Part 2

Once you've started, how does the work gradually emerge?

It depends very much on the setting and framework I’m writing for. If it’s a lot about improvisation, just a sketch that sets the mood could be enough. But if it’s a bigger project, I try to keep things open as long as possible. I try to be able to stay in the state of “creative discomfort” for as long as possible (to borrow the term from John Cleese’s entertaining and inspiring lecture on creativity).

I’ve learned to trust the creative process: once the brain is set to work (in Cleese’s words, being in the “open mode”) it’s ok not to write things down to paper too early. I will keep trying out stuff and weighing different possibilities. When the deadline is getting closer, the work is pretty much done in the brain, and the actual writing (the work done in “closed mode”) doesn’t have to take too long.

Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control over the process or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?

As long as the creative juices are flowing, I just try to stay out of the way. Those lucky moments when the creativity leads the way are magical.

But it’s not always like that, and when writer’s block hits you either give up or get working. That’s when I get back to my music memos and unfinished ideas and start developing them. It is more like methodical work rather than mysterious divine creativity.

I write variations on phrases, bend them around, mangle them, try to see them in new ways. This literally always leads to new, fresh ideas and in addition to that, I get a lot of new phrases / ideas to work with. In Matisse’s words: “Don’t wait for creativity. It comes while one is working”. I couldn’t agree more.

Often, while writing, new ideas and alternative roads will open themselves up, pulling and pushing the creator in a different direction. Does this happen to you, too, and how do you deal with it? What do you do with these ideas?

Sometimes an idea leads to another, and in the end, you see that these two ideas are better off by themselves. I actually have some recordings of this.

On my first solo piano recording Polarities there’s a tune called “Split Story” that has an ending that ended up being another tune, recorded on the following solo piano album Lone Room and on Joona Toivanen Trio’s November.



The new tune is called “Moon Illusion”. You could tell from the original title that I already could see this story would go in different ways.



There are many descriptions of the creative state. How would you describe it for you personally? Is there an element of spirituality to what you do?

When really going into the creative state I’ve often experienced the feeling of “flow”. The Hungarian American psychology professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (yes, I had to double-check the spelling) studied the state of flow and I’ve been inspired by his writings and studies.

The demanding part of achieving flow nowadays for me is to find enough non-disturbed time to allow myself to totally dive into creativity. There are so many to-dos and schedules and deadlines to take into account. The best time for me to create is either very early in the morning, or late at night.

Here's a composition I remember working on at late nights in my home studio, undisturbed. This was at the end of summer so I didn’t have too many deadlines breathing in my neck (other than the upcoming recording session).



Once a piece is finished, how important is it for you to let it lie and evaluate it later on? How much improvement and refinement do you personally allow until you're satisfied with a piece? What does this process look like in practise?

I believe in finishing works. A work – say an album – is a sort of snapshot of the time it was created in: “that’s what I wrote, that’s how I played in that particular moment and in that period of time”.

If the process is stretched too long, my musical taste and preferences will change. I am no longer the same person who wrote the music, and I might disagree with the choices I made earlier. It’s better to get the work done and then move on, move on to making a new recording, another time stamp.

Then again, it often takes a long time from the composition to the recording, and then from recording to release, and it’s only then that you start performing the compositions live. You sort of have to move back in time and bring life to the “newly released old tunes” while at the same time working with something brand new and different.

You might call me careless, but I rather work with unfinished pieces than not work at all. Too many times good music never gets played because it never gets finished. With good musicians you don’t need much to make a good performance. This is especially true in jazz and improvised music. That’s what we are good at, making up music out of thin air, that is at least partly true.

What's your take on the role and importance of production, including mixing and mastering for you personally? How involved do you get in this?

I do have opinions, but I believe mostly in finding the right people to do the work. Before sending the material for mixing with a new technician, I want to listen to stuff they have done. As long as I trust the technician, I can just leave the files and give them free hands, not giving any instructions.

Then after getting the first versions, I (together with the rest of the band) could give some suggestions. Most often people work best when they can do it their way, so it’s only a matter of finding the right person for the job.  

After finishing a piece or album and releasing something into the world, there can be a sense of emptiness. Can you relate to this – and how do you return to the state of creativity after experiencing it?

I would say it’s the opposite for me. Finishing things is rewarding as it is, and sort of encourages to keep going. The creative outcome might shift though – sometimes I spend a lot of time in writing music, sometimes improvising, sometimes photography.

Why choose when you can do them all?

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you personally feel as though writing a piece of music is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?

Isn’t creativity what makes us human? It starts in the morning when you choose what to wear, and is there every day, even in the mundane tasks. Of course we get used to convenient strategies, anything else would make living a pretty intense jungle of choices.

But I especially believe that creativity should be a central part of learning new things. To see things from different perspectives, to question, and to play around with basically anything, helps us develop a deeper understanding of things.

This goes equally well for learning an instrument to new languages, cooking, fly fishing, photography, math, sports or whatever. Look at all the greats: Miles Davis, Michael Jordan, Stephen Hawkins, Steve Jobs, Ansel Adams, John Cleese -  what do they have in common if not creativity?