Conversation on Replenishing Your Creative Energy with Emile Pandolphi
Do you sometimes suffer from low level creative energy? In this episode, I'll be talking with Emile Pandolphi about his approach to keeping his creative energy at a high level to fuel his professional career. Now, even if you are not a professional. This conversation is going to help you maintain and improve your creative energy by taking note of what a professional does to maintain their output.
Biography
Emile Pondolphi
Emile Pandolfi is a professional pianist and entertainer with over 40 years of performance experience. One of the top-selling pianists in the music industry, he has recorded and released over 30 albums, including one with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra (Czech Republic). Since his first release in 1991, Emile has sold over 4.5 million copies nationally and reached more than 750 million collective streams online.
Throughout his career, Emile has performed hundreds of concerts with thousands of fans in attendance, including performances at St. Mark’s Square in Venice, the Catherine Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Liverpool Cathedral, and Sydney Opera House in Australia. While intricate arrangements of Broadway and pop standards make up the majority of his performance repertoire, his influences remain more
classical than pop. It is his subjective layering of classical style, which he infuses into the broad palette of his performance selections, that continues to resonate with audiences everywhere. Although serious about his playing, Emile is never serious about himself and believes that every moment at the piano should be one of joy. While his audience is treated to a brilliant musical performance, they are also entertained by Emile’s charming, light-hearted sense of humor and outgoing personality. From his early
performances on cruise ships, in piano lounges, and in the recording studio to his current solo performance career in concert halls, Emile has used his music to create an intimate and powerful emotional connection for those listening. Today, Emile continues to write original songs and arrangements for his fans to
stream. He lives in Greenville, South Carolina, with his wife Judy.
- Knowing When to Replenish Your Creative Energy
- Why it is important to replace your creative energy
- The Impact of using negative sources for creative energy
- Taming inner critic
Links To Emile Pandolphi
Reaching Out
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Transcripts of the Show
CAP Conversation Replenishing Your Creative Energy with Emile Pandolphi
Tim: Create art podcast conversations, replenishing your creative energy with a Emile Pandolphi hello friends. This is Timothy Kimo. Brian, your head instigator for create art podcast where I use my 20 years of experience in the arts and education world. To help you tame your inner critic and create more than you consume.
Do you sometimes suffer from low level creative energy? In this episode, I'll be talking with Emile Pandolphi about his approach to keeping his creative energy at a high level to fuel his professional career. Now, even if you are not a professional. This conversation is going to help you maintain and improve your creative energy by taking note of what a professional does to maintain their output.
Now, as an amateur artist, like many of you will listen to this podcast life, get in the way of my practice. Now you couple that with my recent diagnosis of Ms. In 2021 and being a father of twins and having a full time job energy is at a premium. So how do you refuel your creative tank and create the art that you were meant to create?
Well, for Marie, for me, I read a lot of magazines and newsletters to get inspired for projects. I listened to podcasts about art that I've shared with you in previous episodes. And on Friday nights after I put my girls to sleep, I go out to local poetry readings and occasionally read poems, but mostly I go there to support other artists on their journey, which reminds me of my journey.
Now, sometimes you must expend energy to get energy. And that's how I maintain my energy levels. Does it always work? And then not every time. Like you, my life has different poles on my energy and different priorities demand my attention. Let's talk about my guest this week for a moment before we go into the conversation now in meal with more than a half billion streams across platforms, including Pandora, Spotify, and apple.
Is among America's most popular piano artists. Although majority of his performance performance rep RT are lush, intricate arrangements of Broadway and pop standards. His influences are in fact more classical than pop. It is this subjective layering of classical style, which pen Dolphy infuses into the broad palette of his performance selections that continues to resonate with audiences everywhere.
Recording since 1991, the pianist's albums of familiar music have sold over three and a half million seats. Nationally, this has earned a meal. The distinction of being one of the top selling pianists in the music industry distributed online as well as in specialty. Gifts and bookshops across the nation.
Now with 30 plus albums, most major online retailers also carry a meals, music for download, and it's streamed to thousands of times daily on Spotify, Pandora and other streaming platforms. Now I present to you, the conversation that we had about replenishing your creative energy.
So, thank you all for listening into CRE podcast, where today we're going to be talking about replenishing your creative energy. And with me today you heard the intro before we started this conversation. I do have a meal with me here to give me the professional view of what that looks like for us and mail.
