Recommended Reading: The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
“I set out to write a book about what to do to make a great work of art. Instead, it revealed itself to be a book on how to be.” - Rick Rubin
I have a VERY strong book recommendation to share: The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rock Rubin. Seriously. Buy this book RIGHT NOW. This past Sunday I was watching one of my favorite TC shows - 60 Minutes - when an interview with legendary music producer Rick Rubin aired. Founder of Def Jam Records and producer to countless musical acts, I was immediately interested in hearing from him. What appeared on the screen was a man who looked similar to Leonardo DaVinci or Socrates, but I was blown away by his methodology and his guru-like persona. After the interview, I immediately purchased his new book and read it in a few hours the next day. This is the single best book I have ever read on the subject of creativity, and I believe that EVERY music teacher and EVERY music student should read it. Seriously.
Rubin’s book is part philosophy, part self-help, and part roadmap to tapping the creativity that lives within every human being, and taking a creative journey once you’ve harnessed it. This has been a long-held belief of mine, based on my many conversations with one of my musical heroes, Morton Subotnick. Morton told me many years ago that all human beings are born creative, and that it is actually a latent survival skill that is part of our DNA. It took me a while to accept this, but when I did, it transformed the way that I approached creative projects with my students.
Rubin is cut from the same mold as Subotnick in terms of his belief of human creative potential and his wonderfully easy to read book reinforces not only this concept, but provides endless examples of where to find creativity in your every day life. Rubin basically summarizes his lifetime of work in the music field into easily understandable and digestible short chapters, followed by Haiku like statements that made me pause and reflect for each one.
In my humble opinion, every music teacher should read this book and possibly grab quotes from it to inspire their students’ creativity. I read through the 400 pages of the book in a matter of hours, I simply couldn’t put it down. Music technology is the PERFECT way to facilitate creativity in a music classroom, and Rubin’s book is a PERFECT way to inspire it.
If you’ve read the book, I would love to hear what you think of it, so feel free to comment below.