I think, for me, a way to really come up with new ideas and come up with new ways of writing music is to create a unique sound palette or soundscape for all the films I'm working on.
I'm always trying to experiment and come up with new palettes of sound and new combinations of music that you haven't really seen or heard in film before.
To me business is a sport. I love knowing that 24x7x365xforever I'm competing with people I don't know. To build my businesses. To come up with new ideas. To come up with better ideas. That motivates me.
We have such a great depth of human history in all of the arts, whether it's opera or mathematics or painting or classical music or jazz. There's so many things to study, new books to read, and certainly always ways to transform old ideas and to come up with new ones.
Each year when we set up a new tour, we kind of push ourselves to come up with new ideas and new exciting things.
Meanwhile, NBC and I plan to continue our relationship with several new co-ventures including a new music show, while we also explore our ideas for me to create and host a new show of my own. I will not go quietly into the night... expect more great music and entertainment done in my own unique unmistakable and undeniable way. The Voice has given me all the altitude and incentive to do just that. Thanks for the memories and make way for many more!
If you're having difficulty coming up with new ideas, then slow down. For me, slowing down has been a tremendous source of creativity. It has allowed me to open up -- to know that there's life under the earth and that I have to let it come through me in a new way. Creativity exists in the present moment. You can't find it anywhere else.
My kids will come to me and ask me to listen to a 'new sound' they think they've discovered. One time it was the Beatles' 'Yesterday,' and the new sound was four strings. All of a sudden the new generation discovers the string quartet!
I enjoyed so much working with the guys from Wilco, and riffing off of them, and having someone come up to me with ideas, because normally in the studio it's me who has to come up with all the ideas.
To me, sound is a crucial component to, really, any moviegoing experience, but particularly with suspense films or thrillers. I think you need the audience to become subtly really attuned to the soundscape in, like, this uncomfortable way.
My plan is to give new ideas to writers. They will come up with new subjects keeping me in mind.
I think I know what my bandmates like or are interested in or would be interested in doing. I take ideas and I develop them, get rid of some ideas, keep writing, and then new things come up.
I have come to understand myself as more of a New York writer, or more of a woman writer, but I don't feel like that while I'm writing. But I think that most New Yorkers would object to calling me a New Yorker. I didn't grow up here.
I think with everything I do, I'm trying to just come up with new ways of creating music and mixing styles together. That's just what's fun for me to do, to try to make myself inspired.
I pay attention to what's going on around me. I'm always looking for new energy, new talent, new voices. When you do that I think it's easier to come up with fresh ideas. It's not that my career has been based on surprising people, but it's been about challenging myself - to constantly do new things that are going to broaden my own mind and in the process, hopefully, connect with other people.
I really enjoy working with Daniel Espinosa. He's very clear on what he wants, but never stops anybody to come up with ideas to bring to the table. It's a really nice and rewarding way to work. So when Life came up, it was more a question of continuing an already good working relationship.
I don't really think of these as projects. I think of them as bands. I have tried to not just convene a group of musicians and make one record or make one gig and just drop it. Each of them develop over time. I have been really fortunate to keep a band like the Sextet together over three very different albums. Each time, the goal got more deep for me in terms of how I wanted to write for those people. So it is really about trying to develop ideas and trying to have a consistent focus on a way to come up with new ideas in music that I want to do.