Greg Cohen: What is your signature or what distinguishes your work from everyone else's?

Dennis DeSantis: Rewriting over and over again to try to get things to be as simple as possible, but no simpler.

Based on your own work and what you've seen in workshops, which have been the most fruitful as far as actually getting people started or yourself started?

The one that comes to mind immediately is the one about setting up your workspace, mise en place. Trying to make sure that the tools at hand are ready to go when you need them. The "write drunk, edit sober" thing. It's super important that you separate the stage of ecstatic creativity from the stage of actually figuring out what was good. It’s hard to separate them because you're constantly judging what you hear. 

If you use generative or algorithmic tools, what's good about that process is not the quality, but the quantity. 99% of what you get out is junk, but if what you get out is four hours of material, then 1% of that is quite a bit of material.

And when you begin something, do you begin with the end in mind, or do you let it evolve organically?

I make the big part first, and then the actual composition is stripping away.

Does your creative process have a similar or different structure when you're undertaking different things? 

Figure out what you've got once you have something. A lot of people who are sort of paralyzed by the blank page. My answer to that is always to just do stuff. It's just junk. But put something down. Then you have a thing to work from rather than nothing, because a bad idea is a better place to start than no idea. The difference between not hearing sound and hearing sound is vast conceptually.

Based on your own work and what you've seen in workshops, what are the most fruitful ways of progressing something?

Creating different ways to take a small collection of musical ideas and spin it out into more. Often it's like a math process that will yield more results. It's all about auditioning those results, improvising with these tools.

At what point in your creative process do you test your assumptions or challenge your creative choices?

It's constant, kind of a/b testing. What I don't do is workshop things with other people.

What stops your creative flow faster than anything?

Technical hurdles, interruption.

What is your top technique for getting yourself unblocked?

Have a few projects that are quite different from each other that I can bounce between. The risk is that you switch because you're bored or you switch because you're just trying to seek variety.

What is a telltale sign that it's time to abandon an idea?

The sketches folder grows much faster than it shrinks. You end up building this kind of mental clutter too. I will easily abandon things in the first 15 minutes.

Greg Cohen: In your own words, what do you create?

Dennis DeSantis: In my free time, I'm also creating little software toys that are ways for me and then hopefully other people to explore musical problems.

What is your signature or what distinguishes your work from everyone else's?

Trying to find the most concise way to tell the story that I'm trying to tell. Rewriting over and over again to try to get things to be as simple as possible, but no simpler.

When do you do your most creative work, and why do you think that is?

I do my most creative work in the evening, because it's after I'm done with family obligations for the day. There's always this sort of spurious thing where you're going for a walk and then you come up with the thing. It's more like that's where the seed comes from, but then the work is actually spinning that out into something coherent.

How much of your day are you actively engaged in your creative work?

There's administrative and bureaucratic overhead stuff that doesn't feel creative, but hopefully feeds into the larger creativity stuff.

And how do you reconcile or integrate your electronic music interests with your classical education that you picked up later?

If I'm doing things that are experiments, the training is in the mix, but not always in a conscious way.

And which of your influences can you see reflected in your own work?

I'll often realize that I took stuff from that for use in very different genres and in a way that I never would have thought about unless I'd listened to that music again. Often it's stylistically totally divorced from the original thing. I don't think about them when I'm doing it. They're just in the mix.

Based on your own work and what you've seen in workshops, which have been the most fruitful as far as actually getting people started or yourself started?

The one that comes to mind immediately is the one about setting up your workspace, mise en place. Trying to make sure that the tools at hand are ready to go when you need them. The "write drunk, edit sober" thing. It's super important that you separate the stage of sort of ecstatic creativity from the stage of actually figuring out what was good. It’s hard to separate them because you're constantly judging what you hear. 

If you use generative or algorithmic tools, what's good about that process is not the quality, but the quantity. 99% of what you get out is junk, but if what you get out is four hours of material, then 1% of that is quite a bit of material.

And when you begin something, do you begin with the end in mind, or do you let it evolve organically?

I make the big part first, and then the actual composition is stripping away.

Does your creative process have a similar or different structure when you're undertaking different things? Like, when you're writing your documentation or writing your music or your sound design, does it have a similar or different structure?

Figure out what you've got once you have something. A lot of people who are sort of paralyzed by the blank page. My answer to that is always to just do stuff. It's just junk. But put something down. Then you have a thing to work from rather than nothing, because a bad idea is a better place to start than no idea. 

You have this world of references and your past and the past of the art form, but you still are faced with the nothingness of the new thing you're making. You can start it from a template or something, but it's still waiting for you to make the first move.

How do you set up your environment or conditions to create. How do you get in the mood or create your fertile soil?

Just make sure you do something. The difference between not hearing sound and hearing sound is sort of vast conceptually.

