Over the years, I’ve spent a LOT of time in creative pursuit. As an individual alone in the lab or part of an ensemble, nearly every day of my life contains tasks related to that mode of being.
Some of it happens on stage or in the studio, or even on the “virtual stage” of social media, but most of it – the vast majority – happens when no one’s looking.
Through all those hours haunting around my apartment, between bouts of existential dread and indulging in video games, I think I’ve grown as a drummer and artist in general… Experiments, practice, poetry, videomaking, fiction writing, sampling, performances, albums, a bunch of stuff.
It feels good to have done these things, and to continue doing them. It also feels nice to receive (even limited) praise for the fruits of that labor: playing rad shows, comments on videos, people digging the writing, whatever.
That bit, though, the audience or feedback or “release” of art into the world, that’s the very last step…
But what about the not so pleasant bits, the stuff that happens between first idea and finished product? Because let’s be honest with ourselves: that’s the hard part.
As the title of this post suggests, making art of all kinds can be TEDIOUS.
From running cables to spinning wingnuts, setup itself is a whole activity that’s firmly between creative impulse and making music… Recording involves testing mics and getting sounds before you ever start playing songs… Booking shows requires monotonously researching venues and sending emails that go largely ignored… And the travel, load in, hurry up and wait of actually playing gigs is its own less-than-exciting beast.
Well before those things, learning to play and instrument requires a silly amount of repetition, especially if you want it to really sink into your bones. I wonder how many paradiddles I’ve played on a practice pad…
As a writer, the blinking cursor can be a curse – something ominous to stare at while you hunt for the right words in your mind… And I’m sure painters feel this way about empty canvases, dancers feel this way about planning the first few movements of choreography. The discomfort of “okay, but where do I start?” is a form of tedious reptition of its own – one we must encounter every single time we start a new piece, regardless of artform.
And I’m sure you can think of a zillion other examples, from fine tuning EQ to adjusting the tension of your hihat clutch… Restringing a guitar to surfing forums for ONE particular answer… All of the back and forth about logistics and set times and input lists…
Even when we’re in the actual process of making whatever it is we make, there are setbacks, failed experiments, frustrations, revisions, and all kinds of bullshit that lies between idea and finished.
This is normal. In fact, it’s more than normal… It IS THE PROCESS.
It goes back to that “overnight success takes a decade” concept – that when we look to the creations of others, we only see the end result, not all of the iterations, hard work, and downright tedium it took to make it.
I often find myself guilty of impatience – wanting get the thing done, wanting to skip the boring parts and get straight to the action, but that’s patently unrealistic. It’s just not how this game works.
In all of this time spent in pursuit of creativity and some modicum of mastery, much of it all by my lonesome, I’ve had to confront this boring, downright uninspiring reality head on – and if you’re having trouble making progress on your creative goals, you likely need some of the same.
It’ll be a slog sometimes, but hopefully these guiding principles will help:
- Action generates progress, not ideas – Every step taken counts. Every email sent, every rep of practice, every word typed, every failed experiment, every cable laid… Each is a drop in the bucket of forward momentum. Ideas alone are just thoughts. Action makes them real.
- Tedium is the price – Mundane tasks are part and parcel of being creative (and of just about anything else). For the big picture to take shape, the little details need handling too. Might as well get used to it – or even better, learn to love that each small detail and tedious task is in service to the larger creative vision.
- Hours = Powers – Human minds are built on repetition. The more you do things, the easier they get, including boring stuff like planning transportation or organizing files. What’s daunting or frustrating now becomes automatic later.
- The devil’s in the details – Little stuff is, in many ways, the big stuff. Taking the time fine tune your skills, cross all the proverbial Ts, talk through all the logistics, maintain your equipment, and dig into minutuae will serve us all in the long run. Specificity and precision are marks of professionalism and creative fluency.
In the wonderful (but also long and kind of tedious) book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, author Robert M. Pirsig learns to find a meditative sense of fulfillment in knowing every little detail of his bike, to find joy in the frustrating process of maintaining it, to memorize and form a relationship with each component of the machine… And the metaphor is palpable.
If we truly want to commit to something, we have to invest in all of it. Not just the joy of sharing a finished piece or playing a rad show, but all of the unglamorous and annoying tasks that rest between thought and execution.
Maybe you’ll never learn to LOVE the mundane aspects of a creative life (I sure don’t), but if you can get comfortable tolerating them – and understand their essential presence as part of the bigger picture – you can break down some barriers and get to work.
So the next time you’re schlepping gear, tweaking a compressor, testing paint brushes, chasing down contact info, scrolling through tech specs, or standing around waiting for sound check…
Remember that it’s all part of the (mostly) beautiful process, and do your best to embrace the tedium with presence and humility.