Timeless advice for creators
The life of a creator can feel lonely. But you are part of a long history and thriving community of creators—writers, musicians, filmmakers, artists. In these articles, I share examples, principles, and frameworks to help you become a better creator. Sign up to get these sent to your email each week.
I Transcribed Every Pop-Up Bubble from Arcade Fire's "Creature Comfort" Music Video
For their 2017 album, Everything Now, Arcade Fire created an extensive faux-promotional campaign. I’m writing about the album and its promotional campaign in my book project, Sway: How Promotion Has Shaped American Music. One of the features of the campaign was the creation of a fictional, evil corporation that plugged AF’s release with all the vigor and crassness of a profit-mongering company.
The ploy led to a number of funny and caustic creations from the band, one of which was their music video for “Creature Comfort.” Here’s how it went down:
What Are Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Sources?
It is important to understand the difference between primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. These terms refer to how many layers of scholarly interpretation and analysis have been applied to the source material before you are interacting with it. To get a sense of how this works, consider a research project on Duke Ellington’s compositions in the 1940s.
Bibliography Sprint: How to Find 30 Sources in 15 Minutes
Here is a step-by-step process to find relevant sources for your research project quickly and efficiently.
Exactly What to Do in Your First Two Hours of Research
What if you could quickly find the most respected sources and reference information on your topic, organized in a way that would save you time in the outlining, drafting, and proofing stages. And what if you could do that all within the first two hours of research?
Mental Representations for Musicians
Picture in your mind the Mona Lisa. Now take a step back and observe yourself picturing the Mona Lisa. Consider what you are seeing. If you are like most people, you can call up in your mind a general image of the painting by Leonardo da Vinci called the Mona Lisa. We can call this image your "mental representation" of the Mona Lisa.
Research Is a Superpower
Imagine a world without research. What would that world look like?
You would have no ability to seek out answers or information about a decision. You would have only your experience to draw upon. There would be no Google. No YouTube "how to" videos that could teach you how to draw, how to cut your own hair, solve a Rubix cube, or the perfect way to shovel snow in your driveway.
Now imagine, in this world, a scenario in which you are hungry and you are standing in front of a bush that has berries….
4 Tools to Write a Book that People Will Want to Read
Most books are disposables, to be read once and passed on to a friend. Some books are gems, to be analyzed and marveled at for their beauty and power. But some books are what I call “tool books.” Use these four books to write a book that people will want to read...
Twitter as a Research Tool?
In the summer of 2014, my Twitter feed was peppered with images of old and interesting books. Drawings of leaves by Ben Franklin, philosophical marginalia, Massachusetts psalters... They were all being posted by a friend of mine, whom I assumed was on a research trip at an archive and was posting all of her interesting finds. That turned out not to be the case.