pull down to refresh
608 sats \ 1 reply \ @frostdragon 16 Jan \ on: Steve Jobs, Rick Rubin and "taste" culture
Reminds me of a great quote I found a while back:
“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
TL;DR - It's less about developing taste, and more about developing the skills to manifest your creativity.
There's another idea I heard from a drummer - (Ben Sesar):
Technique (skill) is about diminishing the friction between the physical and the emotional/creative (aka, your taste).
The better you get at your skill, the more "honest" your art will be. The ideal is, your "technique" is such that it seamlessly communicates what's in your head. The more sophisticated your technique, the sophisticated things you'll be able to communicate with your art.
The incredible thing about Rick Rubin is, his "skill" is basically just people. The dude just knows how to work and communicate with creatives.
To add to this a bit:
Personally, my opinion is less that people don't have taste, and more that people don't develop creative technique.
That's one of the reasons I'm not all that hyped about AI, specifically when it comes to "facilitating creativity". On the one hand, it's a great, easy to use tool that might make it easy for people to communicate their art and demonstrate their taste without having to spend the time on the skill.
On the other hand... It could have the complete reverse effect over time, since skills aren't being developed like they used to. And that's kiiiiinda what I think is more likely. At least for most people. Especially if there's a feedback loop of bad art, where AI thinks bad art is good because it becomes more and more common.
PLUS.... I tend to think that since AI is only building off things that already exist, it hurts the creative process more than it helps. I think something happens in our brains when we try to come up with something new that will simply never be emulated by AI. But of course the counter-argument to that is... There is nothing new - we're all just synthesizing stuff that's already out there. But that's a different topic....
reply