Teaching as Creative Process
DR. KEVIN WASS
TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MUSIC
Advancing Teaching and Learning Conference
Texas Tech University
March 4, 2016
What is creative process?
• • • • • Series of thoughts and actions
Often results in change or innovation
Non-linear, ends and achievements are uncertain
New but not necessarily original: “Steal Like an Artist”
Process, not product-oriented, not “inspiration”
Process #1: Think like an artist
TEXT: TWYLA THARP WITH MARK REITER, “THE CREATIVE HABIT: LEARN IT AND USE IT
FOR LIFE ”, SIMON AND SCHUSTER , 2003
Ritual
“It’s vital to establish some rituals—automatic but decisive patterns of behavior—at the
beginning of the creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back,
chickening out, giving up, or going the wrong way.”
Tharp/Reiter, p. 15
My Rituals
• Sunday NY Times
• Reversing my process—audience point of view—become a better performer
through listening
• Engage the basic fundamental skills of my art form
Your Rituals
• Things you are already doing
• How can they become the beginning of a creative process?
• Identify one ritual that you currently follow. How can this feed your creative
process?
Scratching
“You know how you scratch away at a lottery ticket to see if you’ve won? That’s what
I’m doing when I begin a piece. I’m digging through everything to find something. It’s
like clawing at the side of a mountain to get a toehold, a grip, some sort of traction to
keep moving upward and onward.”
Tharp/Reiter, p. 95
How I Scratch
• Audible on long drives, while cooking and doing yard work
• Visual arts
• Attend performances
• Take lessons; get feedback from colleagues and students
• Saturation research, “rabbit holes”
How Do You Scratch?
• Where do your ideas come from?
• Have you ever been surprised by the source of an idea?
• Have you ever followed an idea or question as far as possible using every resource
at your disposal?
• Schedule a scratching session. Read, listen, interact with others, meditate, do
internet research, immerse yourself in a space. Don’t wait for inspiration or let a
deadline diminish the process.
Process #2: Be an Idea Factory
TEXT: JON GERTNER,” THE IDEA FACTORY: BELL LABS AND THE GREAT AGE OF
AMERICAN INNOVATION”, PENGUIN, 2012
Formula
“… inventing the future wasn’t just a matter of inventing things for the future; it also
entailed inventing ways to invent those things”
Gertner, p. 152
1. Research (Discovery)
“…where scientists and engineers provided ‘the reservoir of completely new
knowledge, principles, materials, methods and art’” ibid, p. 150
2. Systems Engineering (Development)
“…where engineers kept one eye on the reservoir of new knowledge and another on
the existing phone system and analyzed how to integrate the two….systems engineers
considered whether new applications were possible, plausible, necessary, and
economical.”
Ibid, p. 150
3. Product Innovation (Manufacture)
My Formula
• Interact with research. In Bell Labs language, “go to the guy who wrote the book”.
• Physiology research—how do our bodies work when we play a brass instrument?
• Psychology/neurology research—how does practice work?
• Deliberate practice and the 10,000 hour rule
• Form curriculum based on research and questions that arise in my teaching and my
practice
Your Formula
• Start with questions. Desire to learn, not to innovate.
• Do your research or interact with the research of others. Who “wrote the book”?
• Know your role—are you Discovery, Development, or Manufacture? A combination
of more than one of these?
• Develop a “product” that addresses a teaching or learning problem. Start either
with the problem or with an interesting bit of research.
Process #3: Dream
TEXT: ALAN LIGHTMAN, “EINSTEIN’S DREAMS: A NOVEL”, WARNER BOOKS, 1993
Imagine a world…
“Suppose time is a circle, bending back on itself. The world repeats itself, precisely,
endlessly.
For the most part, people do not know they will live their lives over. Traders do not know
that they will make the same bargain again and again. Politicians do not know that
they will shout from the same lectern an infinite number of times in the cycles of time.
Parents treasure the first laugh from their child as if they will not hear it again.”
Lightman, pp. 8-9
Worlds I Imagine
• The world without talent
• The world where I know everything about my subject
• The world where I know nothing about my subject
• The world without music
• The world without motivation
Imagine Your World
• The world where your biggest obstacle doesn’t exist
• The world where your greatest strength doesn’t exist
• The world where core values in your subject don’t exist
• The world where you can specify exactly what, how, and to whom you teach
Teaching Creatively is Living Creatively
• • • • • • • • Competency is insufficient—strive for mastery
Expose your weaknesses and lack of knowledge in order to embrace learning
Embrace process, don’t wait for inspiration
Discover-Develop-Manufacture
Dare to dream—imaginary worlds can hold real answers to real questions
Question the most basic assumptions of your art and craft
Expect failure
Be open to change and accident. Detours, tangents, and rabbit holes are where
the best and most revolutionary ideas are often found.