TITLE: Movin' Out, Twyla Tharp, and Inspiration
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: December 11, 2008 7:37 AM
DESC:
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BODY:
Last month my wife and I had the good fortune to
see a Broadway touring company perform the Tony
Award-winning
Movin' Out,
a musical created by Twyla Tharp from the music of
Billy Joel. I've already mentioned that I am a
big fan of Billy Joel,
so the chance to listen to his songs for two hours
was an easy sell. Some of you may recall that I also
wrote an entry way back called
Start with a Box
that was inspired by a wonderful chapter from Twyla
Tharp's The Creative Habit. So even if I
knew nothing else about Tharp, Movin' Out
would have piqued my interest.
This post isn't about the show, but my quick review
is: Wow. The musicians were very good -- not imitating
Joel, but performing his music in a way that felt
authentic and alive. (Yes, I sang along, silently
to myself. My wife said she saw my lips moving!)
Tharp managed somehow to tell a compelling story by
stitching together a set of unrelated songs written
over the long course of Joel's career. I know all
of these songs quite well, and occasionally found
myself thinking, "But that's not what this song
means...". Yet I didn't mind; I was hearing from
within the story. And I loved the dance itself
-- it was classical even when modern, not abstract
like Merce Cunningham's
Patterns in Space and Sound.
My wife knows dance well, and she was impressed
that the male dancers in this show were actually
doing classical ballet. (In many performances,
the men are more props than dancers, doing lifts
and otherwise giving the female leads a foil for
their moves.)
Now I see that Merlin Mann is
gushing over Tharp
and The Creative Habit.
Whatever else I can say, Mann is a great source of
links... He points us to a
YouTube video
of Tharp talking about "failing well", as well as
the first chapter of her book
available on line.
Now you can read a bit to see if you want to bother
with the whole book. I echo Mann's caveat: we both
liked the first chapter, but we liked the rest of
the book more.
Since my post three years ago on The Creative
Habit, I've been meaning to return to some
of the other cool ideas that Tharp writes about in
this book. Seeing Movin' Out caused me
to dig out my notes from that summer, and seeing
Mann's posts has awakened my desire to write some
of the posts I have in mind. The ideas I learned
in this book relate well to how I write software,
teach, and learn.
Here is a teaser that may connect with agile software
developers and comfort students preparing for final
exams:
The routine is as much a part of the creative process
as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more.
And this routine is available to everyone.
Oddly, this quote brings to mind an analogy to sports.
Basketball coaches often tell players not to rely on
having a great shooting night in order to contribute
to the team. Shooting is like inspiration; it comes
and it goes, a gift of capricious gods. Defense, on
the other hand, is always within the control of the
player. It is grunt work, made up of effort, attention,
and hustle. Every player can contribute on defense
every night of the week.
For me, that's one of the key points in this message
from Tharp: control what you can control. Build
habits within which you work. Regular routine --
weekly, daily, even hourly -- are the scaffolding
that keep you focused on making something. What's
better, everyone can create and follow a routine.
While I sit and wait for the lightning bolt of
inspiration to strike, I am not producing code,
inspired or otherwise. Works of inspiration happen
while I am working. Working as a matter of routine
increases the chances that I will be producing
something when the gods smile on me with inspiration.
And if they don't... I will still be producing
something.
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