I’m a horrible editor.
To be clear, what I mean is someone who can evaluate a creative work in progress and help it to reach a better final form than if it had been left alone. The masters of the skills that go into making a great editor are few and far between and, in my experience, aren’t generally people who produce their own creative work. There are notable exceptions to that. I have known brilliant composers who could take a piece of work by a student, find that germ of an idea that had brilliant potential, and without extinguishing it direct its creator in the polishing of the idea until its potential was fulfilled. I can count those people on one hand and the world lost one of them not too long ago. How I wish I could say that I learned enough to be a worthy replacement.
The problem seems to be zeroing in on that thing that makes a piece tick. Everyone can tell while making something whether it’s working or not, but not all can express exactly what it is that works. Without that clarity it is difficult to discuss the quality that should be maintained above all else. I find that it’s a little easier with something that someone else has made but it’s really difficult for me to do with my own work.
One of my few regrets about the greenman collection is that many of the pieces on there had something but I didn’t take the time to polish them as I should have. I know full well that the collection itself was more an exercise in completing and releasing an album but some of the works with the most potential didn’t get the detailing that they needed to go from good to great. I have a nifty list of excuses, but the fact is that my inner editor didn’t really speak up loudly enough to drown out the producer who simply wanted it out the door. And one of the many reasons that voice wasn’t heard is that I don’t really trust it.
Because I don’t trust my internal editor, when I was in school I ditched the pencil when composing for the pen. Pencils have erasers. Pens don’t. Something written in pen can be crossed out, but it’s difficult to obliterate it entirely. I found that many things that I erased or crossed out were actually pretty good the next day. Like a good soup they needed time in my mind to blend with other flavors and ripen into something wonderful or at the very least useful. I was led to the conclusion that my ability to edit while composing is suspect at best and that the task should be put off for 24 hours and preferably three days. Not much has changed since then.
I’m not very good at finding that thing that makes something cool. Especially while I’m in the process of working on it.
That was set in relief for me while I was working on a new tune. I put down a track of fingerstyle guitar and started layering on top of it. The layers were sounding better and better while the original track started to drift downward in comparative quality. By mistake I muted that track and it went from zero to really good. What I thought was the central theme turned out to be more of a scaffold than anything else. When it was pulled away the structure maintained itself and was more beautiful than before. If I were a better editor, I would have heard that sooner. Maybe. I can see my future randomly muting tracks while composing from now on just to see what needs to be there and what doesn’t.
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