Creativity x Craft x Emotion = Art

I've pointed you to lifehack.org before and I invite you to visit again. The name, "life hack" sounded silly to me at first but the content presented on the site has always been top-notch. I'd like you to look at a brief article posted yesterday on creativity, and what makes you creative.

Of course, it draws from another article as the main source, one from this blog that I've never visited before. He found it from Slacker Manager, a blog I used to read alot.

All that aside, take a look at the "formula" required to make art:

Creativity x Craft x Emotion = Art

It is interesting for me to contemplate how you and I fit into that equation to bring art into what we do as a choir. My first thought about how it effects us:

1. The choir is both a corporate and individual representation of creativity. Each singer brings their own creativity and musicality to the organization; the musical work is forged by the conductor into a unified, creative and personal interpretation of a piece of music. Hopefully, that interpretation builds upon dramatic elements found in the text and musical foundations provided by the composer.

2. I teach you the craft of singing in a great choir, the craft that my previous conductors have taught me. I transfer the principles that I have learned to you about how to effectively render a piece of choral music. Your responsibility is to observe what is being taught and master it. Learn from the conductor who is in front of you and the singers around you who are bringing energy, crispness, and dedication to the task at hand. We are all still mastering the craft--I'm still learning it myself, of course, and I always will be.

3. We are both responsible for the third element, emotion. It's the most elusive! Performance pressures often rob us of the joy of an emotional experience while we sing in a concert. It's why we must practice performance in the rehearsal. It's why we need to dwell on each piece of music and text and connect it to our previous and future life experiences.

The music we have in front of us this semester is of the highest quality. It represents many emotional and dramatic possibilities for us as creative artists that are masters of their craft. Don't miss the opportunity that you have in this choir to experience something few have experienced. Learn your notes now, in rehearsal and on your own. Get past that so that we can get on to producing emotional art to our listeners.

Amen.