Back at music school, a close friend and I were talking about creativity in our practice. We were studying classical music performance, where you don't write music, you play other people's music.

My friend was making the point that performers were not creative in the way that a composer was creative. (It's not an unreasonable opinion. I swear I read in one of Seth Godin's books a similar observation.)

But I didn't believe that was really fair.

Performers have a choice in how they spend their time: What styles they play, which composers they chose to perform, and how to bring life to what is really just dots on the page.

Several performers I know actually make a clear identity around their repertoire, be it pop covers, women composers, or Russian violin sonatas transcribed for saxophone.

Point being that, no, classical performers aren't in the weeds of deciding which notes to play. But that doesn't mean they aren't being creative.

I've made a move to write, compose, draw, develop software, and do all sorts of things that are considered more creative. But after a few years of this, I'll admit that it didn't take getting more granular in the decision making process to be creative. Curation itself has been a creative process.

This, in my mind, is another reason why being original shouldn't be a requirement that holds you back from doing whatever gets you excited to create. Even if your work is collaging.