The Art of Living Creatively:

with Lu Lu and the Duz (pronounced “dues”) - S1 Ep 1

Conversations between the bandmates of the ARTs dept.

Lucy Dallman and Billy Van Duzor

L: So, the first question is on the big topic is-where (laughing)

B: Shouldn’t you make an introduction?

L: (louder laughter) No, okay, okay-Where (uncontrollable laughter)… oh right, an introduction. Hello dear listeners. This is Lucy Dallman and I am in conversation with Billy Van Duzor. We are the band members of “the ARTs dept.” We are here today to explore the art of living creatively.

(louder laughter) No, okay, okay-Where (uncontrollable laughter)

B: Well, I’m trying… (laughter)

L: We are going to jump right into our exploration of creativity. We are going to start where? At the beginning, of course. So, let’s start with how or where do you begin? Where do you find ideas? How do they come to you and then what do you do with those ideas?

B: Do you mean for songs?

L: For any sort of creative endeavor. Specifically, for your music. For writing songs.

B: Yeah, well, it usually comes from something I notice. And I’m always trying to look artistically at the world. Like finding something and thinking, “How does this mean something?? In that dorky artistic way. Ideas also come from dealing with my own insecurities.

L: That is interesting that you explain your lyrics as “exploring your insecurities.” I describe mine as a way to tease out how confused I am about my feelings with different big topics in my life, which I guess is another description or definition of an insecurity.

B: Well, that’s where all of my songs have started from – so far. For example, what is the song I just finished?

L: “I Saw a Man.”

B: Right. So that was head-on with my insecurities. About how I’m never going to be a rich person. I saw this dude, about my age, dropping off his kid at school.  Just seeing him triggered a moment in my head of the choices which I’ve made. And that got me thinking about specific ways that I am not. And then also turning it around and thinking of things I do have and what that person possibly doesn’t have. All of those wonderings came from a five- second interaction with some guy who has no idea that I continued to think about him.

L: Did you ever actually have a conversation with him?

B: Never. I would never. I just looked at him. I never talked to him. I don’t want to. I am afraid he will be amazing. And then It would just reinforce the (L and B are laughing) idea that he is amazing and I am not! 

L: Not true. You are so self-deprecating! 

B: I thought excruciatingly about what struck me about this person. He looked so cool and young. He was fit, and he had cool shoes.

L: Sneakers? I know you millennials love your footwear. Did I tell you we are housing about 30 pairs of sneakers that  V. (our 35-year-old daughter) has bought over the years? She insists that they will bank roll Billy D. and my nursing-home years after she sells them.

B: V. is maybe on to something. I have thought about doing that, but then I will have to come-up with the cash to buy all the shoes. I’m thinking my wife is not going to approve of that gamble.

Getting back to the ultra-cool dad I was observing:

 Obviously. It was like, “Wow. He is all dressed-up, wearing a suit.” And here I am…

L: Teaching music at Ben Franklin Elementary in your sneakers and jeans.

B: Exactly! What was the original question?

L: The ideas. Where do they come from? But wait, something you just said struck me. You look at the world through a creative lens.

B: Yeah.

L: I find myself out in the world on a walk with friends or sometimes even at school, when I spot a bright, shiny thing or I overhear something, and I have to stop and pay attention and ask questions. I don’t think many people do that. Well, that’s my perception. Maybe everyone does that? Did anyone teach you that observational technique? I don’t think anyone taught me. I do try to teach the kids we teach the importance of noticing.

B: No, no one ever taught me that. It is just something I think that even as a little kid I did. Look, I was a little different as a kid. I was super curious and asked questions constantly. I think I drove my mother nuts! I do believe that some people, like you said, are just more inquisitive and right-brain focused. I think that is the way that I process the world around me.

I think it is a good exercise for anyone interested in a creative life to look at one thing in a bunch of different ways, using a number of different perspectives. I will find myself focusing on one word and thinking about all the different ways that I could use that word and what does that word mean? Most of the time it goes nowhere. It’s purely a thought exercise. A little game I play with myself.

L: Interesting. If I am understanding you correctly, it’s as though you are collecting little bits of “noticings” all the time. Sometimes they’ll turn into lyrics or themes for songs and sometimes they’re just you noticing.

