Today I’d like to discuss Mitch Ditkoff’s “14 Way to get Breakthrough Ideas.” If you haven’t yet read it and are in need of finding a break through, or are just looking for some inspirational reading, I highly recommend it. You can find a copy to download here. Ditkoff’s article to me is mainly about your ability to think outside the normal realm of thought, which most people fall into, as they get older. There were multiple mentions of reverting to the way your brain use to think as a child. There were also mentions of reverting to your subconscious or allowing yourself to fantasize. All of these thoughts to me come back to the basic idea of breaking out of your normal everyday thinking process, which is key in being innovative.
The first suggestion I’d like to discuss is the second one Ditkoff mentions, immersion. I think immersion is mostly a good suggestion. While its hard to find a bad suggestion among them, I think immersing yourself into a specific thought or idea could over work the brain, and possibly ruin the idea for yourself. At the end of this suggestion he mentions how companies such as Google give their employees 20% of their work time to immerse themselves in their own ideas. This idea of “selective” immersion, as I would call it, would hopefully not ruin ideas for the person doing the immersing. Leaving an idea and coming back to it hopefully keeps the idea fresh for every time you immerse into it.
Keeping with a similar thought, I really liked his suggestion of taking a break. I think taking a break is the best way to keep ideas fresh. I often times like to step away from song ideas and return to them a week or two later. In that time maybe something new will influence me and stick in my subconscious, and then influence my writing lyrically or instrumentally. I thought the story of Cray spending time during the day to dig a meaningless tunnel was very intriguing. It seems to me as if forcing yourself to take a break, regardless of your state, is beneficial. There would be exemptions to this of course, such as actually feeling like you’ve found the break though and need to fulfill the idea.
The final suggestion I’d like to talk about was his last one, suspending logic. I think the basic idea of suspending logic can be found within a majority of his suggestions, such as fantasizing. Suspending logic is something we do all the time, mostly without even realizing we’re doing it. He speaks of this when talking about going to the movies. Movies aim to take you away from the realities of the world around you and immerse (see, it all ties together) you so that you believe what is actually happening, and are emotionally invested. I think this is my favorite suggestion that Ditkoff makes, and could potentially be the most influential in breaking through.
As a way of closing, I would like to address the prompt at the end of suggestion 12, which states, “What “failed experiment” or unexpected outcome might be interesting for you to reconsider? Who else might you invite to participate in this effort?” My “failed experiment” that I would like to address would be a song I wrote about a year and half ago which contained lyrics regarding my dad and the struggles he faced in his life. When the song idea first came to me it certainly felt like a breakthrough. I had an intro/verse/chorus combination that I felt sounded great, and I think at its core it still does. After implementing the lyrics and showing it to the band I was playing with at the time, I began to lose interest in it. I felt the song had turned soft, almost into a ballad, which was not what I was originally going for. The chorus had no punch, and the lyrics didn’t mesh well emotionally with the instrumental side of the song. I have since revisited this song instrumentally and am looking to resurrect it from its core up. I am looking to add vocals by a musician (cause unfortunately, I bring nothing to the table vocally) who has a more harsh voice of which you can really feel the emotion. I still like bits and pieces of the lyrics but am looking to re-write most parts. I would like to do this in conjunction with the intended singer because I think it is incredibly important for the singer to have an emotional attachment to or understand the lyrics in order for them to best convey the emotion contained in those lyrics. It could turn out great, or it could once again fall flat, in which instance I might decide to take a break, fantasize a bit, revert to my subconscious, and then maybe immerse myself into the idea one more time, in hopes of a breakthrough.
Thanks for reading and have a great day
-Will
No comments:
Post a Comment