PollyE
New Member
Posts: 1,341
|
Post by PollyE on Oct 30, 2006 9:32:43 GMT 10
Can happy, well-adjusted people write amazing music or do you need to be miserable and off-centre to tap into the creative side?
|
|
|
Post by gem on Oct 30, 2006 9:53:23 GMT 10
I'm more creative when I'm happy. But then I'm not a musician.
I suppose happy people write happy, extroverted songs and miserable people write deep, introverted songs.
I remember the music teacher in high school (long, long ago) said that Beethoven was more likely to write his more cheerful pieces when he was unhappy and his darker, dramatic pieces when he was happy.
I would think that mood affects the type of music you produce, but whether it inhibits or stimulates or has no effect at all on creativity would depend on the individual.
|
|
|
Post by dhm on Oct 30, 2006 10:04:39 GMT 10
For sure a lot of really talented artists seem to have suffered with depression and the like, whether is required I'm not sure....
|
|
mary
New Member
Posts: 1
|
Post by mary on Oct 30, 2006 10:28:46 GMT 10
Misery taps into misery. It's a bit like the looks argument, if you have good looks, a happy disposition and a bright concept of life it is quickly equated to the superficial, when it's just the other side of the same coin. Being miserable and weird does not mean you're more creative at all but it often is given credibility as such. The only thing misery can scratch the surface of that happiness can't, is flirting with death. Maybe that's what gives it the edge - in a perverse way.
(I thought this thread was about Missy when I read the title).
|
|
|
Post by barence on Oct 30, 2006 12:44:56 GMT 10
Introverted ppl appear less happy, but I doubt they really are inside.
They just prefer creating to mixing with society.
There have been famous depressives like Van Gogh but Gaugain was a happy soul.
|
|
|
Post by sagittarius on Oct 30, 2006 20:11:42 GMT 10
Paul McCartney would be considered a Musical genius and I wouldn't call him a depressive type. Now that he's split with Heather Mills and she's sprouting off all this negative stuff about him being a wife beater? He might be feeling a little depressed now!
|
|
babooshka
New Member
3
Unfuckwithable
Posts: 5,006
|
Post by babooshka on Oct 30, 2006 20:23:31 GMT 10
But even there the respected opinion is that John was the genius, and he certainly was suffering. Even McCartney had a very hard childhood - his family was incredibly poor, and his mother died from cancer when he was a teenager.
Anyway, I wouldn't think Bob Dylan was overly miserable. Pissed off, yes, but not miserable.
|
|
mary
New Member
Posts: 1
|
Post by mary on Oct 30, 2006 20:26:23 GMT 10
George was my favourite Beatle.
|
|
|
Post by barence on Oct 30, 2006 21:08:45 GMT 10
John was mine. a genius writer. George had a villa on one of the barrier Reef islands and would chat to tourists without divulging who he was. A modest man was George. That's what I call class
|
|
mary
New Member
Posts: 1
|
Post by mary on Oct 31, 2006 6:45:07 GMT 10
George did strike me as the most laid back one.
The Lennon/McCartney partnership exposed to me what I find more important in a song - lyrics or melody. I condsider music isn't music without the melody. It is the greater gift and skill to create one, in my opinion.
|
|
ganesha
New Member
Idol Sparks Podcast
Posts: 200
|
Post by ganesha on Oct 31, 2006 15:49:18 GMT 10
We are not always to know the lives of these people, particularly George who was very private. Life cant have been that wonderful, his first wife Pattie was unable to have children for one.
It is the one question i ask myself the most, do i have to be suffering or tortured to write my best stuff, and so far the answer has unfortunately been yes. The only other time apart from that when it really works for me is if i am not so much suffering myself but feeling the suffering of another.
I just wrote a song on Saturday, took me 15 minutes to do it and it was i guess forcing myself to be honest on the matter. So i go from keeping things to myself to opening myself up completely no holds barred. For me it is positive therapy, for others like Elliot Smith it didnt save him in the end.
|
|
|
Post by barence on Oct 31, 2006 16:07:16 GMT 10
We are not always to know the lives of these people, particularly George who was very private. Life cant have been that wonderful, his first wife Pattie was unable to have children for one. It is the one question i ask myself the most, do i have to be suffering or tortured to write my best stuff, and so far the answer has unfortunately been yes. The only other time apart from that when it really works for me is if i am not so much suffering myself but feeling the suffering of another. I just wrote a song on Saturday, took me 15 minutes to do it and it was i guess forcing myself to be honest on the matter. So i go from keeping things to myself to opening myself up completely no holds barred. For me it is positive therapy, for others like Elliot Smith it didnt save him in the end. Nicely expressed. I can empathise with those sentiments.
|
|
|
Post by gem on Oct 31, 2006 16:11:40 GMT 10
But the question is not whether you have more to write about when you're miserable but whether genius springs from misery.
I'm reminded of Brave New World. Helmholtz (an alpha and a writer of 'feelies') compared his work to Shakespeare. But then he is reminded that Shakespeare had a lot more to work to with than Helmholtz and that Helmholtz showed his genius by making something out of nothing.
|
|
|
Post by dhm on Oct 31, 2006 17:14:10 GMT 10
Does genius spring from misery as in a causal relationship? Absolutely not! There are far too many miserable ppl who are not geniuses or even creative.
The way I see it misery sometimes acts as an impetus for already talented ppl to express themselves in a way that might not otherwise have eventuated
|
|
|
Post by Test Card Girl on Oct 31, 2006 17:53:50 GMT 10
The way I see it misery sometimes acts as an impetus for already talented ppl to express themselves in a way that might not otherwise have eventuated Absolutely! I don't think any human being can go through life without experience some angst or sadness in their lives. It can help to through the hard times to have your emotions and feelings expressed by someone else - music, literature, visual art - you know that there is someone else who can understand. And yes, ganesha's point of positive therapy when creating something applies. I have been thinking of examples of artistic geniuses who have led happy lives but most I can think of probably did have some unhappiness at ones time or another - but then so does everyone else. I thought of Brahms because quite a few times, when I've listened to his music or his songs I have thought that he must have been a decent well-adjusted emotionally stable man but looking at his life - he had an awful unrequited passion for Clara Schumann - Robert Schumann's wife who was 14 years his senior. I thought of P.G. Wodehouse who is a comic genius in English literature and who I thought might have had a trouble-free life - but looking at his life, he went to boarding school since a young boy - only seeing his parents every 6 months or so and this had a profound effect on him. Misery does not equal genius but geniuses can express misery in a way that touches us.
|
|