Wonderful exposition on the essence of creativity - this returns the creator (whatever the chosen field) to the heart of creating: as an act of joy and soul-deep passion. As Nachmanovitch is a musician, there was a heavy emphasis on musical creativity, but there's more than enough insights to benefit anyone who wishes to create from the soul rather than the mind.

Libro sobre la creatividad, la estética y la vida. Manual para crear, para crear en su versión más primitiva. Crear por el puro gusto de crear, sin importar el resultado. Recomendado para cualquier persona que quiera crear, o sea para cualquier persona.

I personally did not find this book that fascinating. It at times felt a little bit flowery and redundant to me. Others might like that style of writing though. I rate on enjoyment, and I don't believe I learned anything new but gained more evidence to support the similar ideology I have with the author. The content of is book is great if it is the first time you are hearing some of the advice. However, I personally have picked up on some of the advice that the author gave, mostly through reading other books and taking classes here at USC.

From what I can gather, a lot of the advice is centered around Buddhist/Taoist advice. It is to let go of inner labels. It is the idea that you get your version of yourself based on the people surround yourself with, and you build your personality from that. You become the person that the people want you to because attention and crowd approval is intoxicating. As result, this may prevent you from trying new things as you were told weren't good at one thing or the people around you were just vastly better when you compared yourself. Once you let go of the label and ego you put on yourself, your true self can be seen.

A great personal example was back in Highschool I was horrible at play instruments. I did not pick it up as fast as my peers. Covid however presented a unique opportunity to try something new. I picked up the guitar. I fell in love with it. I practice a lot, with the cost of me reading sadly. But, I am just playing for myself, and I have been able to realise that creative side that I never knew I had.

Las descripciones genuinas del proceso de improvisar, ocultas en miríadas de páginas pseudo-espirituales tratando con quién sabe qué, fueron suficientes para sostener las dos estrellas. Creo que si eliminamos todo el texto de Nachmanovitch y preservamos sólo las citas de otros autores (que son numerosas) tendríamos un mejor libro.

No sé, supongo que un libro enfocado en la improvisación y la creatividad tendría otro propósito que explicar de manera más aguda y complicada lo que ya hacemos naturalmente.

For me, this book kept going between a 3 and a 4 star book. I got half way through it’s already quite short length and left it for a year. It has tedious stretches where my eyes would glaze over and I would realise I hadn’t properly taken in what had been written. Where the metaphors and reflections of life take a turn for the ‘slightly too poetic’ for me taste.
However, the exploration of play, improvisation, and getting lost in your art, did shine through for the most part. In a way I feel like there’s nothing in this book that you don’t know deep down, it’s just that these ‘truths’ can be hidden behind the complexities and justifications of everyday life.

Simplemente excelente y diría que un libro de cabecera para cualquier persona que encare un proyecto artístico con amor y compromiso; la vida misma, por ejemplo.

Me quedo con esta frase de Beethoven que logró trascender la sordera, la soledad, el aislamiento y su propia mente y aún así crear genialidades: “si no hubiera leído en alguna parte que un hombre no puede desprenderse voluntariamente de su vida mientras le quede una sola buena acción que realizar, hace tiempo que ya no existiría.” Letters, Emily Anderson, 1961.

This book ruminates on the nature of creative genius and proposes that we all have genius in us, if we just transcend rational selfhood, express that unbounded expression, and translate it back out through practiced craft. He doesn't tell us exactly how to "transfer this receptivity, compassion, and free flow of mind to everyone and everything we touch" (p. 169) but it's inspiring to know that free flow is possible for all of us.

If you are an artist of any sort, read this book.

This is an interesting read on creativity and improvisation to come back to. I read it with pen in hand and highlighted the parts that spoke to me. If I reread, I feel like I might find other parts that capture me next time.

Some parts of the book were too filled with spiritual flummery for my taste, and I didn't like that some is written like if it were the objective truth, even though it's the writer's opinion, theories and own experiences. The writing is also unnecessarily complicated, often I found I could rephrase a couple of paragraphs in just a sentence or two. Then I was like 'oh, was that what you meant, couldn't you just have said so!'

But all in all I found it well worth reading.

Whether you paint, write, or play, you'll find endless insight and motivation well worthy of multiple reads.

Atopei este libro por accidente, porque en realidade o que eu quería era que alguén me explicase cientificamente o que pasa no meu cerebro e no meu corpo mentres improviso. Porén, isto é máis ben unha carta de amor moi longa á improvisación no seu sentido máis amplo: unha carta de amor longa e preciosísima a un estado que é —e con esta idea eu resoo moi forte— "metabolic rather than conceptual".

De verdade, preciosísimo:

"I had found a freedom that was both exhilarating and exacting."

"Impulse, like improvisation, is not 'just anything'; it is not without structure but is the expression of organic, immanent, self-creating structure."

"The intensity of your focused concentration and involvement maintains and augments itself, your physical needs decrease, your gaze narrows, your sense of time stops. (...) You lose yourself in your own voice, in the handling of your tools, in your feeling of the rules. (...) When the self-clinging personality somehow drops away, we are both entranced and alert at the same time."

"Practice is the entry into direct, personal, and interactive relationships. It is the linkage of inner knowing and action. Mastery comes from practice; practice comes from playful, compulsive experimentation (the impish side of lîla), and from a sense of wonder (the godlike side of lîla). (...) This level of performance cannot be attained through some Calvinist demands of the superego, through feelings of guilt or obligation. In practice, work is play, intrinsically rewarding. It is that feeling of our inner child wanting to play for just five minutes more."

"In playing together there is real risk of cacophony, the antidote to which is discipline. But this need not be the discipline of 'let's agree on a structure in advance'. It is the discipline of mutual awareness, consideration, listening, willingness to be subtle. Trusting someone else can involve gigantic risks, and it leads to the even more challenging task of learning to trust yourself."

"I play with my partner; we listen to each other; we mirror each other; we connect with what we hear. He doesn’t know where I’m going, I don’t know where he’s going, yet we anticipate, sense, lead, and follow each other. There is no agreed-on structure or measure, but once we have played for five seconds there is a structure, because we’ve started something. We open each other’s minds like an infinite series of Chinese boxes. A mysterious kind of information flows back and forth."

This is about creativity and improvisation in general. It is mostly about music and I am a painter, but it still managed to become the most influential book on the manner I establish project goals and strategy in my work.