B: Uh- hmm.

L: I find that there are times when a phrase will strike me or come to me and it is not fully formed. It’s just three to five random words. But if I stop and riff on that phrase or word and start to really think about the idea, more words come.

B: Yeah, me too.

L: What happens once that seed or idea takes hold? What is your process next?

B: Yeah, well it depends. I don’t write songs nearly as quickly as you do. I will take an idea, and sometimes I’ll sit with it for years. Maybe it will grow into something, or maybe it doesn’t. I do not like rushing through the process. Not that you rush through your song writing.

L: I think a lot of my rushing is that I can’t believe this song writing thing is happening to me. I think I want to grab and explore anything that comes my way. There is definitely an urgency to my writing. I think that is probably an age thing. As an almost 60-year-old, I take notice when the music muses present something to me.

B: You are good about sharing your in-process work. I sometimes feel self- conscious about sharing something before it is fully bloomed. 

L: We definitely view that differently.

B: I think we are both working through our life experiences with our songs. We’ve talked about how a snapshot of an experience, or a feeling you had in a certain situation can lead to the lyrics of a new song.

L: I would like to point out to our listeners another of our differences, which may shed light on how and why we’re willing to share our work with a larger audience: I don’t have the musical knowledge or background that you have.

B: You don’t have the vocabulary that I’ve studied my whole life. But you still have musical knowledge.

L: Sure, I have been singing my whole life, but not studying music and learning the rules of music theory to be able to create the music part of the song. This isn’t a bad thing or a good thing. It is just that my musical ability is not honed from an education. Where you have studied music throughout your life with an undergrad and master’s degree in musical performance.

B: True.

L: So, I am wondering, because you have everything: the music knowledge/ability and the lyrics in your head. Do they occur simultaneously? Do you have a phrase, and then the music comes or is it vice versa?

B: I don’t know, when you start talking about the process, that for me is when the mystery kind of presents itself. Like, how did I do that? The cheap answer is, “I don’t know.” That is such a bad answer, I know! But truly, it always starts for me, well not always, I would say 80 percent of the time at an instrument, without words, usually at a piano. I am not trying to write a song at that point in my process, I am trying to capture a mood or a feeling I experienced. Sometimes my mind will give me words for that and sometimes not. My phone is filled with snippets of colors of moods which I have created, and someday I will go back and maybe add words to it.

L: That is fascinating. Melodies will come to me as I sit down and write my lyrics and I will hum them into my voice recorder on my phone. But since I do not have the musical knowledge I can’t really turn my lyrics into songs without you. 

B: When I sit down and improvise with an instrument, I am trying to create landscapes of music which express how I am feeling. So the words for me are almost always the last thing to come. Part of it is that I’m such a perfectionist that I am never satisfied with the lyrics I create. 

L: Perfectionism is the murderer of all unfinished art. So many artists don’t share their work because they feel it isn’t good enough. I, fortunately or unfortunately, depending on who you talk to, have never had that problem. I’m an “over-sharer” in pretty much all parts of my life.

B: However, when you give me words- lyrics you have written which you’ld like music for, I hardly struggle at all.

L: That’s kind of fascinating.

B: Yeah.

L: What do you think that is?

B: (laughing) I don’t know. Part of it is that you have already taken the pressure off of what the concept of the song is. You have already given me the words, which is my struggle anyway. You give me the words and the vibe of the song, and in my head is an enormous catalog of moods that I can pull from.

L: Oh, so interesting. That is why you ask me what kind of vibe I’m thinking about when I hand you lyrics. I never knew that!

B: Then all I have to do is sort of select a file from my conscious or subconscious mind files of musical landscapes I have in my head. Like “Judy’s Song.” You said you wanted something big and theatrical. Uhm I am not going to say on tape that I stole it, but…

L: You didn’t steal it. It is not stolen from something else you heard. Maybe you were inspired by something from within your vast musical knowledge, but it wasn’t stolen. I am sure of it.

B: Let’s not have the plagiarism conversation now.

