Creativity. Art to reamin in time. Why?

[Nikolas]

I don't think I've seen a topic like this before. Some of you might find it boring so, excuse me in advance.

I think that most of the members in this community are creative people. One way or the other. In one kind of art or another, or in any but this community flows with creativity. And it is really nice that there are comps for every kind of art (music, BGs, Sprites, Stories, Coding, etc...)

When you create something, why do you do it, in the first place? Apart from doing it for someone else. But when an original idea is being born in your head why does it happen, and why is it being born. What's the need that's being covered with creating?

And when you do create something, do you try to be original? I know that I do! It's not that original is better, but in creative matters (at least in music), I find that for example writting music like Bach, is stupid, casue Bach has already done it. lol! I mean why do something as someone else does it? This is why I have so much ammount of respect for Radiohead. They know music, they know contemporary music, they have personality and it shows in every way, and they apply their knowledge the rock-pop music. Great stuff! At least for me!

So what's the art that will stay in time? What are the ellements that will keep art (paintings, photos, architecture, game (AGS!!!!!!!), music, theater, everything) out of obscerity. Out of oblivion. Why my music will get lost over time, but Beethovens hasn't.? Apart from the managment- money-wise stuff that are so connected with these things. Is there something greater in art, that we have yet to discover? Is there something new that we need to discover?

In AGS:Vince's game appeals to me greatly to me, without having great graphics/art/music. The design is just original and great! WHY?

A lot of questions, just my thoughts.

And try to imagine that I'm trying to make this whole idea (the above "statement"), into a PhD thesis. It is imposible I know but still I dream about it. hehe

Have fun if you decide to answer any of my questions and even more fun if you decide to post your own questions/thoughts.

Thank you for reading me.

Nikolas

[Gord10]

I had been thinking about the creativity for a long time, too. But I couldn't find a good reason why some people is more creative. Intelligence? Talent? I don't know. But though I don't believe in the formulas for the creativity.

I usually come up with my story ideas in the unexpected moments (generally while thinking about something else before sleeping). The efforts for "Hmm, now I have to find something new for my game's story" usually doesn't work. Also, once I had read that the composer of Kylie Minogue's songs drives his car along the highway and waits for coming up with a good compose idea. I think the best moments for the creativity is the hours while we are having rest and spending some time for ourselves.

[InCreator]

I had been thinking about the creativity for a long time, too. But I couldn't find a good reason why some people is more creative. Intelligence? Talent? I don't know. But though I don't believe in the formulas for the creativity.

Outlet.

Creativity is best way to express yourself, your inner world and opinons about good and bad, beautiful and ugly. Some people need to express themselves more, maybe they're less confident, or maybe they have need to "leave a mark" into world to make their lives to be worth something to humankind. That's why some other, instead of creating, discover and research.

Atleast I feel it this way. The games themselves work in similar way - you play, forget the world and let everything out. Creativity is a step further if brought to publicity - it will give feedback. If you make high-score in tetris, it could brighten your day, but no one really gives a damn about it. If you MAKE a tetris, thousands find relief and happiness.

If I draw a good picture or make an enjoyable game, the happiness and amazement of people liking this makes the effect even greater. This also feeds my prudity (sp?), but this can be used in good way - add it to willpower to become even greater and better and make better quality stuff.

And this is better than any drug.

[Nikolas]

In creator: I partly agree with you, but this means that what you do, you do for the enjoynment of others?
And anyway, for example, I once wrote a piece called "This Is How i Feel", and I regret it because I realised that noone, exept maybe my family gives a fuck about how i feel. I mean this is not usefull to the world. In the contrary something like for example the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven with the ode to joy in there, is beneficial to the whole world (the western world I might add, but this is another issue). Sorry for bringing music examples into this but this is what I do... About Beethoven: He wasn't happy so he said "Yes let's write something heppy!". There was a deeper universall meaning to his music, and this is imo what kept him from vanishing into oblivion!

And anyway long ago (about 10 years ago), I found out that trying to improvise in piano to write my music won't get me very far, cause my hands are "used" to playing something. You have to use your mind creativily in order to achieve something better. And this is what I try to do...

But anyway, I agree that art is here to aid our communication so you are right!

[InCreator]

Increator: I partly agree with you, but this means that what you do, you do for the enjoynment of others?

Both.
They enjoy my creations, I enjoy being useful and admired.

Lovely symbiosis, eh?

[Nikolas]

Yes, I agree on that.

But (<-always a but !@$^$#$&%#@), I remember someone big in music saying to me that you have to be accepted by your own clan (the composers), to really know that you are doing something. I actually disagree on this, but then again, how can a simple human being (joke), know and understand the level of my art? And I know that this statement is too much, but this is the main problem of contemporary art.

Noone understands shit from contemporary art! It is so difficuly to comprehend that it seems that only the creators knows, what it's about.

[Gord10]

Creativity is best way to express yourself, your inner world and opinons about good and bad, beautiful and ugly. Some people need to express themselves more, maybe they're less confident, or maybe they have need to "leave a mark" into world to make their lives to be worth something to humankind. That's why some other, instead of creating, discover and research.

