GET ON THE FREEWAY AND DRIVE
May 1, 2006 12:00 PM, Kylee Swenson Remix Editor
Where does motivation and drive come from, and how do you bring it out of yourself, your bandmates and your collaborators? There's a trigger to push even the laziest person into action. It's just a matter of finding out what it is.
One of the biggest detractors from motivation is intimidation. For a long time, when I didn't understand how to use a software program or a piece of gear, I ended up turning on the TV instead and letting it suck away my time. As a result, I felt useless and guilty. You can have the intention of throwing yourself headfirst into a project, but that doesn't mean you'll ever do it. To me, intention is an ugly word, like procrastination. Saying, “I'll start at 2 p.m.” just means you could have an excuse to push your start time to next week.
But it's not always as easy as, “Just do it.” Sometimes you have to get behind the lack of drive and see why your motor is broken. A friend of mine had intentions to add electronics to his live-performance setup, but it wasn't happening. It took another friend showing him the ropes to get him on the path. Suddenly, the task didn't seem so hard anymore, the intimidation factor melted away, and his motivation was restored.
For the late producer J Dilla, it seems as though there were two factors to his drive. Dilla was a prolific producer. But making music was his passion practically out of the womb, as Dilla's mom, Maureen Yancey, attests (see our tribute to him, “Detroit Leaning,” on page 32). In the past few years, however, he may have known that his time was limited on this planet, which is why he was so driven to finish his last few projects, even working on music from his hospital bed. But Dilla was a rare breed. There are a lot of talkers out there and far fewer doers.
Then there's Boots Riley from The Coup, who took his sweet time making his new album, Pick a Bigger Weapon. Having extra time gave him the ability to experiment. And even lying in bed all day became, in some regard, a motivating factor to his music (well, at least for the song “I Just Wanna Lay Around All Day in Bed With You”). So he didn't put out three albums a year, but over the course of a few years, he did one album that he was very happy with. Even drive is a negative thing when it pushes you to aim for quantity over quality.
For TV on the Radio's David Andrew Sitek, he's driven despite his setbacks. After losing two apartments to fires, he keeps taking a licking and keeps on ticking. But for him, the motivating factor is the negatives of the world, the world going to hell in a handbasket, as he suggests it is. That pushes him to keep writing such emotional, epic music.
It's okay if you're not a self-motivating type. The people in this issue are in varying degrees, but they achieve things in different ways. And so can you. So instead of turning on the TV when you're falling into a lazy rut, find that trigger that will make you step on the gas pedal, and git 'er done.
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