5 Ways to Celebrate National Creativity Day
May 30th is National Creativity Day! This Thursday, Center Stage Music Center would like to encourage all students to embrace their own infinite creativity in any way possible. This could mean watching a movie, writing a story, or breaking out the arts and crafts bin. But as always, we here at Center Stage encourage you to learn more about music – how it is made, how we hear it, and how we understand it. With that in mind, here are some fun ways to celebrate your creativity through music!
1. Write a song
It can be difficult to figure out where to start when deciding to write a song. Dedicate today to trying to do just that. Center Stage has some great tools to help you get started: "Composing Music: Getting Started", "3 Tips to Write Lyrics for Your Next Song", "4 Tips for Writing Your Own Song." We challenge you to create a short song to show your instructors next week! Stuck? Try a random word generator to get you started.
2. Try out a different style of music
There is an undefinable amount of music genres and styles that exist throughout the world and throughout time. Why not try out a new one? Stretch your musical creativity and reimagine what you thought you already knew. Every Noise at Once is a great site to explore different genres. Created by a former Spotify Data Analyst, the site features a genre map, the ability to sort genres in relation to each other, the ability to explore genres by cities of origin, and much much more.
3. Use your instrument in a non-traditional way
We’ve talked previously about how modern artists are using their classical instruments in new and exciting ways. For National Creativity Day, we challenge you to do just that. How can you use your instrument in a non-traditional way? Can you incorporate your instrument into one of your favorite songs that does not already have a set part for your instrument? Try it out! Do not be afraid to experiment!
4. Create a new instrument
You can also use your creativity to build something! Create a new instrument to add to your repertoire. Many websites have ample suggestions on how exactly to do this; see here for example. Especially fun for our younger students, this can be a fun activity to do with the whole family! Form your own band at home and play one of your favorite songs.
5. Draw a picture based on a song
It is common knowledge that music can make us feel many different emotions. However, music can also make us see many different things. For example, press play on one of your favorite songs. Close your eyes. What images do you see? What do the lyrics make you imagine? Now is the time to put pen to paper! Open your eyes and draw what you saw. The ability to recognize how music makes us feel and what it makes us see is crucial to being a good musician and songwriter. Once you know, you can convey those same feelings to your audience!
While National Creativity Day is a great opportunity to dedicate much-needed time to your creative practices, don’t forget to touch into your creative side every day - especially in your daily instrument practice!