The artist Michelangelo famously said that in order to carve something, all you have to do is get rid of the parts that shouldn’t be there. I, as a musician, have found that this work of chiseling is the process of refining. In other words, if I think of my musical pieces like a sculpture, I find more than half the marble that I created needs to be chiseled out.
But here’s the catch: I have to create the marble first, and from that marble I can chisel it into form. For me, that means I take my musical idea and reiterate it say ten or twelve times. Then I take that abundance of materials, and I begin evaluating what the best pieces are that need to stay in the final piece.
Something similar happens when I write essays or blogs. A lot of times, I write three or four times as much as I end up using in my final draft, but I need that word vomit to know where I’m going. Then, as Mark Twain put it, I need to take the time to make it shorter. I create the marble, and then I chisel the marble.
I think it’s sometimes tempting to compare your creative process with someone like Mozart, who would spin out masterpieces seemingly from thin air. But I hope that pulling back the veil on my artistic process can be an encouragement to your own artistic work. It’s how I overcome perfectionism and intimidation: I say, “I’m just making the marble.” And afterward, I chisel out the best parts.