Based on your own work and what you've seen in workshops, what are the most fruitful ways of progressing something?

Creating different ways to take a small collection of musical ideas and spin it out into more. Often it's like a math process that will yield more results. It's all about auditioning those results, improvising with these tools.

And what makes one idea more promising than another?

I think it's just a vibe, something about taste. I have an idea about a field of possibilities that I think might be interesting based on experiences I've had in the past, but then where I land in that field, you don't know until you hear it.

And at what point in your creative process do you test your assumptions or challenge your creative choices?

It's constant, kind of a/b testing. What I don't do is workshop things with other people.

And moving on to questions about finishing. How do you know when you're done?

You can get to the point where you're really dealing with diminishing returns. You need to go for a walk and clear your head. You're doing this fine detail thing to prevent yourself from saying that it's done, because that's a big commitment. Just do the next thing instead. It's good enough.

And for you, what makes a creative project successful?

I think if it vibes. By far the most popular piece of electronic music that I've made, I have no idea why it's so popular.

Moving on to questions around sources of inspiration and collaboration. Where do you find inspiration?

It's usually other music.

Who, if anyone, is creating music that makes you think, “I wish I made that?”

I never hear music that sounds like something I would make.

When and where do your lightning bolt ideas occur?

Those kinds of things somehow often come on a run. There's probably something physiological about not focusing on the problem, but instead focusing on some physical challenge. And there's endorphins involved. 

How much of your creative process is solitary, and how much is collaboration with others?

I get something like a brief, and then I go make six versions of a thing.

What role, if any, does feedback play in your creativity?

I think it's interesting if I put an excerpt of music on social media, it's interesting to hear what people have to say, but it isn't going to steer my direction about it.

And what stops your creative flow faster than anything?

Technical hurdles, interruption.

Do you have any notable failures that other people could learn from?

I was just not well suited for writing music that was meant to be played by other people. I had zero tolerance for interpretation. Only a machine can give you that.

That's a good lesson. I like that. What is your top technique for getting yourself unblocked?

Have a few projects that are quite different from each other that I can bounce between. The risk is that you switch because you're bored, or you switch because you're just trying to seek variety.

Can you think of a time that a constraint was beneficial to your creativity?

Deadlines are always beneficial.

For you, what is a telltale sign that it's time to abandon an idea?

If anything is ever good enough to save, then I probably will keep it forever. The sketches folder grows much faster than it shrinks. You end up building this kind of mental clutter too. I will easily abandon things in the first 15 minutes.

What type or kind of work would you like to do that you haven't done yet?

I would like to do the things that I've done before on a bigger scale or to a higher degree of quality. As you do that, the scope deepens or expands, but also the field of possibilities expands.

What do you think different creative fields have in common? And is there anything universal to most or all of them?

A willingness to get dirty with it.

What skill or technique from a different field would you like to bring into your own work?

Embodied cognition, dexterity, agility, stamina, control.

How do you right size your setup, meaning having the correct and right number of tools to do what you need to do so you aren't overwhelmed with options or missing something you need?

There's this notion of gear acquisition syndrome. Where people just buy stuff that they never use or never get good at.

Who do you think of when I say most creative person?

Beethoven, Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder.

Any update on a follow up to your book?

I think one thing I would want to do if I did another book would be to get out of my own head a little bit. I think it's more interesting for another book as a kind of collector or curator.

Greg Cohen: So we'll start with questions about you personally and your projects and personality and habits and things of that nature. So, in your own words, what do you create?

Dennis DeSantis: That's a great question. I guess it depends on the project and the particular angle. I mean, I make music. That's sort of the thing that everything comes from. But these days, it's often a lot of instructional material, which is what I do for my job. And then in my free time, I'm also creating little software toys that are ways for me and then hopefully other people, to explore musical problems that I'm finding interesting lately. So I'll go down a particular path of a kind of musical exploration and then realize that the best way to open the field up is to make a piece of software that lets me explore in that space.

Okay, and what are you working on recently that you're super excited about?

Let's see. In my job at Ableton, we're wrapping up work on a website that will ship alongside the upcoming version of Ableton Live. And this will be a website that's focused on helping to explain tuning systems, so different approaches to developing systems of pitch, which is something that live now will be able to support, changeable tuning systems. And then our website is a kind of educational companion playground for this feature. So that's something that I've been enjoying working on. I guess I'm always enjoying working on music. That's something I'm excited about. And then some of these various software tools that I'm working on my own time that are both tools for me to make music and also tools for me to sort of talk about musical things that I'm interested in.

Okay. And what is your signature or what distinguishes your work from everyone else's?

