The Creative Process - Mark C. Samples

You’ve probably heard by now that we’re all getting dumber.

Most musicians spend their careers working hard inside a world defined by the people closest to them: their teachers, their peers, their local scene.

The music industry doesn't reject most musicians.

In 1950, Charles Schulz signed away the rights to every character he'd ever created.

Well, that was a week.

This note card from Marcus Aurelius was worth keeping.

Take walks to experience life and fuel your creative inspiration.

Growth is earned when you invest in loss.

If you were to visit my office and look around, you might notice my obsession with note cards.

Tend to your art like it matters.

You’ve been told artists can’t think like entrepreneurs.

To do your best creative work, you have to go somewhere most people never go.

Catch more lucky breaks in your creative business by increasing your “surface area of luck.”

It's graduation season, and in my day job, I teach in the Music Department at Central Washington University.

If you can be as creative and disciplined in business as you are in music, you will survive and thrive as a true creative professional.

To create from first principles, be the most curious person in the room.

To create something truly original, strip away assumptions and analogies and create from first principles.

It’s March 2020.

If you’re working on something good — something real — it’s easy to think that’s enough.

So many great music producers are somehow chill and high-agency at the same time.