For maybe three years now I have been listening to a particular Daft Punk track and mulling over the lyrics. Whilst I am writing now I have the track on, take a few moments to listen to it.
https://open.spotify.com/track/0oks4FnzhNp5QPTZtoet7c
Giorgio by Moroder is a documentary song about the early life and musical influence of the Italian musician Giovanni Giorgio Moroder. It specifically refers to his pioneering work in electronic music composition and use of the synthesiser. He refers to his choices in creating a “sound of the future”, about adding a synthesised click on a track, a choice which eventually heralded a new era in music.
It is his latter comments (4:58) that are captured on the track that have, in turn, captured my attention for so long.
Once you free your mind about a concept of harmony and of music being correct, you can do whatever you want. So, nobody told me what to do, and there was no preconception of what to do.
It is this fascinating reference to a deliberate freeing of his mindset which resonates with me so much. The awareness of the “correct” musical theory and deliberately unshackling himself from it in order to be creatively free.
The final words uttered on the track are also telling and seemingly refer to a lack of precedent, an untrodden path yet to be explored. Moroder explains there were no leaders in those moments, no plans to follow, no guidebook — just rules to break.
It reminds me of something Phil ‘dm’ Campbell recently shared about his desire to not be a repeater or relay station, but to find something in himself that is powerful and true and unique.
Being a repeater or relay station is holding you back from tapping into your true self and creative core. I firmly believe that.
Perhaps Moroder was able to strip away the reference bias others were relying on and steer clear of relaying and repeating musical styles. He made creative choices with no precedent, choices that took music to a different place. Not just repeating, relaying or even remixing.
Phil goes on to challenge us all.
So ask yourself, what moment today could you have changed to instead of relaying and repeating could you have done something that was really worth relaying or repeating, something that came from your core of concern.
Let’s temper some of this with a different perspective, a comment from John Hegarty and his book Hegarty On Creativity, There Are No Rules:
the truth is that everything we create is based on something that’s gone before. It has to be. Nothing happens in a vacuum, least of all creativity and ideas.
Maybe for Giorgio in his creative exploration he had discovered a vacuum. An ill defined musical space that was ready for better definition. He was the first there, when everyone else was repeating, remixing and relaying something else. It would make sense that in the 70s there were fewer musical ideas and so more vacuumous space to discover.
It takes creative courage to be in such a place on your own, to test ideas with little or no waymarkers or sense of correctness. It is both freeing and burdensome, as you know, soon others will follow.
I wonder about how that creative isolation is true of other breakthrough ideas or pioneering souls.
Just a footnote about the Daft Punk track I discovered from the associatedWikipedia article:
When Moroder arrived in the studio to record his monologue, he was initially perplexed that the booth contained multiple microphones; he briefly wondered if the extra equipment was a precaution in case one of the microphones broke. The recording engineer explained that the microphones varied with origin dates that ranged from the 1960s to the 21st century, and that each microphone would be used to represent the different decades in Moroder’s life. The engineer added that although most listeners would not be able to distinguish between each microphone, Thomas Bangalter of the duo would know the difference.
Now that is attention to detail.