Musically, I don't think I'd be able to say. I think in terms of the tools and the pedagogy stuff, maybe it has something to do with trying to find the most concise way to tell the story that I'm trying to tell. So I worked a lot on that in the book, for example, like rewriting over and over again to try to get things to be as simple as possible, but no simpler.

That was an amazing book, by the way, and it's applicable to all genres. If you take out the musical nomenclature. I'm primarily a visual creator and it has as much applicability to me as it does to the people that use DAWs and things of that nature. It's an amazing book and I recommend it to anyone who does anything creatively.

That's great to hear. I'm glad to hear that.

When do you do your most creative work, and why do you think that is?

I mean, realistically, it's probably largely driven by the reality of my day. So I think outside of my day job, I think I do my most creative work in the evening, because that's when I'm not at work and it's after I'm done with sort of family obligations for the day. I try to separate work and not work, but the domains are so intertwined that it's not always so easy to do that. 

I think for my day job, the most creative work is done during the working hours. But then there's always this sort of spurious thing where you're going for a walk and then you come up with the thing. But I don't know if that's necessarily creative work. It's more like that's where the seed comes from, but then the work is actually spinning that out into something coherent.

Okay, that's excellent. How much of your day are you actively engaged in your creative work?

Well, all of it, maybe all of my day. I have a normal day job, an eight hour a day job. So as much of the time as possible is spent trying to be creative during that time. Of course, there's like administrative and bureaucratic overhead stuff that doesn't feel creative, but hopefully feeds into the larger creativity stuff. And then I try to get in a few more hours in the evenings. So it works out pretty well. Quite a bit of time.

Okay. And how do you reconcile or integrate your electronic music interests with your classical education that you picked up later?

It's a good question. And it was sort of, I don't know if it's quite a one two thing. It's more like a one two one thing. So the electronic music interests came first. The classical study came kind of in the middle, and then I sort of looped back around to doing electronic music stuff afterwards. How do I reconcile? I get asked this question a lot and I never have a good answer for it. 

I guess I don't think a lot about the quote unquote classical music stuff that I studied, but it's like the baseline for a lot of things. In a less conscious way, I think. So if I'm doing things that are experiments with rhythm or harmony, the training is in the mix, but not always in a conscious way. In fact, usually not in a conscious way.

I can dig it. It sounds like a soup, and the broth is the classical education, and then the noodles or the meat or whatever is what you're trying to do, the active electronic music stuff.

I guess. I like the analogy, but which one is which probably changes from day to day. There are, of course, times also when I need to be really in the weeds of language, and that I tend to rely also maybe more heavily on the classical stuff, because I need to get the language right.

Okay. And which of your influences can you see reflected in your own work?

Oh, that's interesting. I mean, musically, it's weird, for sure, because I often notice I'll often listen to something and then realize that there's something in that music. Like, if I listen back to music that I listened to a lot in my younger years, I'll often realize that I took stuff from that for use in very different genres and in a way that I never would have thought about unless I'd listened to that music again. When I hear it again, I realize, oh, yeah, I ripped that off. But often it's stylistically totally divorced from the original thing. So a lot of sort of prog rock and fusion things that I listened to when I was in high school show up in my techno now in ways that I think would be easy to point out. But I don't think about them when I'm doing it. They're just in the mix again. The soup, I guess.

Okay, moving on to questions about process and specifically about getting started. In your amazing book, Making Music, you outlined 25 techniques for getting started based on your own work and what you've seen in workshops, which have been the most fruitful as far as actually getting people started or yourself started?

It's a good question. I'd have to look at that chapter of the book again. I don't even remember what they are offhand. If you'll let me cheat and look a little bit… I should probably have the book open. Hold on, I'm actually going to grab a... No, I don't have a hard copy in here. I need to think about it. It's a good question. I mean, certainly the one that comes to mind immediately is the one about setting up your workspace. Like, yeah, mise en place. 

Plus, trying to make sure that the tools at hand are ready to go when you need them. I think that's pretty important. Just because otherwise, you end up fumbling with stuff that should just work and then doesn't just work. I'm looking through the stuff now. Well, the write drunk edit sober thing, people bring that up all the time, because it's just such a catchy quote, which I can't take any credit for. Like, I stole that from apparently Hemingway is the person that came up with this, but that's apocryphal. 

But I think it's super important that you separate the stage of sort of ecstatic creativity from the stage of actually figuring out what was good. If you try to put those together, it often turns into a mess. And it's hard actually to separate them because you're constantly judging what you hear, even if you're trying not to. But I think there's value in eliminating the judgment. Like, maybe a good example of this, and I talked to my students about this, too. If you use tools that are, like, generative or algorithmic tools, they will create tons of material for you. 

