Is the medium distracting us from the message?

Photo above by Christina Morillo from Pexels

I take comfort in the fact that even the best artists had to stop tuning their violins, stop buying more paintbrushes or camera lenses or loop pedals, stop pining for “inspiration”, stop blaming their lack of creativity on the fact that they don’t have a cabin in the woods to spend an uninterrupted week in, and simply sit down and create.

The tools of the trade only matter so much, and probably less than we think. But aren’t they a cunning excuse?

Sure, a connoisseur or critic might be able to tell us what a difference it would have made if they’d swapped the Yamaha for a Steinway. But to the rest of us? It doesn’t matter. We’re here for the music and the musician. The artist understands that.

A true creative is aware of the flaws of their medium – they know their piano can’t be tuned perfectly, and they continue playing and composing on it anyway. The clever ones take advantage of it.

A simple way for me to know that I’m hiding from writing?

I’m using the ‘how’ as an excuse for not creating a ‘what’.

HT: Marshall McLuhan