I've spent the last few days in a music studio. (More on this later. Also, new music coming soon). It was intense and productive, fun and creative, fulfilling and energising, all at the same time. During one of our recording sessions, after I played the guitar parts to a song, my friend (and producer for this record) turned to me from the control desk and said something along the lines of 'that was it, no need for another take.' Generally speaking, you'd expect to do 2 or 3 takes – or more, depending on how it's going – for a song so you have backups in case something isn't right. But for this song, steeped in complex riffs and melodic lines, the first take went so well that the consensus was that any future take was unnecessary, as it couldn't get better than that. At the risk of tooting my own horn, that's how good it was.
At the end of that day's session, I started thinking about that particular song, the techniques involved, how I'd stumbled on that guitar style years earlier and how I'd spent several years practising it. I thought about all the mistakes I made repeatedly, the frustration while going from one YouTube tutorial to the next, getting so sick of playing the same lines over and over and messing it up, while watching the virtuoso musicians on my screen playing the same thing flawlessly and effortlessly, sending lightning bolts of rage and disappointment coursing through my body and making me fantasise about smashing by guitar to bits or throwing it out the window.
And yet, there I was, having just played the same thing flawlessly, as my producer appraised it. It made me appreciate how much progress I'd made over the years, first regarding my guitar technique specifically, but also with my creative career in general. I thought about all the things that led me to that point where I was spending days in the studio, making music. I thought about the songs I was recording, which got me thinking about my songwriting in general, how I'd written my first song years ago by accident, and then realised I felt empowered by songwriting and tried to write another song but it took so long and the result was mediocre. I thought about how I kept doing it – writing songs – and practising, and finessing the craft. I thought about how and when I decided to make it public, how I first shared it with my family, and then I learnt that open mics were a thing. I thought about the trepidation and the nerves I felt as I committed to my first open mic performance, and how I kept playing the open mics, and writing new songs to share with the often disinterested, occasionally engaging crowds. I thought about the first time I had the thought that I should probably record some of those songs and release them online. Prior to that, the thought of me having music on Spotify or Apple Music was just an unattainable goal, something reserved for professional musicians and the likes, but it's something I've now done many times since.
This is all to say that I've spent some time reflecting on my progress recently, and it has filled me with gratitude for how far I've come. It has also given me a newfound appreciation for how progress happens in general, and this is the crux of this post.
Progress is incremental. It happens because tiny building blocks stack up on top of each other and compound over time, until the result begins to manifest itself in the form of a wall that towers over anything else around. These building blocks stack up slowly, and each individual block isn't typically remarkable by itself, but is no less important than any other block or even – dare I say – the sum of its parts i.e. the wall.
What this means though, is that we're ever so likely to take each progress block for granted. What's more, is that we think about progress in terms of things that happen, rather than things that don't. So, when you see a towering wall made up of individual blocks, you see a manifestation of progress, block by block. What you don't see is the effect of that wall, for instance, how it keeps intruders out or provides you shelter. These are also direct manifestations of progress, but we're unlikely to think of progress in terms of what didn't happen.
For instance, if you're reading this, you didn't die of smallpox as a child, so it may take longer to register that the eradication (or at least curtailing) of smallpox is one of the best things that happened in the last 50 years, thanks, largely to advances in global public health coordination efforts. Also, depending on where you are in the world, you drink water without thinking twice, despite the fact that water was one of the biggest killers for centuries, long before we realised that water contaminated with germs could be lethal. It's sad to say that this is still the case in some parts of the world; pure, uncontaminated water is still a luxury to many. We could also talk about the advent of things like indoor plumbing, the proliferation of automobiles, and the advances in the mechanisms powering these technologies. Indoor plumbing was great at first – for obvious reasons – but for a moment the public infrastructure powering it also facilitated the spread of germs and diseases across cities until urban planners figured out how to separate the drainage systems from the water reservoir systems. Cars made transportation a lot more efficient, but they also drove up mortality rates through ghastly accidents until the advent of the seatbelt, airbags, sensors, better brakes and so on. Today we don't have streets littered with horse poop because we don't move from place to place in horse-drawn carts and carriages. We've effectively doubled the global life expectancy in a century, so that there are places where you can expect to live to be 80 or 90. Don't get me wrong, we have a long way to go worldwide, until we no longer lose people to malaria or waterborne diseases like cholera, and there's much to be done in terms of equal access to opportunities and a fairer distribution of resources. Still, one can't help but acknowledge the progress we've made.