And what's good about that process is not the quality, but the quantity, because 99% of what you get out is junk. But if what you get out is 4 hours of material, then 1% of that is quite a bit of material. And then the trick is to, after you get the stuff that's mostly garbage, you really take the time to audition and listen to what you have and then be ruthless about throwing the stuff away that doesn't make the cut, whether it's generative or whether you made it. I think it's very important to try to keep those things separate.

Okay. And when you begin something, do you begin with the end in mind, or do you let it evolve organically?

I let it evolve organically. I do sometimes do a thing, and I think maybe there even is a chapter in the book about this where I make the big part first, and then the actual composition is stripping away. So if there will be a point in the music that will be the most dense or the most active, that sometimes is the thing that I make first. Not always by design, but often it just works out that way. And then I realize that what I need to do is not add more, but strip things away to make the rest of it. So often the thing that I end up making is, like, the middle, and then I taper that off towards the edges.

Okay. Does your creative process have a similar or different structure when you're undertaking different things? Like, when you're writing your documentation or writing your music or your sound design, does it have a similar structure or a different structure?

There's certainly aspects of it that are similar. The thing that changes it often is if I'm doing it collaboratively or if I'm doing it alone. But if I'm doing things alone, it does often take the same form. I guess I never really thought about it before, but a thing I talked to a colleague of mine about often, actually, is that for writing, the thing to do is just write. Like for writing words, just write and write and write.

That's fine.

Okay. And then figure out what you've got once you have something. So I see a lot of people who are sort of paralyzed by the blank page. Like, whether it's music or words or for visual art, probably a blank canvas, this idea of like, well, what do I do? Anything is possible. And then my answer to that is always to just do stuff. It's just junk, it's garbage. But put something down, and then you have a thing to work from rather than nothing, because a bad idea is a better place to start than no idea.

Oh, that's powerful. I like that.

For me, at least, I find that I can't write anything. I can't write things from scratch. If I just write something, then I have a thing to look at and say, well, that's not very good, but if I change this word it’s fine, you know?

One of my other interviews was with Amon Tobin, who's an electronic musician, and he had mentioned and I thought it was profound. He said, there is no such thing as scratch. You're always beginning from something. You always have something in your past or something in the background that creates. So there is no blank page, so to speak.

That's true, but it's true in principle. But in practice, there is the blank page. You have to remember that you have this world of references and your past and the past of the art form, but you still are faced with the nothingness of the new thing you're making. So I think it's totally right. What he's saying is completely right. But it's not always so obvious when what you're facing looks like a blank page, like literally a blank page. If you're in a word processor or a DAW or Photoshop or whatever, there is such a thing as a blank document. You can start it from a template or something, but it's still waiting for you to make the first move.

Okay, how do you set up your environment or conditions to create. How do you get in the mood or create your fertile soil?

I mean, some of it's driven by time pressure, actually. Nothing motivates like a deadline, for sure. If you have to get something done, you just do it. And if you don't have to get something done, you can create artificial deadlines for yourself. And that works pretty well. Otherwise, a good cup of tea, the right light, making your space interesting. Those things are nice. Those are like, kind of simple answers. 

Maybe another thing is to just make sure that you, well, it's similar to the thing I was saying before. Like, just make sure you do something. Because if what I'm trying to do is make sound, for example, not hearing sound, the difference between not hearing sound and hearing sound is sort of vast conceptually. So I just start making sound, and then I can quickly say more in this direction or more in this direction. So in some ways, the fertile soil starts from trying to make analogy out of this, and it's not really working. Like, just dig in, right? You're looking at the dirt. So grab the thing and go.

Okay, moving on to questions about evolving the work. So, once again, in your book, you outline 37 techniques for progressing work. And then, similar question, based on your own work and what you've seen in workshops, what are the most fruitful ways of progressing something?

I mean, that chapter gets quite in the weeds a little bit, where there are a lot of things in there that really are quite about electronic music production. It would be difficult to take some of those things and rethink them for other practices. Not all of them. I mean, some of them, it works just fine, but a lot of them are really about, like, music. I would say, looking at that list again, the variation exercises that I do are things that actually occupy a lot of my software time these days, creating different ways to take a small collection of musical ideas and spin it out into more. So a lot of the tools that I've made lately, for the past few years actually, are about kind of systematic ways of doing that. 

Given a collection of notes, what are some things that you can do to those notes that are driven by a certain type of process? Often it's like a math process that will yield more results. But then in the end, it's all about auditioning those results, improvising with these tools in the way that you might improvise with an instrument, and then keeping the parts that are good.

Okay, and how has your role as Ableton's lead of documentation and kind of guiding their social media aided your own musical production?

That's from an older bio, probably the bio in the book. I don't really have either of those jobs anymore. My job now, my title is head of music learning, and I work running a small team that builds these web based music learning resources. So we have this site called learning music and a site called learning synths. I can go in the past and address those old jobs a little bit if it would be useful, but it's not what I do anymore.

