Don't Forget the Salt

On walking the line between wilderness and formula in creative endeavors

“I just didn’t understand why some of it was happening”, said my mom after listening to the 13-minute prog epic I had recorded.

I was 16 years old. I had been playing guitar for 3 years and had recently discovered the weird wild world of prog and prog-adjacent rock bands. Artists like Dream Theatre, Yes, Rush, Meshuggah.

It fascinated me. Odd time signatures were like puzzles to solve. Technical virtuosity was like watching world class athletes compete – with all their speed and grace.

So I set out to write a prog epic of my own. It was going to be like nothing the world had ever seen. With twists and turns and different textures swirling around the listener.

Now it was finished. And my first listener “didn’t understand why some of it was happening”.

Of course I smile looking back at this. There is a kind of striving or stretching that young musicians have – a yearning to fall farther from the tree of their influences. Not just to reinvent, but to invent from whole cloth.

What if I used a crash cymbal instead of a snare drum? What if I ran my voice through a bass amp?

This is the “wilderness” end of the creativity spectrum - where raw experimentation, independent of any context or knowledge about “what works” rein supreme.

It’s how you bootstrap serendipity and discover permutations that may have, indeed, never existed before.

More importantly, it’s part of the iterative process required to find your voice as an artist.

On the other hand, it can be slow and inefficient. Snare drums just work better than crashes for back beats. Why? I don’t know but we have over 100 years of Western music saying that they do.

Which brings us to the other end of the creativity spectrum: the “formula”.

There are dozens of YouTube videos that will explain the limited range of song structures and chord progressions used in top pop songs over the decades - and how to generate a successful bassline for each.

You could take this information (especially with generative AI) and just churn out vanilla-flavored mediocrity until the cows come home.

This will also not work. It will be boring. Predictable. People won’t care.

Since we’re framing the creative process here as a spectrum with “wilderness” on one side and “formula” on the other, it might be tempting to think there’s a sweet spot somewhere in between.

You know, where good song babies come from.

But I actually don’t think that’s the case. I think good songs come from a process that embraces both ends of the spectrum – where the artist jumps between extremes.

You need periods of unconstrained experimentation and iteration – what Rick Rubin calls “seed gathering” in his book, The Creative Act - but you also need to understand when a dash of “formula” will anchor a unique idea and make it satisfying. After all, music has been iterating for generations to find what’s satisfying for humans.

An analogy to cuisine is helpful. There are many different culinary traditions in the world. Almost all of them use salt, spice, and sugar in the creation of their most satisfying meals. Humans universally enjoy salt, spice and sugar – though you could not make a meal of these ingredients alone.

Consider a an unforgettable meal crafted by an experienced chef. There will be a foundation of ingredients that are distinguishing to the cuisine. For example, pad thai will likely have noodles. There will be something unique that the chef has brought to the recipe – some subtlety of flavor or texture that surprises and delights. There will be salt and spices.

It would be foolish to attempt to cook a never-before-seen gourmet meal without using salt or spices.

Similarly, it would be foolish to attempt to create a great song without building and releasing tension.

A kick drum and a crash cymbal striking at the same time create a wall of the full audible spectrum that can bring a tremendous feeling of resolution and power to the 1 of a chorus.

Choruses usually repeat 2-3 times because people find the anticipation and release satisfying.

Rock music has snares on the 2 and 4.

All of these things have been done to death – because they work.

So find your wild ideas. Explore and cultivate them. But don’t forget to jump to the “formula” side of the spectrum from time to time - to augment your unique voice with tried-and-true conventions that will satisfy listeners.

Don’t forget the salt.