 One of the weirdest things I see happen with musicians and groups is they feel the need to be in the same room for any progress to be made on their music. When in fact, science and human nature tell us that this is the wrong thing to do. In this video, I'm going to explain to you how to use time working alone on your songs and how both of those times be as effective as possible. Hi, I'm Jesse Cannon and this is Muse Formation. In the last episode of this series, we talked about how brainstorming needs a blue sky period, free of criticism to really work well. An idea generation can be enhanced when it's free of criticism and can grow. But then it should get criticized once it's ready to be edited. It's insane how many musicians don't get the dynamic of the work you should be doing on your own. Whether it's writing songs, getting inspired, or thinking of marketing ideas, there's work that should be done on your own and then work that's brought to the group. In scientific terms, they call this the hub and spoke method, where someone works alone in the spoke and then comes to the hub where everyone meets and then discusses what they have done in their alone time. In Cal Newport's great book, Deep Work, he talks of this method of execution where each person and team will go back to their private office to develop an idea. They then vet the idea together in a collaborative environment, in the hub. This method allows development to occur in private without the interruption of flow states that are so crucial for good songwriting and if you read interviews with great songwriters, most of them value these flow states immensely. Instead, the best creative outcomes come when the individuals work alone and later pool their ideas. Since we know being creative in front of others isn't the optimum environment, why is every startup employing an open office with no room to think alone? Well, this is weird, since MIT's Building 20 is considered a mecca of creative achievements such as Noam Chomsky's Linguistics Department, which influence both Pixar and Facebook's open offices being built around the hub and spoke idea. But unlike the open offices cheered throughout startups today, a small detail is left out of Building 20's history. It contains soundproofed offices for isolated work that can enable deep work without criticism, unlike modern open office designs. But what should you be learning from these dorks? This allowed creators to work alone in their own spoke, but also meet with others in the hub. The model lets them think in private, but then when they leave their private soundproof rooms, it was designed to make people run into others with different pedigrees, just like your band members should be. And these serendipitous run-ins would happen as often as possible, exposing them to the other ideas outside their own discipline that they're an expert on. Put simply, the creators worked alone, but were very likely to discuss with others what they're working on to gain insight into their work and get the crucial objectivity we all need to make our creations better. So if we take that to music, what does it mean? This model could be taken right back to many of the deficiencies of the band practice room or the modern day writing songs around a computer approach. Knowing what we know about creativity is usually best for one person to work by themselves when they feel inspired and then go back to the group for a collaborative vetting in the hub. In the modern band sense, this means working alone on a song privately and then taking it to the practice room or inviting collaborators to the studio to refine after you've gotten your initial burst of an idea out. And letting the practice space be a space for experimenting and going back and forth with feedback and suggestions. But the spoke should be a place where you work alone to generate ideas without the pressure and anxiety of considering the feedback of others and their criticism. When the collaborative environments get stuck at a problem, it can be especially helpful to pause and take the problem home and deal with something else while you're in the hub or your band practice room. Employing the hub and spoke method isn't always about going from your home demo studio to a collaborative band practice room. Chris Beyo from Vampire Weekend talks about their band evolving from jamming in a room to now sending demos back and forth with members adding their little pieces from their own Daws. The benefits of this practice are echoed in interviews I've done with other groups like Thrice, where they live in different cities. So to effectively collaborate, they have no other choice. A hidden benefit to this method gets back to what we discuss when members of a group need to feel they're being heard and not shut down. By developing your idea on your own, you're free to build it until you're happy with it without criticism. The option paralysis of too many collaborators trying to get their ideas through at once can be super paralyzing to a creative process. Getting your initial ideas as far as possible in seclusion can allow a more clear mindset to avoid many of the pitfalls of creative obstruction. Visionless people always defend the status quo. While I know most of our favorite songs were birthed in band practice sessions or sitting around a studio computer, that doesn't mean we can't reach greater heights by learning from this concept. By taking creative contributions out of the practice room for further development can help many musicians get to a much more creative place. 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 liked 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.