Okay. How has your new role aided your own musical production? How has teaching enabled you to work better as a musician?

I mean, there's a sense in which you want to kind of practice what you preach. You want to be able to bring examples of a thing that you think is interesting so that you can demonstrate in music, not just in words, what it is that you're saying to students. I think in addition to the work that I do for Ableton, I also teach, and that feels much more like a place where I can really apply things in a more direct way. 

The stuff I do for Ableton is also music education, but it isn't in real time. It's mediated through the web as the medium. But when I teach in real time, I can also see what kinds of things resonate with people, which kinds of ideas seem like they spark curiosity in other people. And I take that back and think about, well, what is it actually that person was interested in? And is that actually musically interesting for me, too? I'm often inspired by what inspires them.

Okay. What percentage of your creative time is spent experimenting?

All of it. I think it's all that. You fall back on patterns, for sure. But in the end, I'm always trying to do something that's a little bit different than things I did before. I'm a little bit skeptical of “This worked this time. I'm going to do exactly the same thing the next time.” So I'm always trying to find a grain of experimentation in everything.

And what makes one idea more promising than another?

I think it's just a vibe. Like, I don't think I could answer that. You just know when you know.

No, that's a good answer in itself.

It's something about taste. I'm not claiming to have good taste, but I have my taste like I know what works for me, and then I know it when I hear it. I often don't know it until I hear it, though. That's the thing. I have an idea about a field of possibilities that I think might be interesting based on experiences I've had in the past, but then where I land in that field, you don't know until you hear it.

Okay. And at what point in your creative process do you test your assumptions or challenge your creative choices?

I mean, I guess it depends on what you mean by test and challenge. In a way, it's related to the last answer. I know when I hear it, whether that's the promising direction or whether I need to shift. And eventually it really does kind of become a kind of weird autopilot thing. Where not autopilot because I know the process, but autopilot, where it just becomes so obvious what the right thing to do is. Like, you turn the knob, and it sounds better. You turn it a little bit more, and it sounds worse. So you backtrack. Well, what is better? What is worse? It's just taste. That's the thing. 

So the tests and the challenges come from, does that thing resonate with me or did the last thing resonate? It's constant, kind of a/b testing, I guess, but I'm the test subject, so what I don't do is, like, workshop things with other people. If I'm making the music alone, I guess if you're collaborating, you're doing that continuously. But if I'm making music alone, which is most of what I do, then I am the first audience, and then once I'm satisfied, then other people get to hear it.

Okay. Honing your craft is a nonlinear process. Sometimes you make leaps and bounds. And to what events or practices would you attribute your greatest gains in skill?

It's just time. I'm not a natural at anything. Anything. But anything that I can do at any level of competence just came from time, pushing it and trying to get a little better. And as you said, it's not linear. When I was actively playing physical instruments, I would spend a lot of time practicing. And it was so weird how it worked. Like, you'd spend 8 hours on a thing and not get better, and then the next day you'd be worse, and the next day you'd be worse again, and then suddenly you could do it. There was no rhyme or reason to it. 

It was really nonlinear, like you said. And it's so infuriating when it's going in the wrong direction and mystical when it's going in the right direction. But in the end, it's just time. There probably are geniuses and prodigies out there, but I don't think I've ever met any. It's just work.

Okay. And moving on to questions about finishing. How do you know when you're done?

It's the same thing. It's just the vibe. You just know. That's dangerous, though, because you can get to the point where you're really dealing with diminishing returns, and you trick yourself into thinking, “Oh, I turn it up, I turn it down. I turn it up again. I turned it down again.” It's like at that point, you need to go for a walk and clear your head, because you aren't actually making changes. 

You're doing this fine detail thing, probably to prevent yourself from saying that it's done, because that's a big commitment, right? You say, this is it. It's good enough. I can't make it better. But you know, deep down, you could always make it better, right? Like, it's got to be possible, but then why? Just do the next thing instead. It's good enough.

And for you, what makes a creative project successful?

Mmm, that's a good question. I think if it vibes again, like, if I like it. If it did something for me. I mean, for certain creative projects, like software projects, it's different because it either works or it doesn't. If I'm trying to make a tool to do x and it does x, then all I could possibly do after that is refine or make more efficient or optimize in some way. But it either works or it doesn't. Whereas with music or with pedagogy, it's not so simple. There's always nuance and shades. With the music, you just kind of know. I just kind of know. And successful, I don't know. Like, other people may completely disagree. 

By far the most popular piece of music I've made, electronic music that I've made, I have no idea why it's so popular. It was kind of like a last minute thing that went on a record, and I didn't think about it very much. And it seems to have resonated with people for reasons I don't know. I really don't.

Okay. Moving on to questions around sources of inspiration and collaboration. Where do you find inspiration?

