In this Creative Practice Reflection I will examine and critically analyses a creative project worked on in a group setting and I will look at how this can be improved upon and identifying what went well and what areas require further improvement. I will be focusing on how a simple idea can be developed and reshaped, in this case, writing a good quality composition that flows well. This composition is inspired by the natural elements of earth; these being fire, water, earth, air, stone and wood.
I began my creative process began by examining the earth elements given in lesson, looking at the visualisations available, music video links and images then discussing with the group the connotations of each aspect (Uralovich et al.,2023), potential metaphors (Glucksberg, S. and Keysar, B., 1993) or double meanings (Tsonkov, T.V. and Koychev, I., 2015), looking at how these could potentially influence different music genres and engage others using sound to create a visualisation through the music Schaerlaeken, S., Glowinski, D. and Grandjean, D., 2022; Rosi et al., 2022). An example would be how water can be seen as calming and smooth flowing (Sanctuary, C.Y. and Fountain, S.U.Y.M) but can turn quite violent (Schultz, A., 2020) is contrasted in the music video by the Volfgang Twins (Volfgang Twins. YouTube. 2022).
Further consideration was given to how geological formations could be linked to rock music through the implied power of immense, rugged rock formations. This is shown by The Volfgang Twins and by the band Imminence (Imminence. YouTube. 2025).
The decision was reached to create a smooth and simplistic composition which could be gradually developed to provide increased complexity to the song and incorporate more of a groove creating a fusion piece whilst maintaining the soft feel. The music producer Rick Rubin talks about how he starts with an idea in a basic format and over time lets the idea naturally progress. This was evident in a quote by Natalie Maines, “He has the ability and the patience to let music be discovered, not manufactured.” (Maines, N. 2007).
For the drums I started out with what was a simple and repeated rhythm, which was inspired by Rick Rubin using his ideology that “The best ideas are always simple.” (Levitt, S, D. 2025). For this simple idea I started playing the rhythm on the snare drum to create a smooth and simplistic pattern; the guitars then started to improvise over the top and develop riffs with greater technical prowess. As the guitarist’s parts evolved, I was able to add and further develop the technicality of the drum parts leading to playing a more syncopated rhythm. The practice sessions allowed for the song to develop using drums and guitar and incorporating different styles and genres (Bigand et al., 1996) with a loose structure. The song now had a small drum intro that transitioned into a funk section with a groove that led into what was labelled the “main riff” giving it a more rocky style by using different modes to enhance the uniqueness of the composition beyond the traditional scales. This process would have been better developed with vocal input from the start. An early version of this composition can be heard below.
It did, however, work well in allowing for the development of ideas and it was beneficial to start with something simple and add in more complex parts (Madsen and Widmer, 2006) allowing changes to be made to the aspects while maintaining the main theme the song as it developed. The drum and guitar parts were worked on together, which allowed us to examine and trial different ideas. This was beneficial during recording at which point the vocalist sang melodies over the top the funk section. This section had been developed without vocals and the inclusion of the vocal melodies required the drums to switch up to better suit the vocal melody line. The groove moved into a 4-bar sequence which added structure to the improvisation from the initial development stage where it was created solely with the instruments. Having developed the initial parts of the song with guitar and drums it did meant that we had considered different ideas and switching up was a simpler process. This meant the groove repeated every 4-bar sequence providing better continuity and greater structure through the 4-bar sequence.
When reviewing and discussing the process with my peers Madison said that the Creative Process has had a positive impact to the way she would approach writing a song; she said it had ‘encouraged me (Madison) to run with ideas and improvise more’. An example she gave was that rather than writing a song in a set order e.g. verse, chorus, another verse then a bridge she would now consider writing more freely. Whereas Ioan suggested that to further improve the song we could have spent more time making the transition between different sections more seamless by not thinking about them as individual parts.
In conclusion I believe that the process of writing this composition has had a positive impact on my approach to writing songs collaboratively, my song writing abilities, my understanding of how a song can be brought together and how the technical side of can be changed and improved upon as the process develops organically. More specifically it has had an impact on how I would approach starting the process and how I would nurture my ideas rather than trying to achieve a result too quickly. I feel that the outcome of this project would have been of higher quality had we been able to dedicate more time to working on the composition together with clear objectives and tasks set. To develop a creative practise project in the future I would put a more rigid structure in place to give the composition more clarity, using a SMART pneumonic (Locke and Latham, 2015; Locke and Latham, 2019) to set goals and project manage with greater emphasis on achieving objectives within the structure. The SMART format allows for objectives to be set which are specific, measurable, assignable/achievable, realistic, and time-bound, which I think would give a clear structure of getting things done and achieving greater group cohesion.
Bibliography
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