Creative Process

## Overview

The Creative Process is a much-discussed and debated aspect of Music Shit and music in general. It pertains to writing lyrics, creating beats, sound engineering, technique, and all other aspects of creating music. Every artist has some kind of creative process that they follow in order to create music, whether that process is highly flexible, strict, not determined, or affected by the environment. The term, however, is still very broad and not easily definable, as we cannot fully understand *why* music is and *why* we enjoy it.

The class structure was created to categorize the different creative processes of artists, and while it was created to be as general as possible, there's no doubt that differences exist between artists of the same class in how they create. In order to give leverage to an organized concept of the Creative Process, it was divided into two subsets: the Theoretical Creative Process and the Physical Creative Process.

## Theoretical Creative Process

### Overview

This part of the creative process is literally what happens in the mind of the artist. The theory involves a number of factors linking to phenomena that are both mental and physical. How all of these interact with each other is what produces the mental requirements for creating a song, and even categorizes artists into the three classes. In accordance with the diagram, we'll go top to bottom.

### Representation

Representation is the most general word for an object at any stage in its determination by the artist. In other words, it's the thing that's going to be perceived. All of human cognition, and for that matter, music, begins with Representations entering our Perception. Literally everything on the diagram is a Representation — it's just how are we processing that Representation that establishes all the different terms and pathways.

All Representations inevitably reach a final point, whether that's an Empirical Intuition, a Pure Intuition, an Empirical Concept, or a Pure Concept. No artist can just stay at the premature levels when there are other factors playing into leading them to the final level. If an artist were to stay at a premature level, nothing could be created, and human cognition wouldn't even be complete.

### Perception

The Representation is bound to be perceived by the artist if they are made aware of it. Perception is the most general term that exists before Sensation or even having Knowledge of the object.

All three classes are capable of Perception, but when reaching the two subsets of Perception, we see a split in capability with the classes.

### Sensation

Sensation is direct experience of the Representation, but it is just *a state* of the artist, not a *complete* Representation of the object. In order for it to be a complete Representation, Knowledge comes in. All things that are sensible are knowable.

Only Technicians and Conjurers factor this into their creative processes in order to create music. The key feature of Transcendents is that they do not factor in any kind of Sensation, and the reason why will be explained as we move further down.

### Knowledge

To say one has Knowledge of something is to *understand it* as a Representation. There are things that are intelligible even if they are not directly sensible, like space and time, but we know this because we can form Intuitions and even Concepts about space and time. Intuitions and Concepts make up what Knowledge is.

All classes are capable of this, but this is the Transcendent's exclusive route because, once again, they don't factor in Sensation.

### Intuition

Intuition is the power of obtaining Knowledge that cannot be acquired by experience (Sensation) or reason (Concepts). Intuitions are objective Representations and *immediate* Knowledge — literally just taking Representations *as they are* into the Knowledge. They are not unified ideas. For example, say we see a chair. We see *the* chair, but we don't see *a* chair. We acknowledge its existence, but we form no Concept of it as something we sit on, something made of wood, etc. This is what makes Intuitions different from Concepts.

Intuitions are also called the passive species of Knowledge. Having an Intuition would be the equivalent of saying, "I *feel like* y is x." They require appearances to be given to things that are not sensible so we can understand them. In other words, Intuitions allow us to have things conform to *our* rules, to the subjective constitution of our minds, for they are feeling-based processes. They also allow artists to see *particular*, not general, relations between Representations.

There's a split in classes: only Conjurers and Transcendents can factor Intuitions into the creative process. Technicians simply do not analyze things that can only be known by some kind of feeling — they would be quite lost with their emphasis on tangibility (i.e. the physical). Also, Technicians need unity in their thought, and Intuitions cannot do the trick for that. Transcendents use Intuition to make up for not needing direct experience (Sensation), and benefit from giving non-tangible (*a priori*) things appearances so they can be understood, including being able to zero-in on specific relations between Representations. It's the same case with Conjurers, who benefit from taking Representations as they are without further definition. But what happens when Conjurers, with their already-established Sensations, bring Representations to the subjective constitution of their minds? And what happens with Transcendents, who do not possess Sensation? This is exactly what causes another split.

