David Bowie’s Five Secrets To Creativity

There’s a wide variety of lists of David Bowie’s advice on creativity, but fellow musician Mike Barden boiled them down to five which I link to here.

To sum them up briefly:

#1 Effortlessness

For many this is a challenge, but the trick may be not to think about being creative but just let it flow.  Lots of creators report that once they actually begin the act of creating, the results simply pour out fast.  I know this happened to me on several different projects.

#2 Learn your craft

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?  Practice, practice, practice.  Conceiving the idea is one thing, actually executing it is another.  The larger your skill set and the more confident you feel about them, the better the final product.

#3 Let go of the old, move into the new

As soon as you feel you’ve mastered a certain level of your creativity, move on to a new, higher level.  Always push yourself forward.  My years writing TV animation were some of the best in my life, but for me it’s over.  I’m on to something new now.

#4 Let it happen on its own time, not yours

I drove producers (and my wife) to despair by my seemingly unorganized work habits.  I appear to be wasting time playing solitaire and watching videos or reading oddball blogs…and then it’s time for the creativity and it just starts coming out.  While it’s good to have set times to focus on creative work, realize when it’s ready for a particular project to come to fruition.  I’ve got works I’ve spent a decade on just gathering material and ideas, then when it’s time to write them they come out blazing fast.

#5 Never play to the gallery

Baseball Hall of Fame Willie Keeler is most famous for this sound piece of advice:  “Hit ‘em where they ain’t.”  Bowie cautions against pursuing what’s pleasing the crowd to focus instead on new ideas, new material that needs an audience to find it instead of the creator searching for an audience.

© Buzz Dixon