Adele, BJ Novak and Exercising Restraint In Artistry

The first couple years of learning any craft is both awkward and exciting. You experience new sounds and ideas, and are learning to use the ‘tools of the trade’. It’s a time to just become familiar with your new art form.

When we first dive into the world of photography, we tend to oversaturate everything (seriously, no one has ever seen grass THAT green). When we learn a new instrument, we overuse effects. Guitar players will turn every knob up 100% so every riff sounds like the beginning of Panama. When we are learning to sing, we overuse styling and that heavy, breathy sound to mask our lack of control. When we are learning to write we drizzle metaphors over everything like…. syrup…on….pan….cakes….

This is normal, and all part of the process of growing as an artist. This time should be celebrated and encouraged. But as we begin to use our craft to tell stories, it becomes necessary to understand what is important and what is a sensory distraction to our storytelling.

I deem sensory distractions in art as anything that pulls you out of the mood you intend to create or the message you are trying to deliver. Of course, like anything in art, this can very subjective, but the greats of any medium spend large amounts of time figuring out what to subtract over what else to put in.

Having restraint not to spotlight the craft over the story really shows maturity in an artist. Here are a few great examples of avoiding sensory distractions:

Adele co-wrote her monster hit Hello with Greg Kurstin. In this article, Greg talks about the mix and the use of very little reverb in the main vocal to create a very intimate moment where you feel like you are listening in on a dialogue between two people. “Almost like it’s there, and it’s not there.” The mix engineer, Tom Elmhirst, could have used a beautiful large reverb, but he showed restraint to tell the story over spotlighting the craft.

Writer B.J. Novak wrote a fantastic children’s book with NO PICTURES. You would think it wouldn’t be very interesting for kids, but it’s the opposite. It’s hilarious! He removed the distraction of pictures and asks the reader to read EVERYTHING out loud including silly words like “BLAGGITY BLAGGITY” and “GLIBBITY GLOBBITY.”

Artist Tang Yau Hoong combines elements in his illustrations to draw the eye towards center. This serves to get the message across to the viewer in an often whimsical and novel manner. It certainly leaves an impression, wouldn’t you say?

Spend the first years of your craft enjoying all it has to offer. Play with everything. Put it all on your plate. It’s like a buffet. Buffets encourage us to try a bit of everything, but can also teach us what we want to leave off our plate in the future. You’ll spend the next 30 years exercising restraint in what you put into your work and your stories will be better because of it.