#### Empirical Intuition

Conjurers' Sensations simultaneously play a role in defining their Intuitions to produce Empirical Intuitions. (As said before, no class can just stay at the premature levels when there are other factors at play in defining their creative process.) The Representation, let's say an emotional experience, is bound to be analyzed *as it is* in the Knowledge of the Conjurer, which creates an Intuition, and the Conjurer's Sensation, i.e. the physical taking-in of the Representation, is combined with that Intuition to create an Empirical Intuition. The song represents this. Intuitions are ultimately meant to *assist* the Conjurer's direct experience. This is what makes the Intuition "Empirical."

Conjurers do not partake in any further conceptualizing beyond this. Concepts would not serve the purpose of innate Knowledge that they treasure so dearly. The lack of unity in Intuition is important to the point of valuing the Conjurer's experience.

#### Pure Intuition

Transcendents, devoid of Sensations, go so deeply into Intuition to produce Pure Intuition. These thoughts of particulars to give appearance to something intangible allow them to create songs about things that cannot be acquired by experience or reason. Let's take the same example of an emotional experience. It's analyzed *as it is* in the imagination of the Transcendent: the feelings, the scene, the sounds, the images, everything, without any further Concepts. There is no physical taking-in of this experience, but Transcendents are also called "Visionaries" for the fact they can *visualize* these things. Without the physical taking-in that comes with Sensation, they're able to create a song about *the* experience rather than *their* experience. This is what makes the Intuition "Pure."

This sounds like the same route as the Conjurers but without the past experience. But the importance of this innate Knowledge cannot be stressed enough for Transcendents. The lack of unity in Intuition allows the Transcendent to explore Representations as they are.

### Concept

Concepts are the active, or subjective, species of Representation, different from Intuitions. They are the "rules" that allow an artist to perceive general relations between Representations. They are a step up from just *feeling* *like* y is x — it is, instead, *knowing* that y is x. Concepts are the steps towards an analytical Knowledge.

Only Technicians and Transcendents possess the ability to form Concepts. Conjurers base their findings and creative process upon feeling, which explains why they don't reach the conceptual point. Transcendents, analytical and objective as ever, inquire into things that fit into the conceptual framework, but do it entirely *a priori*. Concepts can be formed about space and time past the intuitive framework by analyzing further until reaching the most basic categories of thought, and here they enter into Pure Concepts. Technicians form Concepts in a different manner: they provide for tangible solutions to creative problems, which presupposes their Sensations, and they establish unity of what would've been at first mere Intuitions. Technicians need this unity, as said before.

#### Empirical Concept

A Technician's creative process involves an active approach to Knowledge. They are only concerned about what they *do know*, in the sense that it requires experiential data and they're only concerned with unified ideas, not just appearances or intangible things (as in the case of Conjurers and Transcendents). One might assume that Transcendents can only cover basic topics, not ones that are "deep" at all, but this is not entirely true, because Technicians *think* about what they'll do creatively rather than *wonder* or *feel-out* about what they'll do creatively. Empirical Concepts distinguish Technicians as the "active" class,

#### Pure Concept (Notion)

Pure Concepts are the basic categories of thought. This is where we develop our Notions, or unified ideas, of all Representations. This is where we get the idea of time rather than just the feeling of ourselves aging. Transcendents tap into this to perform their *conceptual* analyses. Although they have the capacity for *intuitive* analyses, Representations only come as ideas when the Intuitions to those Representations are unified. Of course, Transcendents can do both, it's simply a question of if they're going to unify a Representation or leave it in its objective state. Will they replicate the feeling (Intuition), or will they replicate the Notion? This is an important question regarding their creative process.

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) claimed that we have four main categories of thought that make all processes of Representation possible: quantity, quality, relation and modality. Can these be replicated *as they are* in music? Like many other things Transcendents deal with, they are abstract thoughts that can only be *attempted* to be hit, but can never actually replicated as they are. But this is what defines the Transcendent's artist. Take into mind with the categories that it doesn't mean a Transcendent will make a rap about them and call that pure conceptualizing.

It is through tapping into the most basic form of conceptual analysis that Transcendents are able to distinguish themselves in this final process of Representation, along with their other process of Pure Intuition. As a matter of fact, knowledge of how it is possible for us to experience objects as objects is, in fact, called "Transcendence."