L: No, let’s. It is not plagiarism when you’re inspired by something, and it shows up in your art. Okay- let me explain my point of view. I believe that there is nothing in this world that’s original. Everything is “stolen,” your word not mine, from something else. I really believe that any form of art is inspired by something already in existence. That is why I believe it’s crucial to always be open and collecting “things.” Whatever your “things” are: sounds, objects, words, colors all of that then gets stored in YOU as an individual, to then make its way out into the world in a different way, interpreted by YOU the artist.

B: Uh huh, right. You’ve really been thinking about this, haven’t you?

L: You have it in your head that you’re stealing from other artists/musicians. I say you are being inspired by them.

B: Yeah, I don’t know. I struggle with it because when a melody comes to me, it is organic. I am not trying to steal anything. I am creating songs from a mood that struck me in the past. Something I heard before. Something I played before. I don’t question what it is. Then you often catch me going back and retroactively trying to figure out, “Oh what did I steal this from?” and usually I can figure out what inspired me.

L: Good, you’re moving in the direction of calling what you do inspiration, not stealing.

B: I know it’s not that blatant. It is not like you are saying to me, “Try to create a song that sounds like X but that no one will know what X is.” Maybe stealing is not the right word. Maybe we should settle on “borrow.”

L: That brings to mind for me the vast amounts of music you consume. You are a prolific music listener.

B: I do listen to a lot of music. I have internalized so much of what I love to listen to and it becomes my musical identity. It is vocabulary. It becomes what I speak when I play music. When I create an original song I really wonder if it is a mash-up of 5 different songs which I have consumed. That is what I struggle with, at what point is it stealing or is it inspiration?

L: And I would argue that is exactly what we humans should be doing. Consuming all sorts of inspiration through experiences and noticings. By seeing, hearing and doing all sorts of different things, our experiences become a part of who we are as individuals. Which then becomes an extension of you through your art.

B: Right. I have only been me. I don’t know what it is like to be creative inside someone I consider to be a genius. I don’t know what that is like. We can’t possibly know. Are they thinking the same way we do? Just on a higher plane? Who knows I have no idea. What I do is surround myself with all sorts of different music. Sometimes that music comes out in my music. Often times I will confess to you that a certain part of one of our songs seems to be stolen from “X” and I will play you the “X” and almost always you respond, “ I don’t really know how our song and “X” are the same!” But in my head, it is so clearly stolen. Does it matter? I don’t really know.

L: We are going to end today’s podcast with one last question.

B: And thank you listeners for tuning in, but first a word from our sponsor, “Better Health.” 

L and B: (both laughing)

L: Here is the last little bit for today. For me and really what has brought me to this writing journey. All of this came from a tremendous amount of grief I experienced in the last years of my father's life. I thought that I would write about my grief and his life. Instead I found great solace writing songs with you. And it is this amazing, magical experience for me that is so cathartic.

B: Yeah.

L: I came to songwriting in a completely different way than you. Writing music and songs has been your whole life-Garage bands in high school, music school for both undergrade and grad school, etc.

B: Right. Music has been my identity my whole life.

L: Right, you are the “Music Guy.” 

B: Exactly.

L: My question is, do you feel, is it a cathartic experience for you to write about an experience or a feeling? For me writing “Corners Of” and “Judy’s Song” allowed me to express and then let go of the burden of grief. It did not take the grief away, but it did lessen it. I am wondering, if that is part of your experience.

B: Ahh. (hesitant) The finished product for me is not as cathartic as I think it is for you. My catharsis comes from the beginning part of song writing. I get lost in the exploration. Ninety-Eight percent of the time that exploration leads to nothing. It is pure improvisation which comes from somewhere that I don’t know. That is the part that is cathartic to me. It is my ongoing catharsis. Writing about some hard time in my life feels good, but seeing the finished song on paper doesn’t excite me. The process of discovery for me is the catharsis. 

L: Oh, so your songs don’t even need to be finished?

B: No. In fact, the finished product is not super meaningful to me.

L: Ladies and gentlemen, we need to stop here. Our first graders are coming momentarily.

B: Remember listeners, for $9.99 a month using promo code: Lu Lu and the Duz- you too can be informed and start – “Living Creatively.”

L and B: (both laughing) as students walk into the art and music rooms.