Focus + Art = Magic

Lately I’ve been stuck on the idea of focus in music, what does it mean? How important is it? How can I apply the principal better.

Focus can mean many things, it can mean applying yourself to learning a new skill or achieving a specific goal. But in this context I’m thinking more about the act of deciding what you want to say with your art. This is a very dicey question because it sparks a conflict between your internal desire to create playfully (with beginners mind) and your desire to make your mark in this world.

But do these ideas have to be in conflict? Constraints can be very helpful as an artist. I remember that documentary about Ushio Shinohara who made a decision only to paint with boxing gloves. For some artists something like that might seem constricting. But there is magic in choosing to focus all of your creative powers on a single idea.

We find over time as artists and humans that every idea contains multitudes. All of the musicians I admire are pretty static in their focus. They might try to push the boundaries of their medium but most of them stay in their lane when it comes to what they are making. I find this idea troubling. How can they possibly maintain that level of discipline when my focus is so easily drawn to the latest shiny object? It seems that they’ve realized their creative faculties are finite. Hence, their lives will be best served applying their creative fires to a tiny piece of coal until it becomes a diamond.

I think this gets back to the idea of timelines vs. timelessness. Great artists and great humans understand that nothing really changes under the sun. Ideas that seem new are often rehashed versions of very old ideas. This isn’t a bad thing. We never get tired of the really good ideas. The reason we are attracted to this type of art is because we yearn to participate in things that are inexhaustible. When everything about us is so finite (our time, energy, resources, ability to think creatively, etc.). We want to feel like something in this world is permanent and effortless.

One of my favorite guitarists of all time is Marisa Anderson and she said in one of her interviews that folk music is like a baton being passed down musician to musician through the ages. When something is treated with that level of care by so many people over so many years, it takes on a meaning greater than what any one person could uncover in a vacuum.

How do we then figure out what we should focus on, the stakes seem pretty dang high given that we’re gambling with our lives. I have no idea. But the answer might lay in whatever takes us to the space where we are most happy. What music have you consumed or created that took you to your local maximum (i.e. the best headspace you could possibly imagine)? That might be the type of music or art you should work to perpetuate in this world. That music is your cause, your banner, and its ok if that banner is shared with others.

So, much to my disappointment it seems that the work of great artists is actually very mundane. Its the work of spending a lifetime sifting through sand, hoping to find one tiny grain of gold. The beginners mind works in broad strokes while the wise mind works in tiny strokes on a very small playing field. Neither approach is wrong but they are different. As I age, I find myself wanting to be wise but I don’t know if I’ll ever get there. All I can do is keep sifting through sand hoping that I’ll stumble on my very own tiny flake of gold.