There is a central truth about creativity that is so foundational, it may be the most important to understand out of all of them. It is the principle of the ‘Seed.’ This is one of the foundational principles we teach our students in our music school in Odessa, Texas.
Throughout all of the parables Jesus taught, He highlighted the importance of this one concept above all others.
“And He said to them, ‘Do you not understand this parable? And how will you understand all the parables? The sower sows the word…” (Mk. 4:13)
“And He was saying, ‘The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; and goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts up and grows – how, he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, for the harvest has come.” (Mk. 4:26-29)
“Now He Who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food, will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness.” (2 Cor. 9:10)
In the creative arts, the concept of a seed, also referred to as a germ or cell is understood to be the smallest possible idea or fragment that the rest of the work is built upon. Probably the easiest example to demonstrate this concept is the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, in which the first four notes are extrapolated to the next phrase, which is another iteration a half-step higher. He then creates the rest of the phrase using various permutations of the original four notes. This opening statement becomes the thesis for the rest of the first movement and, arguably, the rest of the entire symphony. The entire work was built upon the first seed of four simple notes. In music analysis, this is known as motivic development.
I have noticed, in my own creative projects, that I will get an inspired idea at the strangest, most random, times. Sometimes, in the middle of the night. Sometimes, as I’m waking up in the morning. Sometimes, as I’m taking a walk. The idea comes and it goes. If I don’t capture it, it vanishes away, never to return. When I have a moment like that in the middle of the night, I know if I don’t get up right then and write it down, it will be lost forever. We encourage our students in our music school in Odessa, Texas to capture their ideas.
These moments of inspiration come seemingly from nowhere. But a better way of understanding this is that God gave it. He gives seed to the sower.
Seeds are little miracles. Inside one seed, if it is sown, is another tree with fruit. Inside the developed fruit are more seeds of more trees, for how many generations – no one knows! Seeds are eternal. But they have no future unless they are planted. The only way our students in our music school in Odessa, Texas can blossom, is if they plant the seed of their own courage and creativity.
Our job is not to understand the seed, but to plant the seed.
As this relates to creativity, when you get that moment of inspiration, that’s only the beginning of the process. As mentioned above, the first vital step is to capture the idea, by whatever means. If you have to sketch it out on a napkin, or record it on an available device, just get it down immediately. I carry around a notebook with blank manuscript in it almost everywhere I go. Many times the idea is no bigger than Beethoven’s four notes. It doesn’t matter. There’s something eternal in the idea, it came from Heaven.
When I’m creating, I am a big proponent of original inspiration. Once the piece is completed and I go back to fine-tune the work, making edits and generally cleaning things up, if there is anything related to the seed idea that I am tempted to edit or tweak, I generally shy away from doing so, because I know that this is the DNA of the work itself. Altering it could have major consequences.
In fact, DNA is a good metaphor for the concept I am sharing. Inside a single cell is the map of the entire organism. Also, a hologram image, if broken in pieces has the same characteristics. Each piece of the broken whole contains a likeness of the original image.
My first music composition lessons were from my father. He had studied with some highly regarded composers in Vienna, when he was there studying music, and he passed on to me what he had learned in ways that made the learning process fun.
Once, in a five-hour road trip he asked me if I wanted to play a game. Most families would look out the window for colors or sights. Instead, he challenged me to alternate with him all the ways a seed idea could be motivically developed. I though to myself, “This isn’t going to take long.” But it ended up keeping us occupied to the end of the trip!
Some of the ideas were: play the notes backward (retrograde), play the notes intervalically upside down (inversion), play the notes backwards and upside down (retrograde/inversion). Play the notes twice as slow (augmentation), play them twice as fast (diminution). Combine all of the above ideas…and the list went on. He didn’t give me the theoretical terminology, but I learned that later. We teach these theoretical terms and others to the students in our music school in Odessa, Texas.
The point is, it is not our job to understand the seed, but it is our job to plant, water, fertilize, and harvest it. In other words, after the initial inspiration, it takes work to bring the idea to full maturity.
My wife and I have been gardening for the past several years. It’s highly rewarding to eat some of our own vegetables. But, we quickly realized that gardening requires a lot of strategy, patience, and some trial and error. One of the temptations, while waiting for the seed to sprout, when you still can’t see it, is to poke around a little bit in the dirt. Doing so, however, would be disruptive to the seed’s progress. It is important to let the seed do its work.
Again, in my own creative experience, in working with the seed idea, I find that if I roll the idea around in my imagination a bit, it springs forth into the next idea. It jumps ahead into the next logical iteration (I use the word logical cautiously, because the process is more intuitive than logical). After the seed and its first iteration are there, then I roll that around in my imagination for a bit, then the same thing happens again. Entire compositions grow to completion this way.
Sometimes, seed ideas come to you spontaneously, but it is perfectly acceptable to gather ideas from other people’s fruit. And it is wonderful to share your own ideas with others. Everyone is benefitted from sharing ideas, and everyone will have a unique journey in the process of developing an idea. We encourage the students in our music school in Odessa, Texas to share their creative ideas with each other.
The reason no two people develop ideas the same way is due to the fact that everyone has had a different life-journey. Each person sees the world a little differently. Each student in our music school in Odessa, Texas is unique.
The goal should not be to judge whether one creative journey is better than another, but whether the creator is being honest with him or herself in the process of creation. There are no shortcuts in gardening, and there are no silver bullets with the time, though, effort, faith, patience, and love that it takes to bring a new idea to fruition.