Lennon and McCartney show us how to not be creative

Supercharge your practice in ways you never knew existed. For free! Download my free five day guide (10 minutes a day) and discover how 'talented' you really are. www.crackingth...
LENNON AND MCCARTNEY SHOW US HOW NOT TO BE CREATIVE (abridged)
Neuroscience sells. . .sells what?
So there I was in the Denver airport after doing some workshops for the Colorado ASTA Summer Conference and The Atlantic magazine was on display in a gift shop. There was a cool rendering of an image of Paul McCartney and John Lennon from around 1966 with bold letters, “HOW GENIUS HAPPENS,” and below that, “The Neuroscience of Creativity.” The reason I chose music as a career at the age of 10 was because of the Beatles. Now they’re gonna help me with my neuroscience homework? Awesome! They’re the gift that keeps on giving!
The actual title of the article was, “John vs. Paul: The Power of Creative Tension.” The one on genius and neuroscience was another article. Of course the cover looked much flashier and marketable by combining a large image of the two and words like genius and neuroscience.
Neurosell, sell, sell!
Be careful about getting your advice about science and learning from the media. Their motivation is to sell things, not get the science right. In this case it is a small deception, in others it is neuromyth...
...Do What They Did, Not What They Do
Here is where we can go wrong. I have seen again and again developing musicians and creatives who want to look at the way accomplished professionals do things and then try to duplicate those things themselves thinking that, and it makes sense on the surface, they might get similar results. When they don’t it gets chalked up to something like the magical element of talent.
Talent, whatever it may be, if it exists at all, is not necessary for any level of achievement...
...It would be the same if anyone wanting to learn how to create like McCartney and Lennon tried to do it the way described in the article. The year is 1966. By that time John and Paul had been together for nine years. They had spent thousands of hours performing live and learning material...They familiarized themselves with all sorts of music from all sorts of cultures. They could, they were world travelers several times over at a very young age. They spent many more hours composing together...
...The both of them partnered with a classically trained musician, producer George Martin, who could translate their ideas into orchestration. He also had significant input into the production of the music, even at the compositional level...
...Develop a relationship with a compositional partner and go through a long term learning crucible like that. You’ll get very good, I promise.
My teacher is not an international superstar like Joe Professional, is Joe Professional a better teacher than mine?
We see this in music learners frequently. Someone will ask a professional performer a question about, say, playing scales, or something like that, and they might respond that they don’t do so. You can be sure others, and that person’s teacher if they have one, will hear about that. “Why should I play scales, so and so doesn’t, are you better than so and so?”
So and so is not necessarily a teacher, they’re a performer. There’s a huge difference. Those who can, do. Those who know how it is done, teach. Those who can do both well have mastered two different and equally complex skill sets. Good teaching takes as much development as good performing. If the professional can teach then the wrong question was asked. Don’t ask what they do now; ask what they did when they had as many quality practice hours as you have right now...Don’t expect to be able to do what THEY do now by doing what they do NOW...
...You only see the performances many years later. If you wanted to become a professional bodybuilder you wouldn’t ask a pro how much they lift and try to do that. You’d hurt yourself. The same way you’re hurting yourself by wasting time on advice that you can’t use yet. You already have a great personal source for advice - IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED...TRY DOING WHAT YOUR TEACHER TOLD YOU THE FIRST TIME. And if you don’t have a teacher you should consider getting one
You should also find someone who can teach, I mean really teach you how to practice because learning how to do things on the instrument is just one thing. Having a comprehensive idea of the really weird ways the best practicing works, and being taught that in the same way you are being taught instrument operation, is the missing link in modern music instruction.
I know a guy who does that. You can find him on my website. People say he’s pretty good at it. Who knows?
How well we figure that how practicing works is how ‘talented’ we will seem, but there is no reason to not figure it out. Trust me, it aint ‘talent’ that is holding you back.
To become what they are
Do what they did, not what they do.
Mic drop.