[[Notes]] - Topics: [[Creativity]] - People: [[Prince]] - Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECGcTM_gk4s --- ## Summary - WORK FAST: - [[Optimize your flow to move as fast as you think and feel]]. - [[It's not about going fast. It's about knowing how to go fast effectively.]] - [[Become so effective that you redefine how people think about work]]. - BECOME A FINISHER: - [[Sweat the details, not the distractions.]] - [[You can't always make the right decision, but you can make the decision right]]. - MAKE ART EVERY DAY: - [[Exceptional results requires exceptional effort]]. It is the [[Everyday effort]] that matters. - [[Output before input]]. - DEVELOP VAULT MENTALITY: - Be output driven. - Organize, collect, and archive your pieces of work. - This collection enables you and others to see the impact of your effort. ## Notes ### Work fast > "After Prince, you try to not feel distain for a person who needs to take all day to do a guitar part. You're thinking, 'Why do you have a record deal?!'" - Susan Rogers (expressing sentiment of studio engineers). - In the studio, Prince preferred to work with people with zero friction. With zero friction, came speed. - Susan Rogers, Prince's staff engineer, saw Prince make a song a day for 5 years. - Prince would play all the instruments and sing all the vocal lines. Susan would be mixing it as things came together. - [[Optimize your flow to move as fast as you think and feel]]. - [[It’s not just about going fast; it’s about eliminating what slows you down.]] - [[The quality of the imagination is to flow and not to freeze.]] - [[Become so effective that you redefine how people think about work]]. ### Become a finisher > "Do you remember when they used to spend a week on a snare sound? Give me a break. I literally had 5 minutes to get a drum sound. He taught me another side. That little picky cocained out sh!t doesn't matter!" - Peggy McCreary - Stick with an idea. Finish it. Abandon perfectionism. - If an idea is overproduced, then you can (and must) "unproduce" it. - [[Sweat the details, not the distractions.]] - [[In the pursuit of greatness, do not fail to do good.]] - Prince would take the first take knowing that it was imperfect. He wanted feeling. He wanted the first emotion. - Leaving the "mistakes" in, also leaves the emotions in. - [[You can't always make the right decision, but you can make the decision right]]. ### Make art every day > "If you're awake, you're making music". - Susan Rogers. - "He would play 4 hour sound checks often. Not a 15 minute sound check like most rock stars do." - Susan Rogers. - Prince would play as much as possible during the day. He'd have extended sound checks. Play a show during the day. Record all night. Sleep on the plane or the bus. - [[Exceptional results requires exceptional effort]]. - It is the [[Everyday effort]]. - [[Every artist has thousands of bad drawings in them and the only way to get rid of them is to draw them out.]] ### Develop vault mentality > "When I was there... I'd say there was 2,000 songs. He probably has more." - Cat (Describing Prince's Vault). - Be output driven. - Prince didn't look at his day like he was recording a song or recording an album. - Prince looked at his day like he was crafting his legacy. - Susan Rogers and Prince create a vault that housed an archive of fully mixed songs and unreleased albums. All of Prince's finished works. - [[Please think about your legacy because you are writing it every day]]. - Organize, collect, and archive your pieces of work. This collection enables you and others to see the impact of your effort.