Form vs. formula

OK, so reading back over this post, maybe I was being a little overcritical of myself. The creative process is a pendulum - sometimes it calls for careful discipline and sometimes it calls for wreckless abandon. Sometimes it comes naturally; sometimes it's like a trip to the proctologist (I've never been to a proctologist - I can only imagine.) I think there's a natural tendency to sit at one end of the pendulum and be hypercritical of statements that you've made when you were at a different place in your life.

One thing that I do want to hit on is the idea of "form vs. formula". Obviously, you have to have form. I can tell you all day about the mood and the vibe and the feeling of playing the guitar, but it will do you no good until I start telling you about how to play an A minor chord. So there's a form involved. With songwriting, if you don't know the difference between a verse and a chorus, or have no clue about rhyme schemes, it will be difficult to be much of a success.* Kate O. wrote a wonderful response to my post - I would highly recommend you read it.** And I think a lot of what she's getting at falls under this form thing. She calls it craft, which is probably an even better term for it, but she's absolutely right that you develop certain sensibilities over time that you use to your advantage. You don't wait on the Muse or the mood or whatever to hit you or you may never start. And let's be honest - writing songs is not easy. Any tool that you can use to face your particular dragons and get it done is worth having in your arsenal.

Where the line gets crossed is when you fall into formula as a substitute for genuine artistic expression. That's where you're manipulating the process and focusing on results. Formulas can work to an extent. You might even have a fair amount of success with them. But they ring hollow, and you are inviting yourself to get into a rut. You're forcing it. And that's where you start looking like a hack.

I'm sure I'm not expressing myself adequately. I'll probably disagree with myself if I go back and read this later. But that's the cool thing about blogs, right?

Robert Fritz has a couple of great passages on "form vs. formula" in Creating (I'm reading that right now and loving it - can you tell?). Here's one example:

The form of the creative process is made up of many steps in a particular sequence. But the form is not a fourmula any more than the blues is a forumula for musicians. Many people seek out specific formulas to follow, but if you were to do that in the creative process, you would be working against yourself.

And, as Tai Anderson likes to say, if you compete against yourself, you always lose.

* Of course there are successful songwriters who couldn't tell you what a verse or a chorus is. But just they're doing these things intuitively doesn't mean they don't have an understanding of the form.

** Kate O is a Nashville songwriter and all around hip gal. I met her at the blog party last summer. Be sure also to read the first comment to her post. Great insights about this very subject.

Comments

[Melanie]

I read what Kate wrote, and I have to agree that she stated it well. The book sounds interesting. Let us know what you think at the end and if you think it would be worth reading.

Speaking of books.. have you finished House?
Curious what you thought of it.

--Melanie

[Magnanimity]

Great post. I loved how you said "I think there's a natural tendency to sit at one end of the pendulum and be hypercritical of statements that you've made when you were at a different place in your life."

Moms do this. "I used to always _________ with my kids!" Go to the park, play in puddles, let them make a mess...

On further examination, you find they didn't do it ALL the time...in fact, they only did it twice.

And you spent all that time feeling like a bad Mom for not ________ing.
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So many things a discussion like this echoes my growth curve on in other areas as well as creativity:
Legalism vs. Freedom
Holy Spirit vs. Order
"Parenting" versus "Learning Along With"
Intensity verses Abandon
Depth versus Boundaries