When I watched Tim Harford's presentation for TED Talks on "How frustration can make us more creative" I couldn't help but connect it to my senior project topic of "How the music industry is affecting popular music culture." Harford constantly makes it clear that by encountering struggles and frustrations, we are forced to think outside of the box making our creative process prosper even more than if there were no problems to begin with. However, like I address in my senior project, within the music industry, or any industry really, there seems to be a push to remove any forms of creativity. Taking the hard way and being different is frowned upon and instead taking the easy way and being just like everyone else is the popular choice.
Nowadays, individuality seems very distant within any creative industry (music, art, fashion, etc.) and, while Harford's ideology of struggles is very much true, it is the exact opposite of what society tells us today. Why work extra when you don't need to? Do the least amount of work possible. That is what society tells us today. Similarly, within the creative industries, artists are pressured to copy what's popular and stay away from individuality. But when copying what's popular brings popularity as well as money, can you blame the artists?
Why does creativity and individuality even matter though? If we can obtain quicker results by doing less work wouldn't that be the better option? As said earlier, that is what society has been saying is the better choice, but through overcoming challenges we are able to mature and overall be more productive in the future. If we settle for what's easy now then soon our whole demeanor becomes lazy and in the future, it will become gradually harder to overcome obstacles that arise.
In Harford's talk, he uses the example of jazz pianist Keith Jarrett. Jarrett was preparing for a concert, however, the concert house had made a mistake and provided the wrong piano. Jarrett was about to give up on his concert and go home, but he decided to overcome his problem and perform. Jarrett's performance came to be the best selling piano and solo jazz album in history, all because he worked through his problems rather than avoiding them.
The industry will always be hungry for money and will do anything to maximize its profit. So ultimately it is our own choice to change. It has become natural to simply follow the rubric and when frustration arises, find the easiest possible way to avoid it. But by overcoming our problems we can grow and mature. As Harford says, "However we do it, all of us from time to time need to sit down and try to play the unplayable piano."
No comments:
Post a Comment