Quite logical. Now I remembered something: I had inspired by lots of things from my own life while writing the story of Lost In The Nightmare; and I wanted to share them with an artistic work.
But still, I don't think our own experiences or thoughts aren't the main source for the creativity, they are just assisting elements. The main source must have been with something like intelligence or talent.

[ManicMatt]

As much as I want other's to enjoy my music, it is not considered during the making process. I write what I like. I swear in a song when I feel it is necessary. When it is finished, I look back and go "Wow! Did I make this?" If I don't feel that way about it, then I have wasted my time.

With a cartoon I once made, it was always considered for the readers in the place where I worked at. They would drop what they were doing when they spot a new cartoon postered on the door, and have a laugh. This made me feel good!

I too, get the best ideas when I'm not forcing it on myself to think of something.

[Nacho]

As for the part of Mr. Eridis where says: "Why is this game terribly appealing?"

If we knew it everyone would do terribly appealing games! And we don't!!! 

[Nikolas]

Mr. Eridis

You're so close, but it's Mr. Sideris.

But really close. I'm impressed.

And btw, this is what I'm trying to figure out here. Why that game is so fucking appealing so everybody can make so appealing games (and in my case music!)

[passer-by]

Although someone' s art and personal taste might be Ã, deformed by education, they still express that person's inner self and psychological status. So their art may appeal to the people who share teh same ideas or had the same cultural influences.
But marketing and prejudices are very important.
I'm not sure creativity is a conscious process. I think it's just a way to channel your energy into something expressive, or you'll burst out.

I don't remember where I saw this phrase, if it's someone's signature in here, sorry, I nicked it Ã, 
"Everybody has talent, the rare thing is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads" Ã,  I think that's what makes the difference Ã, and gives Ã, art that survives in time.

[Nacho]

Excuses for misspelling an surname. It's something that results very annoying when happens to me. But understand my point. Your previous nick was Nikolaseridis. I guess you didn't want to double the s. SS?  :

BTW... back to topic... I think many of us know, or thinks that know, what makes a game appealing. IMO the problem is that 90 % of us does not know to convert what is in our brain to bites... 

[EldKatt]

And when you do create something, do you try to be original? I know that I do! It's not that original is better, but in creative matters (at least in music), I find that for example writting music like Bach, is stupid, casue Bach has already done it. lol! I mean why do something as someone else does it?

On the other hand, what did Bach ever do that hadn't already been done? He was regarded as pretty old-fashioned even during his lifetime. Bach is immortal because he was very very good at what he did, not because he set out to be different.

My thoughts on the subject of originality. If by "writing music like Bach" you mean emulating him to the degree of fervently avoiding doing anything he wouldn't have done, then it can indeed be somewhat pointless and creativity-impairing--"stupid", if you see it that way. But deliberately avoiding "writing music like Bach"--in other words, trying to be original just for the sake of it--is, frankly, just as pointless and stupid. Be original when your intentions call for it. That's all you need.

On a different subject, apropos whether the desire to create for the enjoyment of others is an important factor in creativity, I'd again like to draw attention to old Bach. A few years before his death, Bach wrote a collection of canons (and two fugues and a trio sonata--The Musical Offering, BWV 1079), based on a single theme that was allegedly presented to him by Frederick the Great, to whom he had been invited earlier (he had been challenged to improvise a fugue on that theme, which he did, to great success). After writing these brilliant canons, he had them engraved (this, I assume, would not have been cheap) and sent them to Frederick. There's no record of any response from the king, and it's rather unlikely that he liked the gift (he didn't care for the old style of music that J.S. Bach represented) or even that he ever heard it (especially seeing as how the canons were all notated in a rather cryptic manner). Bach knew that Frederick wouldn't care. He knew that pretty much nobody else would care, either. So why did he go through all this trouble? Feel free to speculate. But he certainly didn't do it for anyone but himself.

This is one of the things that I admire most about Bach. He wrote music for the sake of music.

[Nikolas]

I'm not sure that historically he was regarded as old-fashioned in his lifetime.

Of course he lived a long and fruitfull life with 1000+ works and 20+ kids (I don't remember the exact number of his kids).

But if you take a close look at some of his Preludes and Fugues the second book (unfortunately I've left all my books in Greece), you'll find that he evolved counterpoint and the form of fugue so much like noone before or even after him. He actually overdid it so much that noone after him has ever written something succesfull in the form of fugue (in proportions ofcourse). Not even Bartok with his music for strings percussion and celesta comes close. And he comes to the verge of tonality with some chromatic passages in the second book (don't remember which fugue though)...He was soooo ahead of his time... And he was very very good at what he did. He was actually marvelous at hapsichord and at making up melodies as he went along (shit! My head is stuck can't remember the word. What do jazz musicians do all teh time?)

