Shaping Ideas

Looking at early video footage of our three-piece combo at CBGB, I now sense that it was less a band than an outline for a band. It was sketch just the bare-bones musical elements needed to lay out a song – David Byrne, How Music Works

There’s something about that description by David Byrne on the early career of Talking Heads. Maybe it is the recognition of a band, then, still learning its craft. A band still finding its way with how it band members rift off one another and how the band communicates with its audience.

Byrne’s quote also implies a band still open to influence, a band struggling to bend its shape and sound into a fully defined form so that it was still shaping ideas. That was to come later, as the band expanded its lineup and it’s influences to merge African polyrhythms and Brian Eno’s sonic experimentation.

It got me thinking about whether this is true of any creative process or idea? That the rules and forms we use are in someway faint sketches at first? Over time, and with experience, those outlines become more fixed and rigid.

Does it not suggest that as the craftsperson hone their skills they are less inclined to absorb new influences?

I would like to think maybe not, that perhaps the craftsperson becomes more selective in what they choose to influence their creative output.

Maybe it is the verse in Talking Heads’ Once in a Lifetime that best sums up the experience of creative craftsperson…You may ask yourself, am I right, am I wrong?