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85. Break glass in case of stale ideas.
07:22||Season 3, Ep. 85For most of this summer, I couldn’t write anything new.I don’t mean I wasn’t writing. I was sitting down, playing chords, working on melodic phrases. But every idea arrived with the same thought attached: I already have a song like that.That’s a particular kind of frustrating. It isn’t writer’s block. The ideas are there, they just feel used.I tried a few things that helped. I changed the context an idea lived in, the same way Taika Waititi tells Jojo Rabbit through a child’s imagination and makes something we’ve seen a hundred times feel completely new. I changed my inputs and started listening to experimental electronic music, which pulled me toward a solo project I’d wondered about for years.But the thing that helped most wasn’t a technique. It was a different question.After 20 years of putting out my own albums, maybe “this sounds like me” isn’t a sign of being stuck. Miles Davis reinvented his band constantly, and you could still pick out his sound in a second. That’s not staleness. That’s identity.So the question shifted from “how do I stop sounding like myself?” to “what haven’t I said yet as myself?”That’s what this week’s episode of Keep the Flow is about.🎧Check out my music: https://scottmclemore.bandcamp.com/🤟Join the Patreon community: https://patreon.com/scottmclemore📭 The free newsletter goes deeper into ideas like these: https://ktfpod.com
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84. The Fear of Not Knowing What's Next (Even Aaron Sorkin Has It)
06:17||Season 3, Ep. 84Last week I listened to Aaron Sorkin's interview with The New York Times ahead of The Social Reckoning, and two things stopped me. He acts out his dialogue so physically that he once broke his nose doing it. And he lives in a constant state of panic that he'll never find another good idea. My first reaction was, come on – you're Aaron Sorkin. My second was that I know exactly that feeling. Hans Zimmer describes something similar: he accepts a film, hangs up the phone, and immediately starts looking for a way out. This episode is also my explanation for going quiet for over a month. It wasn't a lack of ideas – I had plenty. I just couldn't commit to one. What I've landed on is that creativity is mostly choosing, and you only reach the next fork in the road if you're already moving.Aaron Sorkin NYTimes interview: https://youtu.be/M6dFK4AcllA?si=3Vl45NnWj8rjBZTS🎧Check out my music: https://scottmclemore.bandcamp.com/🤟Join the Patreon community: https://patreon.com/scottmclemore📭 The free newsletter goes deeper into ideas like these: https://ktfpod.com
83. The Hacks Finale Is Really About Creative People
06:55||Season 3, Ep. 83I watched that finale and cried, which I wasn't expecting, and then immediately started trying to work out why. What I settled on is that the thing that turns Deborah Vance around isn't a person or a speech. It's an idea. She gets a joke, opens her little book, writes it down – and then has to sit with what that means about where she's going. I think that's the whole argument for a creative life. In here I get into Bill Frisell on always reaching, a Hannah Montana song my daughters wore out on road trips, and why playing big rooms matters less to me than a melody showing up at the piano back home.🎧Check out my music: https://scottmclemore.bandcamp.com/🤟Join the Patreon community: https://patreon.com/scottmclemore📭 The free newsletter goes deeper into ideas like these: https://ktfpod.com
82. What if you’re better at judging than enjoying?
08:59||Season 3, Ep. 82I bought a camera a few weeks ago, and it changed how I experience a day. I started noticing sounds, smells, the air, my stepfather's ancient dishwasher in Virginia. But the second I actually noticed that dishwasher, my brain immediately asked which one was better – his or ours. That reflex is what this episode is about. Somewhere along the way we started rating everything, and when that filter runs unchecked inside your own work it stops being taste and starts being the thing that keeps you from enjoying anything, or wanting to make anything. I have some suggestions.🎧Check out my music: https://scottmclemore.bandcamp.com/🤟Join the Patreon community: https://patreon.com/scottmclemore📭 The free newsletter goes deeper into ideas like these: https://ktfpod.com
81. Is it better to think you're talented... or not?
10:24||Season 3, Ep. 81When I got my first set of drums, my parents thought I was a natural. I let them think it – it felt good.What they didn't see was the years I spent obsessed with drums before I ever sat down at a kit.This episode is about talent: why we're so drawn to the idea of it, why we quietly trust "naturals" over people who obviously worked (there's a Harvard study on exactly this that's hard to shake), and how believing my own talent cost me almost ten years of coasting.I get into Carol Dweck's fixed vs. growth mindset, the 10,000-hours idea from Anders Ericsson and Malcolm Gladwell, and the factor almost nobody names: taste.Talent, luck, and environment were handed to you. The work – and your taste – are the parts that are actually yours.🎧Check out my music: https://scottmclemore.bandcamp.com/🤟Join the Patreon community: https://patreon.com/scottmclemore📭 The free newsletter goes deeper into ideas like these: https://ktfpod.com
80. The AI Coming for Your Creative Job Can Wait
06:32||Season 3, Ep. 80I've been carrying around a tiny bit of panic lately. This sense that I need to get everything done before the AI robots turn up and make it all pointless. I don't think I'm alone in that. In this episode I talk about what happened when I heard the tortoise and the hare brought up on Rich Roll's podcast, and then spent an hour stuck in a line at the recycling center in Reykjavík with nothing to do but sit there. I get into why I tell my drum students to slow down, why boredom is doing more for your ideas than you think, and why I'm not convinced that sprinting after this week's new tool is the move. The threat is real. Panicking about it still isn't useful.🎧Check out my music: https://scottmclemore.bandcamp.com/🤟Join the Patreon community: https://patreon.com/scottmclemore📭 The free newsletter goes deeper into ideas like these: https://ktfpod.com
79. Every Creative Is Panicking About AI. He Isn't.
08:18||Season 3, Ep. 79I keep hearing the same fear on repeat: AI is going to hollow out creative work. I feel it too. I've got kids about to start college, and it keeps me up at night. Then I watched a talk by David Lee, the chief creative officer at Squarespace, who argues almost the opposite: that creativity is the only job left once the machines take the rest. Around the same time I heard the writer Dave Eggers on the Wild Card podcast say something I can't shake – that you're one of one, and handing your voice to a machine is a crime against yourself. This episode is me thinking out loud about where those two ideas meet, why I stopped leaning on AI to develop my scripts, and where I think it can still genuinely help.🎧Check out my music: https://scottmclemore.bandcamp.com/🤟Join the Patreon community: https://patreon.com/scottmclemore📭 The free newsletter goes deeper into ideas like these: https://ktfpod.com