The Mother of Invention

"Necessity, who is the mother of invention."
             -- Plato, The Republic

When I create, I do so for one of two reasons: because I feel like creating something, or because I need something created to fulfill a specific purpose.  The end result of either type of creating tends to be the same, but the thought processes and efforts behind the two are very different.

Creating just to create is what we think of when we think of the stereotypical "artist" -- a lone and often tortured soul sitting in a secluded room somewhere turning out works of brilliance and magnificence because the Muse demands that she create them.  She creates them without knowing why, without caring who will see or know or care.  What matters here is the creation -- the works must come into being, regardless of their need or use or purpose.

I create this way quite often.  Many of my handbell compositions -- especially the original ones, the ones that aren't arrangements of some other tune -- fall into this category.  Yes, I knew handbell choirs might one day play them, but I wrote them because they wanted and needed to be written.  Many of them, I've never heard a bell choir perform them.  I had no specific use or need of them -- I just wrote them because it was something that was supposed to happen.

Creating to fulfill a purpose, sadly, has gotten a bad wrap in many circles.  Here we think of a creative mind, jaded at the lack of acceptance of his work, sitting churning out "popular" trash, something the masses will eat up despite the fact it has no real artistic value.  It's filler.  It's fluff.  It's stuff of no real significance other than many people will buy it and use it because it's easy and because they don't know any better.

Much of my composing has fallen into this category, but before I go there, let me address the whole notion that this sort of creating is somehow less pure, less artistic, less important than art created under angst-filled circumstances by "real" artists.  I need only one word in defense of this sort of creating: Bach.  Arguably the greatest composer of all time -- certainly the greatest composer of the Baroque era -- wrote nearly every one of his copious collection of works because he needed them for a specific purpose.  Being the organist at a small church in the middle of nowhere, good music was hard to come by.  The solution?  Write his own music.  These pieces that Bach created because he had urgent liturgical need of them are now considered some of the most complex and creative pieces of all time. 

A good many of my pieces have fit this bill: I had a particular time or event in the church year I needed music for, and so I wrote a piece to fill the need.  My forthcoming arrangement of Shenandoah was written because we were having a patriotic concert at the end of June, and I couldn't find enough easy patriotic songs for our handbell choir to play.  The same is true of my first published piece, Il Est Né: our previous handbell choir director wanted me to write something for the group to play, and so I did. 

Instead of looking at art created of necessity as somehow inferior, look at the need as merely the inspiration that sets the piece in motion: I can get my initial "spark" from the ether (or the Muse, if you prefer), or I can get it from real life.  Neither type creation is better or worse than the other, just different. 

Look around at your life today.  See if there is a need somewhere that needs a creative work to fill it.  Maybe you are the one who is supposed to provide what is needed.  If so, get to it, and get creating!