Anyway I'm not talking about originality for the shake of it. That is stupid! The least. But I would never strive to write a fugue in Bach terms. The music I posted in the thread "Some music II" was actually a fugue for 3 voices. I find what I did not original at all, but at least it was more fun than writting a school fugue, it was much more creative and it did mirror my inner self at the time. And the choral was put in the end and not in the begining, meaning that the end is also a new begining and also that the ending of that piece ment death. (<-Self analyzing!!!! )

What I'm trying to say is that for the initiall idea, which I consider to be the 1% of the whole work or even less, I find that sleeping or driving as mentioned before a method I use. But after that I try to see and try to say something with my music. Try to convert my music to a passing of a message, whether that message be sentimental or mental. I try to have something to say, cause as an artist I always want to let my music go out, to the public (and have done for a number of years), but if my music has nothing to say, it is like yelling and not having anything to say. Not usefull to the community. And I find that the biggest works have meanings in them that are universall. I don't believe that a single melody just for the shake of being nice or catchy will ever stay forever. There is something else. (?) Is there?

Farlander: My previous nick was nikolasideris and not nikolaseridis. Other than that, yes I'm not repeating the second s. SS... Thank you though for remembering it!

[ManicMatt]

*tries to find the thread*

I want to hear your music!

[Nikolas]

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=23626.0

But do stay on topic...

*Nikolas shakes ManicMatts hand*

[esper]

::sigh::

I create because I am creative. I create because I CAN! I create to differentiate myself from a world of "mundanes" that wake up, go to work, go to sleep, wash, rinse, and repeat... I do it to have a legacy. I do it to be heard. I do it to cling to the very thing that makes me human, but the very thing that so many humans have forgotten about.

I create because I want something to be left behind.

I create because I have high aspirations that one day I will be famous, and my father's dying words to me would not have been in vain ("Make something of yourself, boy...").

But then, I remember that you have to be rich and famous already in order to become rich and famous. I see this dichotomy, and wonder why I'm even alive in the first place...

[ManicMatt]

I feel the same way Esper, except for the dying words part.

Folks, if you like violin stuff, Nikolas' piece is very tense! I want to steal it and put it in my game! Except:

1) It's not mine

and

2) It wouldn't go with the synth music in my game. Shucks.

[esper]

Oh, and Nik, it's "improvisation," I think...

[Nikolas]

Oh, and Nik, it's "improvisation," I think...

Yes! Thank you. My mind was stuck! completly stuck! Thanks.

ManicMatt also thanks for the kind words...

A little about the topic now.

Info about classical music in the Uk: I own/am director of a symphonic company. I want to present something new to my audience. I'm based in London. What do I do? I find a piece that is commisioned elsewhere in the country (and thus has already been paid for), and pay only the royalties and get it here in London.
Usually the BBC symphonic orchestra commisions composers to write new pieces for them. All around the country. And there are alot of BBC orchestras. The welsh, the scottish, the brittish etc... So if the Scottish orchestra pays 30,000 quid to a composer for him to compose a 20 minute long piece for orchestra the Brittish orchestra can only pay 1000 because it's not a commision anymore. But still the piece is never heard in London, but only in Scotland, thus serve the same purpose.

When a piece fails to do even that, there seems to be something wrong with that piece. And I know composers and piece that fail to do even that. And that got me thinking as to why this is happening. And I thought a number of reasons.

1. All classical music is dying, as it is old-fashioned. Did you know that classical music is mostly used in old-time films, and not modern. There is no way you can listen a classical tune in a spacecraft (apart Cubric maybe), or in a high speed chase over NY. That's a generalisation it does not apply to everything. But it does happen.
2. All classical music is dying. If you go to any contemporary music concert the only audience are classical music students. And that's a fact!
3. Originality does play a part. Not for the shake of it but if you write something that could be written 200 years ago, why would anyone listen to your music and not music written 200 years ago. I mean I love Rachmaninov but still he is Romantic, not even neo-romantic. And I need (as a composer), to listen to something more interesting than that. Something that I cannot substitute by listening Chopin or Listz.

A little analysing of my own works (done in a little hurry), revealed that all of them have kind of the same form. AABA. verse verse chorus verse. And I find that boring. I find that unimaginative. I find that not creative. On the other hand I've written pieces with a huge fractal inside for orchestra, and I feel (although the piece after 3 years I find a little rubbish), that it has more chances of staying alive, than something else in an AABA form.

Furthermore there is the communication thing. I write music to say something. I don't write music only to express myself. I do that also, but mainly I want to say something, to express something other than myself. There are the phychatrists to express myself and my family.

I try to philosophize when I write. I try to have a message that I want to come accross. I try to think what the audience will get from my music. I try to believe that even if only 1 person understands what I have to say with my music, then I did my job right. If noone understands then I did my job wrongly.

So the question I'm posting here is this:

Is art only art? Is music just music (and it is the most abstract art of all). Is a poem just for lovers? Is a painting just for the walls? Is the photos just for...

Well.. you get what I'm saying...

And a little note. This idea was first concived last year while I was searching for a subject for my thesis for the PhD I'm doing. Al my professor thougth that it was rubbish and that it was a discussion meant for the pubs instead for a PhD. I actually disagree and feel that with a lot of searching there can be found common ellements in all the succesfull works of art (even in transart...)

Well... Sorry for mumbling and thank you for listening