I think, practically speaking, it's usually other music. If I'm thinking about musical inspiration, it's usually other music. I'm hearing something that sounds fresh to me or something that I know has resonated with me in the past, and it's coming back up on my radar. I'm not like a voracious consumer of new music. Not because I think, well, we have already done all the good stuff. It's just more that I often find myself doing that. But then I'm always happy to hear new stuff that resonates with me. And that's always inspiring to hear good new stuff, but also to hear good old stuff.

As far as media, like books, blogs, magazines, podcasts, things of that nature, is there anything you can recommend on creativity?

Honestly, I don't really consume anything that's really about that. I wouldn't say that I'm like, besides this book, I'm not necessarily thinking so much these days about creativity in the abstract, the way I think you are. For me, it's more about trying to focus on very specific types of practices. Yeah, and I'm not a podcast person. I have nothing to recommend there. And the books that I'm reading these days are usually not about artistic practice. I'm reading books about computer programming or politics.

Okay, that's fair enough. Who, if anyone, is creating music that makes you think, “I wish I made that”?

It's very rare that I have that reaction to a piece of music, because I never hear music that sounds like something I would make. I hear music that's inspiring to me, but for in its direction, it's more like, I'm happy that person made that thing. There's so much. There's so much stuff out there, but, yeah, I never have that particular reaction to it. It's an interesting one, and I understand why people do, but for me, it's more like I'm just happy that I'm on the same planet as that music.

Okay, and when. And where do your lightning bolt ideas occur?

I don't think I really have those so much. Very rarely does an idea come that feels like it's in any way fully formed. Sometimes lightning bolt solutions come. Like I'm stuck with something, and that's usually if I'm doing something like software, where I didn't know how to fix a particular problem. Those kinds of things somehow often come on a run, like while I'm running. There's probably something physiological about not focusing on the problem, but instead focusing on some physical challenge. And there's endorphins involved, and that probably has something to do with it.

How much of your creative process is solitary, and how much is collaboration with others?

Well, for my job, quite a bit of it is collaborative, but often not the parts that I would consider the most creative. There's often more the administrative parts or the review parts, or the parts where we're trying to work out a problem together. 

I would say, most of the time it's me. It is solitary. For music especially. I occasionally will do music for theater. There's a director I've occasionally worked with and that's more collaborative. But even then, it's often about, I get something like a brief, and then I go make six versions of a thing, and then I'm told somebody else is making the decisions then about which direction to go. But then the work is still just me. 

Like, I don't play in bands anymore. I loved those experiences. I mean, they were super fun, but it's just not what I'm doing now. So I would say almost all of what I would consider creative work is solitary work.

Okay. And what role, if any, does feedback play in your creativity?

Well, certainly for the pedagogy stuff, you're making a thing for other people. You're trying to do something for someone else's benefit, and there you need to know whether it's working or not. I consider that creative work, but it's not creative work for which I'm the most important audience. Like, I'm the least important audience. So feedback there is vital, and you often don't get it very directly. You often have to figure out what it is. 

You can't ask, like, “Does it inspire you?” It's more like you can tell from the way the conversation is going whether or not the person's getting something out of it that they're going to be able to use in their own practice. For music, I think it's interesting if I put an excerpt of music on social media, it's interesting to hear what people have to say, but it isn't going to steer my direction about it. Like, I have to be the first audience for that stuff.

Okay. And moving on to questions around challenges or obstacles. For you, what is the hardest part of creation?

It's probably just being able to get into a flow. Like find enough uninterrupted time with enough able headspace to do it. I've been really privileged to have times in my life when I had big chunks of largely uninterrupted time. I don't have that as much anymore because I have a full time job and a family, which is great. Those are great things to have in your life, too, but they do make it challenging to get into a thing. I find that to really do what seems to me to be interesting work, I have to get into. I need, like, lots of time. I'm not great with little pockets.

Okay. And what stops your creative flow faster than anything?

Technical hurdles, interruption. Probably those I would say. I mean, if you're trying to do something and the tools suddenly stop functioning, then you are stuck. Whether it's a broken guitar string or a software crash or something that takes you out right away, because the medium is gone.

Do you have any notable failures that other people could learn from?

Notable failures? Yeah, I mean, I think, by and large, I was not particularly successful at writing music for other people. I don't mean successful, like, actually, career wise, that stuff was kind of going okay, but the music was not very interesting. And for me, the problem was that I was just not well suited for writing music that was meant to be played by other people. Like, I was never satisfied by what I heard, and they were rarely satisfied by what they had to play. And it took me a long time to figure out that what I really wanted to be doing was making music for machines. That's actually just what I wanted to hear. 