This is the part of the post where I ask: but what does this have to do with creativity? Well, just as each individual block is unremarkable by itself, it's difficult to appreciate the minute steps we take towards progress in our creative careers because we're literally there each day, witnessing and living in real-time. But when we step back and compare the present to the past, when we review how far we've come on the journey, then the difference is more likely to be noticeable. I recently wrote about how there was a time I couldn't do more than a 10-minute open mic set, but now I play hour-long gigs. There was a time I couldn't bring myself to record a music video for upload, now I have dozens online. There was a time I had a rough and ready single released online, now I have studio-produced bodies of work available for public consumption. This is progress.
We can also learn from the fact that progress isn't immediately apparent in the recent past but it reveals itself the further back you go. We can flip the time direction and ask the question: what can I do today and tomorrow to put me in a better position this time next year? How can I help future Ade, even though he probably wouldn't notice the difference in a few days but it would be nonetheless helpful in a few months? Questions like these help me keep things in perspective and chart the right course for my creative career, and my life really.
It's also worth remembering that progress isn't always linear, and that the immediate results may not always seem ideal (in the short term at least). In fact, the results may be surprising in hindsight. For instance, when I compare the quality of my first ever recordings to the ones I put out these days, the difference is like night and day. This also applies to the spontaneous music videos I upload online. You won't actually find the first ever music releases (and videos) because I took them down as I no longer feel like they represent me. This is in no way casting aspersions on the recordings or those involved, and this isn't self-deprecation either. Rather, I point this out to appreciate those early recordings because they paved the way for the later ones. If you've heard Something Good or Autumn Dream and you think they're good, then we have those early recordings to thank, because at the time, they gave me something to share with potential (and future) collaborators, they gave me the confidence to release new music which facilitated the relationships I've gone on to have with others in the industry, and they propelled my consistent cycle of songwriting, gigging, recording and releasing, and more songwriting. It's now a virtuous cycle, because when I write a song, I want to record it. When I record it and release it, others hear it and I get gigs this way, as well as people asking me what's next (for releasing). This spurs me on to write more songs, which I go on to record, and so the cycle perpetuates.
It's possible that a few years from now I'll look back on Something Good and Autumn Dream and shake my head in disgust because the poor quality no longer represents me (like the first releases). I think this is unlikely, but possible. It is unlikely because I can't imagine it, as I have no idea what my standards will be like in the future, and I genuinely think these are some of the best songs I've written, recorded and released to date. (This'll change soon 😉 Did I mention I've got new music coming soon?) That said, since it has happened before (with the earlier releases), then it's possible that it could happen again. Regardless, if it happens, it will still have served a purpose and there'll be no regrets. Having these songs out now has done me a lot of good; I have people that tell me it's their favourite of mine, or people that say it's right up there with what's in the mainstream media and as good as anything you'll hear from the industry juggernauts. Maybe they really mean it, or maybe they're just being nice; it really doesn't matter because whenever I hear those words, they're good enough to spur me on to want to write, record and release more. That's fine, that's progress.
Progress happens incrementally, block by block, brick by brick, shingle by shingle, sheet by sheet <insert construction metaphor of choice>. Each piece on its own may not suffice to demonstrate forward momentum, but it serves a purpose nonetheless. It adds to the whole, reinforces previous pieces, and paves the way for the next piece. These pieces, though unremarkable by themselves, stack up and lead to something remarkable. That's how positive change happens.