Ease of Access

I’ve met a milestone: I graduated high school 10 years ago this week.

Ask a fruit fly and it’s a long amount of time; ask a star, and it’s but a blink.

Periodically since before I graduated, people who are either of a different creative vocation than me or even beyond the creative fields in general ask me, “How do you compose? How do you know what to compose? Is it easy? I could never do that - good for you!”

Each time this line of questioning comes up in conversation, I do try to answer in the best way I can. “I began learning music by ear. Music comes naturally to me. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes not.”

Especially recently, I’ve been reflecting on the last bit that a person often says in these conversations: “I could never do that!” To which I say openly with a dash of friendly snark: Not with that attitude!

When I was in elementary school, I had an interest in developing a video game. Keep in mind, I was maybe nine or ten years old, the year was circa 2004, the internet and the greater post-modern tech boom hadn’t taken off quite yet, and I had zero knowledge of programming.

I told my friend about my desire to make a video game. He lent me his brother’s “Programming For Dummies” book - about a million pages of what I found to be dry material. Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful to borrow it. But it quickly shelved my pursuit of game development.

Fast forward to 2023. The internet, as we all know, is part of our global infrastructure. The post-modern tech boom has been in full swing for over a decade. Billions of people have computers and instant communication in their pockets.

And the accessibility of creating has never been lower.

Today, there are oodles of game development tools and resources available for free. The tools I use now for my own game development (GB Studio, Tiled, GIMP, YouTube tutorials) are the tools I WISH I had back in 2004. When talking with kids now about video games in any capacity, I always make it a point to let them know that, if they want to make a video game right now, the resources are readily available to do so.

The accessibility doesn’t just apply to video game development. There are mountains of resources for creating visual art (Krita, Photoshop, Affinity Designer), for composing and producing music (Finale, Sibelius, Audacity, Reaper, Garage Band, Pro Tools), for writing, for dance, for cooking, for acting, for filmmaking - the list goes on.

We tend to have excuses that hold us back from starting. “I never studied art. I’m not good at singing. Everything I try to cook ends up burned. I don’t have a degree in film. So-and-so will always be better than me at writing.”

You know what? None of those hang-ups matter enough to prevent you from trying something new. Something that maybe you know you’ll love but you count yourself out before you start.

There’s never any harm in trying a new creative activity.

To that effect, below are some points that I keep in mind when creating, that I hope might be helpful to you, to encourage you to start:

• Skills, not tools or degrees: Visual artists will mention questions asked by students. A common question is, “What brands of paint/brushes/pencils do you use?” As though those are the two defining factors in creating a successful piece of art. The answer is always, “It doesn’t matter.” The tools that work for them won’t necessarily work for us, and the tools that work for me won’t necessarily work for you. The artist (or musician or dancer or chef) should focus on the brand of their techniques, not the brand of their tools.

• Simplify: Start with the bare minimum. If you always burn the food you make, start by not burning the toast. Or buy a small box of noodles and follow the cooking instructions word for word. Knowing your immediate goal can help you narrow the scope of what you need.

• Don’t simplify: Start with way more than you need. Download Audacity (it’s free), import a sound file, and start messing around with the effects. Indulge your creativity. Try every tool available in whatever you choose to do.

• Don’t fear mistakes: It is so ingrained in us that mistakes are a bad thing. But really, mistakes are how we learn. Mistakes do not equal failure.

• To find what you like, do everything and fail: From personal experience, this is one of the best ways to learn about yourself. If you want to write poetry, try every type of form under the sun. Write sonnets, write haikus, write limericks, write abstract avant-garde poems. Write about your pet, your family, the baby ducks you saw crossing the street, the piece of gum you sat in on the bus, that annoying co-worker, the fly you swatted and it went splat all over the wall. Write beautiful lines and ugly stanzas. Use ordinary words. Use elaborate words. The more you do - no matter if you’re writing, drawing, or cooking - the quicker you’ll discover which elements you gravitate towards.

• Anyone can do it: Beethoven went deaf and continued to compose music. Ray Charles was blind and continued to play piano. Stevie Wonder is blind and continues to play piano. Stephen Hawking had a neurological disease for most of his life yet was able to keep talking. You can do it too.

If you want to draw that picture or dance that dance or sing that song, then do yourself a favor: go give it a try.

What do you have to lose?