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Book #6 – The Creative Act. I pre-ordered Rick Rubin’s book and when it arrived I was confused, and maybe a little disappointed. Reading the first few pages of The Creative Act, it sounded like a lot of new age bullshit from a multi-gillionaire mega producer. But I decided to keep reading. I started underlining parts of it in pencil, making notes in the margins. I would break off a little section at a time, reading it like scripture, asking if the things he was saying were true in my life. And I’ll be damned… so much started to resonate with me. I still kept thinking, maybe it’s only true in the same way that a fortune cookie or a greeting card is true, that he’s just throwing out platitudes. And honestly, that could be the case. But added up, the book is incredibly inspiring. Maybe he really has cracked the code, and synthesized what it takes to create something new that you release into the world, to be enjoyed, or judged, or discarded, or cherished.

I also read and recommend Jeff Tweedy’s recent book, World Within A Song. In it, Jeff writes about the other side of the equation, about what happens when you hear a song you’ve never heard before, and the powerful, in some cases life-changing impact that a song can have on you. Although Jeff is an incredible songwriter, here he is searching for and sharing the noises that re-wired his brain and made him want to send sounds out into the world that were beautiful or honest or sad or exciting. This book is a collection of the songs that impacted his life. And it was so inspiring that I made my own Spotify playlist of songs that impacted my life.

A couple months back at the TEA’s SATE in Hong Kong I presented The Secret is the Sound: How Music Brings Emotion to Location-Based Entertainment. There I closed with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture and Disney Legend John Hench’s quote, “Nobody goes home whistling the architecture.”

So yes, it may be a cliche to see Rick Rubin’s zen-infused, beautifully bound book on the shelves of creative producers and designers. I have given several copies to friends (and to my mom). But this winter break may be a great time to sit on a still day and see if the insights it offers resonates with the creative energy you want to share with the world next year.

— Ryan Miziker