And I think there was another situation where the questions about feedback were very obvious for me. Like, people wanted to be active participants in that creative process, as they should be. I was writing music for them, but I was often just not interested in the kind of interpretive layer that was there, that just comes naturally when you write music for other people. What I wanted was exactly what I wanted, which is a terrible collaborative attitude. It's just not the way a good collaborator works. 

Now, playing in a rock band would be a different thing. I don't feel like… That is about the collaborative relationship. But when I was writing music for other people, I really knew what I wanted. And I realized after a while that the problem was not the people who were playing the music. The problem was me. It was that I had zero tolerance for interpretation. I wanted it to sound exactly like how I wanted it to sound, and only a machine can give you that. So I was a pretty lousy composer for people. I think some of the music was fine and some of the experiences were great, but it was mostly luck. Like, it was that I happened to get what I wanted, or even occasionally that I was surprised by something that was better than what I had imagined. And this is not at all a reflection of the people who played the music, because they were, like some of the best musicians I've ever met. It was just me. I was the problem. So I don't know. 

Your question, though, was about advice to give to other people. Right. Like, things that people could learn from my failure. And I think there's something in there about understand what your tolerance is. If you're working with other people, understand how wide a tolerance you have for what they'll bring to the table, because that's what collaboration depends on. For sure, is two people making something that's better than what one of them has in mind, than what either of them would have in mind. And I was terrible at this, really bad at it.

That's a good lesson. I like that. Thank you. What is your top technique for getting yourself unblocked?

Time away, I think. What's useful for me is to have a few projects that are quite different from each other that I can bounce between. And the risk is that you switch because you're bored or you switch because you're just trying to seek variety or something. But if I really am blocked, then I find that dropping one and going to something else is like a nice way to clear the air. And often in the process of doing the other thing, I'll realize that I can bounce back to the first one. I'll get unblocked for the other one by working on Project B. I don't know why that is.

That comes up frequently in the people we interview. They like bouncing in between different facets of their work and seems to get people unblocked pretty well. Can you think of a time that a constraint was beneficial to your creativity?

Oh, yeah. Deadlines, for sure. Deadlines are always beneficial. You have to make it work, you know. Certainly, like these theater projects I've done have been great. The constraint there is, you're not making the music for you're making it for use. Like use in another artistic project in a different medium. It has to set a scene, but it has to be unobtrusive. The parameters for that are really well known, and that's a place where I found that collaboration worked quite well, because I knew already the compromises that I would have to make going in. So they weren't compromises anymore, they were just the field in which I had to play.

For you, what is a telltale sign that it's time to abandon an idea?

That's a good question. I don't think I really have a good answer for that, because I don't tend to throw anything away. I mean, if I ever make the effort, if anything is ever good enough to save, then I probably will keep it forever. Like the sketches folder grows and grows and grows much faster than it shrinks. And I've discovered things that I started years ago that still felt like they had a chance. I'm not sure that's a good attitude, because you end up building this kind of mental clutter too. But I very rarely abandon stuff past a certain point. Like, I will easily abandon things in the first 15 minutes. Lots of false starts there. But once I, if I'm thinking about it in a kind of both literal and metaphorical way, once I've pressed save, that project is alive forever.

What type or kind of work would you like to do that you haven't done yet?

Oh, that's an interesting question. That's an interesting question. I mean, I've done most of the things that I can think of that are interesting to me, which is kind of a nice position to be in. I don't know if it's type, it's more scope. Like, I would like to do the things that I've done before on a bigger scale or to a higher degree of quality. I'm always trying to improve. And I guess as you do that, the scope deepens, ideally, or expands, but also the field of possibilities expands. 

Like, I'm interested in more and more aspects of the things that I do all the time, and the old ones also don't go away. A thing that I mention to people often is I can't really think of any music that I used to like. It's just cumulative for me. It's just additive. Like, I don't have guilty pleasures. The cheesy stuff that I liked as a kid, I still like now. And I would tell anyone that. It doesn't go away. It's just an additive process.

Okay. And moving on to questions about creative crossover. You have more than one creative skill or job. What do you think different creative fields have in common? And is there anything universal to most or all of them?

I was afraid you were going to ask me that because that's kind of the premise for your whole project here, right? Is like this, looking for a kind of grand unified theory of creativity. I don't really know. I don't really know. I mean, when you have conversations with people, as you mentioned a couple of times in this talk, you do hear themes that turn up, but it's hard for me to know what's going on in other people's heads or how they think about things. 

At least in my experience, common themes seem to be like work and time and persistence, and just like a willingness to get dirty with it, whatever it is. Nothing comes easy or free for anybody that I think I've ever met. Like, I went to schools with really great musicians, much more talented than me, but I never met anybody who didn't work, who was good. I met a lot of people who didn't work, who weren't good. But I never met anybody who was good just like as a miracle or something. They all worked hard. Everyone worked hard. 

