Expressing oneself creatively can occur in many forms. Writing, drawing, dancing, singing, and even thinking are some forms of self expression that many engage in to express pieces of their soul.
One of my favorite ways of channeling my creative energy is making playlists. I recognize that I’m not producing an original work, but this outlet still involves time, creativity, and immense effort. Making playlists, at least the way I make them, is a valid art form. I’m not throwing together a mixtape, I’m constructing a narrative.
In the same way that I read about ideas and concepts that I would like to learn more about, I listen to music to teach me a new perspectives on certain issues. For example, if I were interested in the influence of religion on artistic production, I would make a playlist of songs that dealt with religious themes as a way of gathering up various perspectives on the issue. You don’t have to have a supremely large musical library to be able to do this, but you might have to consider different themes or concepts depending on the songs you are familiar with and enjoy.
Once I’ve picked a theme or focus that I want to explore, I collect music that fits this. Compiling music in this way is challenging as it requires looking at lyrics on occasion. The most difficult part of this process however, involves arranging the songs in an order.
I think there is something fascinating about arranging various voices together and understanding how one musician’s take on a particular subject is so similar or vastly different from another’s. No two songs are the same no matter what they are about. The tone of each song matters too when deciding where to place it amongst a group of other songs. The first song is meant to reflect the start of a journey or establish an initial perspective on an issue. From there, the tone, tempo, and genre of each song must be considered so that each track flows into each other. This is only one way of going about this. You can even build up to a single song and then use other songs to explore the aftermath of that one song. Each song is a voice telling its own story, and when stories are arranged carefully together, they have the power to construct a larger narrative or argument.
Even if you don’t want to tell a story, you can put together songs that remind you of a story, songs that convey a certain feeling. I recently finished John Steinbeck’s East of Eden and could not resist putting together songs that reminded me of some of the themes and characters in the story. I’ve made a playlist inspired by an episode of Black Mirror called “San Junipero.” Art has the power to inspire more art. You can even interpret art within the context of other art. The possibilities are endless.
There’s more than one way to tell a story, and there are an infinite number of stories to tell. Putting music together can often help explore the nuances of a complex issue, but it can also reveal something to yourself. You are the stories you want to tell, the stories you end up telling, and even the stories you connect with in the form of music.
Happy creating and listening!
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