newer docs, so it does not pop up when my Tele mnemonic fires up the brain.

But I do just sit down and play, usually without turning to the past for an old tune, because that is not really my goal or orientation.
Which is an argument that maybe all the deposits are not what I want to withdraw as something new because they are all old?

But if only the "theory", or the ways things can be assembled musically, is the deposited material to draw on for "writing" or coming up with new ideas, then sure, that can be identified and labeled.

I think I still NEED something new to strike me which has not been deposited yet to get past the old which is not new.
"New" may not really apply within western music theory which is just a term and not my educational background which is all playing listening playing listening etc etc.

Jerry has like any established artist a recognizable style plus a history of playing other styles in his own sort of way but in those styles as opposed to playing old time music Dead style, so my sense is that Jerry playing is Jerry playing or is another artists style he has mastered, where another artist is more a genre and not a copy of an individual.

Meaning he does seem to draw on his own past when playing in his present which is no longer in the present but was present in the past and drawn from the further back past he already created...

Coming around to I do not believe we can deposit the future, only the present which becomes the past so we can only draw on the past when trying to puncture the membrane between the present and the future.

 

[KokoTele]

The brain people say that people who are good at the written word make poor musicians and vice versa.

The "brain people" absolutely do not say this.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

The brain people say that people who are good at the written word make poor musicians and vice versa. My apologies to you keyboard warriors. As I get older my tapping into whatever that is is lessened by a lot. Dang old age

Can't go along with that. Stupid brain people. How would they explain Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Laura Nyro, Nina Simone, Tom Waits, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Aretha Franklin, Willie Dixon, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Joe Walsh, Richard Thompson . . . ?

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

. . . I do not believe we can deposit the future, only the present which becomes the past so we can only draw on the past when trying to puncture the membrane between the present and the future.

Could well be. Ask me yesterday. . . .