 If you've ever sat in on a bunch of different bands' rehearsals during pre-production, like I do for a living, you know most of them are a toxic environment where people are taking out aggressions on one another on a regular basis and good ideas can get canned from band dynamics. What most people don't realize is that band practice is often toxic to getting good ideas out, and it's because it neglects one simple practice. In this video, I'm going to show you how a simple tweak to how you work can give you way better songs. Hi, I'm Jesse Cannon and this is Muse Formation. One of the most common creative tools for the amateur leader of a creative team is the brainstorming session, which is structured nearly identical to most musicians' band practices. The idea being if everyone sits around in spitballs ideas, some greater good will come of it, and the creative decision at hand will be solved by the group, since after all, a few heads are better than one, right? The concept of brainstorming was invented by this guy Alex Osborn of the famous ad firm BBDO. He's thought of to be one of the inspirations for the character Don Draper on Mad Men. He popularized the idea of brainstorming in a series of business books he wrote throughout the 50s, and you could point to years of creativity that occurred following his books lead as evidence of how great this idea works. But there is something missing. The first rule he outlines for brainstorming seems to have been lost on nearly every one of the hundreds of bands I've ever attended a band practice of. This rule was that you aren't allowed to criticize the ideas of others in the group. Now, what? You can't criticize people? Hold on, I'll explain. Disobeying that rule has led to the toxic environments of latent resentment present in nearly every band I know that's made more than one record. Osborn realized this. He said that if members of the group feared negative feedback and ridicule, the sessions would fail. Anyone who's been to a band practice knows members are commonly reduced to having stupid ideas or even worse, ideas that never work. As someone born in New Jersey, I do believe jibing and friendly teasing could be the key of a great environment, but when it comes to discounting creative instincts, a boundary needs to be created in order to make better art. But this balance is delicate. So delicate that Osborn called it a delicate flower, whereas most bands treat their creative brainstorming session like a food fight. While many musicians have a short temper for trying many ideas, Osborn found the best results could come from allowing people to think of the absurd and not being afraid to share the dumbest or most adventurous ideas. In fact, those should be encouraged. Quantity should come first in ideas, and then through evaluation, quality will come as a result. Once the well of contributing ideas runs dry, that's when editing should begin. Just as we'll allow ourselves to perspire until we're empty and then begin to dissect. B.J. Novak, an actor and writer on the show The Office, the U.S. version, talks about how the show would employ a blue sky period, in which no one was allowed to criticize one another's ideas no matter how crazy they were. For the first four weeks of any writing season, the writers would be challenged to dream of the craziest scenarios possible and then be dialed into a digestible form for a primetime viewing audience. Adam McKay, the director of The Big Short and Anchorman, employs the exact same technique. I've known countless musicians who try to go so far and push their ideas as far as they can so that then they dial them back since that's what gets them the best creative result. In music, it's not often said that you should go too far with your ideas and then take them to a more rational and considered place. You may be wondering what does too far look like though? Perhaps it's making the solo of the song excessive or experimenting with multiple ideas for harmonies to then figure out what's great along with what's too much. It can even be setting the mark to do better than the ideas you're inspired by and not just getting to their level. So often bands aim to be as good as their favorite song, not better than it. And they give up way earlier than even being as good as that song. Most successful creators have come to learn that there's no shame in throwing out a bad idea. It's part of the process. An environment should be established where it's known people will have bad ideas and that's the only way to get to good ideas. You come to learn that unless you have a few bad ideas, you can't be sure that your final idea is the best one. Descent and discussion are helpful and every study on the subject shows that descent can help come up with better answers. So hating that your basis doesn't always love your ideas can be the reason you end up making great songs. But that's not to be mistaken for just saying no for better ideas. No doesn't always mean you get the best product. Figure out how to augment the good and identifying it is just as important as saying no. The balance lies in experimenting but in the end trusting your gut to make sure you made the right decision. Even if your original idea is what you stuck with, it has at least been thoroughly vetted once you go through this vetting. So if you want to follow what science says to improve your band practices, one, allow ideas to come to fruition first. Two, try to go excessive and far and test the bounds of your imagination. Three, once things have gotten ridiculous and excessive, go into editing mode but avoid criticism and only do encouragement until then. That's it. Am I missing anything? Is there any way you would have done this? I need to know your questions and what no one else is telling you since I want to answer them. So leave them in the comments. I hope you like this video and if you did, please like and subscribe and get notified for my future videos since I'm going to be breaking down the concepts in this video along with tons of others on promoting your music and how to make music you're more happy with. As well, I have a Facebook group that's linked below that has only helpful information. No one tried to sell you anything. Playlist or con artists, only helpful information for musicians looking to be better themselves. If you want to learn more about me, make a record with me or check out any of my books, podcasts or anything else I do, head to jessecanon.com or at jessecanon.com on any of the socials. Thanks for watching. One last thing. If you liked this video, there's two playlists here with tons more videos that you'll probably enjoy. One's about how you promote your music and the other's about how you make songs you're happy with. Otherwise, you can hit the subscribe button here to see the rest of my videos. Thanks so much for watching.