Chapter 5 reflections

Guidelines in a project can affect the outcome in various ways. To simply say that it makes a creative project easier or more difficult is unfair to the mind doing the creating. In the mind of myself, I find that time constraints on my creativity produced better results. The fear of creating something and it being under appreciated, or worse, unnoticed is a concern that can halt creativity in even the most unique minds. In my own practice, having a deadline or a goal for the thing I am using creativity to produce causes me to stop thinking about the outcome, will people notice it? will it be something enjoyable? and instead begin thinking about the task itself and the importance I have to complete it. For example: I took it upon myself to begin learning a musical theater piece that meant a lot to me with little intention to perform it. The intent was to explore my own creativity in hopes that this meaningful song would benefit the creative parts in my mind in some way. Before starting the Masters of Music Ed, I realized that I had been holding on to this piece of music and admiring it but never actually performing it even for myself. As I came upon my first voice seminar, it became apparent that this was my chance to experience this song that I knew meant a lot to me. So I memorized it in only a couple days and performed it. The performance was exactly what I wanted out of the song and working with a more experienced singer helped me to understand myself and the intention of the piece even more.

The freedom to perform whenever I felt like became the weakness in the intention. Its so easy to say, I’l create that another day. Or that’s an idea for a day when I’m really bored and in my experience, I never get bored enough to fully pursue my creativity.