Guitar Gear

I’ve been on the job hunt these past few weeks, which is why I haven’t posted as much as I normally would. And in my search, interviewers have all asked the standard question: “Why did you leave your last position? You were there for three-and-a-half years.” My original “pat” answer was, “It became too political.” But that was really only a minute part of why I left. I only said that because I had a hard time articulating what really was at the core of my leaving; and simply put, it was a gradual reduction in freedom: Freedom to think, freedom to be creative, freedom to be honest.

When I first started at that company, we were pre-IPO. The engineering team was lean – about 50 people to develop for a HUGE enterprise app – and thus, we all wore lots of hats. It was chaos, but the level of teamwork and collaboration was at a level before which I had never experienced. Because of our flat organization, we were all expected to lead in some way, shape, or form at any time. There were no egos.

But all that changed after the IPO as the company transformed into a classic corporate culture where collaboration and courage gave way to internal competition. That change in culture eroded the sense of ownership of employees, as the executive management focused on pleasing Wall Street, and started practicing Wall Street’s executive rewards programs: Paying themselves huge bonuses in stock and cash, while not rewarding the rank and file in kind. They created management layers and stratified the entire organization. The values that the company was built on were only given lip service.

That’s why I left. I could no longer work for a company that was not living up to its values.

So what does this have to do with this blog? 🙂 I came to that realization above as I was writing some of my latest songs, so bear with me.

As a sanity check, I submit my music to a few different services to be critiqued. I’ve always known that my music while Christian in flavor, really doesn’t fit in the Contemporary Christian music category. But several reviewers have come back with critiques to shape my songs into that genre. My reaction has been, “I guess they don’t get what my music is about…” Mind you, that’s not an ego thing. It’s more of an awareness that it’s completely different from the genre. However, one reviewer whom I have been using for critiques and who is also the most brutally honest with me, has never tried to change my songs to fit in the CCM bucket. Instead, she evaluates my songs completely on their own merit, allowing me to build on my creativity, and working with me on making tweaks that serve the song as opposed to genre.

Frankly, my music could be considered “contemporary sacred,” as it is all worship music, and really meant to be played within the context of some sort of worship ceremony or event. Most songs I write aren’t just for listening: They’re for interaction. They’re meant to be sung.

During a recent conversation with the reviewer I mentioned, I realized that a sense of “freedom” is a critical ingredient to creativity. In the past couple of weeks, I have been churning out new music that will be going on my new sacred songs album. I have been experiencing an incredible burst of creativity. That is largely due to having this sense of freedom: I’m writing what I feel I need to write, free from the consideration of what someone else might think. In essence, I’ve given myself the freedom to be creative and stopped trying to build a box around what I think my music should be, or worrying myself about whether or not it will be liked. It is what it is.

For highly creative people, reduction in freedom to create, whether or not it’s self-inflicted kills their ability to create. For me, once I gave myself permission to write what I needed to write, all sorts of great things happened…