So I think that maybe a common thread there is that you need to be the kind of person who can just do stuff for a long time without getting very bored.

Okay, that's useful. That's very useful. What skill or technique from a different field would you like to bring into your own work?

I would like to be a better instrumentalist. It's not really a different field, but I think about the kind of precision muscle control that great musicians have, but also that great athletes have, kind of embodied cognition, dexterity, agility, stamina, control, these kinds of things. I would like to be... I mean, my software building practice is, like, completely untrained and very ad hoc. And I'm not good at this, but I work with engineers who are amazing, and I'm always inspired by their ability to see a problem and then break the problem down into smaller steps. So I would like to be able to bring more of this kind of disciplined computational thinking to everything. It's not always the right approach, especially for creative work. It can often be, like the wrong approach. But when it's necessary, that's something that I think I could learn from computer people.

Okay, and how do you right size your setup, meaning having the correct and right number of tools to do what you need to do so you aren't overwhelmed with options or missing something you need?

Yeah, that's a good question. That's a big problem for probably people in all disciplines, but certainly for electronic music makers. There's this notion of gear acquisition syndrome, they call it. Where people just buy stuff that they never use or never get good at. For me, some of it comes quite easily because I'm pretty cheap. So I don't buy physical gear. I don't buy equipment very often. I have very little musical hardware, for example. My software world is probably over cluttered, but I'm not a person who has, like, walls of synthesizers. That's not something that's really a part of my interests. So that keeps the physical clutter low for sure. At the expense, maybe of a little bit of mise en place. Right. Because those people can just turn stuff on and play. And for me, I have to load software, which is maybe a little bit more of a hassle. I don't have toys that I can just immediately touch.

Who do you think of when I say most creative person?

I mean, slightly embarrassed to say that the first names that popped into my head are like canonic European artists, which feels like the wrong kind of answer. Like a Beethoven or something. I mean Miles Davis invented, like reinvented jazz four or five times. That's pretty impressive, at the highest level. People like Stevie Wonder, who can kind of do everything. It's not business folks. It's not entrepreneurs. It's always artists for me. Or like thinkers, you know. Philosophers sometimes, I think are interesting examples.

That's a good answer. Good picks.

Sure.

Is there anyone else you can think of that we should talk to for this project?

It's a good question. I mean, you could slice it by disciplines, probably. That's probably an interesting way of thinking about it. Like architects, choreographers, film people, writers, philosophers. Philosophers would be interesting people to talk to, for sure. Neuroscientists. I don't have names offhand, but I would imagine asking people from very different disciplines would be interesting. Just because you'll get, well, that gets you maybe closer to getting to a grand unified theory. Like, if you talk to people who are really in different disciplines, but you start getting the same kinds of answers, then you might be onto something. Linguists? I don't know.

That's a good one. That's an interesting one I haven't heard yet.

Could be something there.

And since you're in Germany and you can't throw anything at me, I know you've heard this one before. Any update on a follow up to your book?

Oh, that's interesting. I mean, I have some ideas. They're too kind of nascent to talk about, but I think one thing I would want to do if I did another book, whatever it ended up being, would be to get out of my own head a little bit. Like, that book is a lot about my own practice, and it was kind of a risk, like thinking about this first audience thing. It's like, well, I don't think I'm that weird. So the things that I think are interesting for my own practice might end up being interesting for other people's practice, too. And then it turns out that they were, which was really lucky for me. 

But what I'd really want to do is go out and interview people if I were to do another one about what they do, kind of like what you're doing. I think it would be interesting to talk to other people I look up to get their take on whatever it is that I'm trying to do, just because otherwise it's just going to be more me. And I think it's more interesting I think I could be more interesting for another book as a kind of collector or curator.

Okay. And the last question I have for you, it's difficult to choose between your children, but what is your favorite work you've done so far in your career?

They're pretty different. I don't know. I'm really proud of the first full length record I did, because that was… I made that at a time when I was also, like, finishing a grad school dissertation, and it was a little bit of a rebellious thing to do. Like, I should be working on my dissertation, but I'm going to make a techno record instead. And I don't know where… 

That really felt like a very fertile, creative period. I made it all relatively fast. I was always surprised with where the music was coming from. That was the closest thing I think I've ever had to not really being able to explain where this stuff was coming from. And I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I mean, it's 20 years old now, but it led to a lot of things for me. It was a techno record. It didn't sell tons of copies, but it brought me to Berlin for the first time. And much of my life has ended up on a trajectory based on that record, indirectly.

Oh, wow. Well, I want to thank you very much for illuminating a whole bunch of things for me. You've been very informative. And thank you for taking time out of your day and your creative practice for me.

No problem. Good luck with the rest of the project. Ciao.