Rob's Blog

Creative versus technical
05th Nov 2009 23:11

Today Ange finished recording track 13 of her 14 track studio album. By the end of tomorrow she should have all 14 tracks recorded, then it's on to additional instruments, mixing, mastering, and world domination.

Whilst I'm sitting downstairs enjoying a bottle of beer and watching the fireworks on EastEnders she's listening through the first 13 tracks upstairs with a notepad...

... okay. Well, actually I just missed the end of EastEnders because Ange wanted some opinion on harmonies. Still, I think I was helpful with at least some of my comments.

Ange's sheet of notes has two columns, the technical glitches in one and the creative additions in the other. I get the technical glitches - they're all very black and white. But whilst she's sitting there saying things like "Descending piano scale needs to kick in at 2:09" or "I can hear the percussion staring to ascend there" and "Do you prefer the lower, higher or third harmony?" I do quite often just have to resort to: "Yes dear. I'm sure that'll be awesome. Whatever you think best dear".

Put simply: I'm a technical musician and not a creative one.

I can play you a beautiful piece of ragtime blues that I've learnt note for note. But ask me to improvise and I have all the creative flair of a catfish.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. I like to think I'm particularly good at my job precisely because of this. A technical project - whether it's a database structure, technical document or PHP script - is effectively either broken or working. A website which needs usability tweaks is to all intents and purposes broken. A database which isn't optimised correctly is broken. A technical document which misses out vital information or is unnecessarily vague or ambiguous is broken.

I don't 'create' code, I simply fix it from the ground up.

My transcribed piece of ragtime is either played correctly or incorrectly. It's either perfect or broken, just like the left hand column in Ange's list.

But when Ange plays me a beautiful piece of music and then asks me for my creative opinion there's not always a right answer. While it's being created music isn't either broken or working; it just exists in a variety of forms which are all equally valid.

That's the difference between my musical ability and Ange's. I think it's most likely the same creative dichotomy that seperates programmers and designers, musicians and sound technicians, novelists and proof-readers around the world.