How are you doing today?
Emile: Great. Oh, we had here in South Carolina and we had some chilly weather and it's a nice change.
Tim: Absolutely. It is. Absolutely. And I know it's taken us a little time to get together because I had a power outage
Emile: for five days.
It's
Tim: okay. It was nice, quiet time away from podcasting, away from everything, you know, when your kids, kids
Emile: like the hotel, kids love
Tim: the hotel. Absolute. Absolutely. And, and I'm glad I have you on here today because you know, you're a professional. You do this for a living and I think it's going to be really important for our listeners.
That are, you know, delving into, you know, making art either on a professional level or, you know, as their side hustle, but for you as a professional, how do you know when that creative energy needs to be replaced?
Emile: Okay. To be honest, it almost, I almost never deal with that. It's because I love every time I get up in the morning and go to the studio and I start playing something or other, but if it does need to be replenished, let's say I have a deadline of playing these particular pieces of music.
I just go to something that I already liked to play. What I do. I try to surround myself with beautiful things artwork. I'm not an artist. I'm not a visual artist, but I, I love paintings and I love watching a ballet. If I need to get inspired, I might turn on river dance and watch these amazing athletes dancers do what they do.
And it doesn't take long before something kind of. Just clicks. In, in my case, I often have deadlines. I have to do a particular piece of music, whether I want to or not, but I take some, I think that it's worthwhile for me to take some time away from that and play. I feel like playing some Chopin or something that inspires me and I just get all excited about it.
And then I say, okay, I'll go over here and do what I need to do again, because I'm doing it for a profession. But I think if you just. Go to other forms of artwork, literature, or poetry, or a famous paintings, or go to a museum. I think all those things seep into your consciousness. You don't do it with the, with the desire to be inspired.
You just do it and then you get inspired
Tim: and that's true. And it's really enjoyable to go through an art gallery and, you know, to take that time away from everything else and let that subconscious part of your mind. Figure out whatever issue that you're having, you know, we'll say you're working on a piece by Chopin and you just can't quite get that certain section step away.
Go look at some art.
Emile: Yeah. It's it has always worked for me. It's odd to discuss how to do it when you're in the doldrums, because I'm almost never there. I'm happy to say it's just part of my personality. It's just unlike you. I'm a one trick pony. I play piano and that's it. But I surround myself with other, other kinds of art.
I love seeing people do I, it could be, it could be athletes or gymnasts or circus performers who do amazing things. And you say, oh my gosh, how did they do it? And that kind of gives it a. Good deal. Good deal. There's a silly country song title. It's I see something like that, that somebody does something extraordinary.
And the guy says, I don't know whether to kill myself or go bowling. I always choose bowling.
Tim: And today's brought to you by.
So what bill you've talked about, you know, how do different ways that you, you know, you replenish that, that inspiration and and, and that energy for yourself, how important is it for you to have the, the, the high level of creative energy that you have in your profession?
Emile: Well, I think the most important thing in for any artist is authenticity.
And so rather than now you do your studying and you get your technique and the discipline that you're in, whether it be dancing or playing the piano or singing or whatever it is. So you have to. Given that you have your technique to whatever degree it is. That's a separate thing. But as far as having that creative energy going, I think if.
If you were, if you were stuck and don't know what to do, I say, step outside yourself and look at yourself. What is your default place like? Who are you actually artistically when from a piano's viewpoint. If I am going in and I'm in a piano shop or I was in a place and there has a piano there and I have to touch it, what do I do?
Do I start in the middle? Do I start at both ends? Do I play. Just junk things or play melodious things, because my default is what I just naturally default to tells me who I am musically and all of my piano in my profession. They're all piano arrangements, solo, piano arrangements of tunes that have been written by somebody else.
They're all cover tunes. So why do they sound like me? Because I'm authentically me. I mean, whether people like it or not, I can't, I have no control over, but. I don't do something that is not authentically me and some people sometimes I think people are not sure how to find. What's authentically, then we'll look at yourself, see what you do.
How do you like living with me? I talk with my hands all the time. Some people don't, some people I I talk enthusiastically, maybe some people are very slow talking and that's who you are. And that's what you should do with your art.
Tim: I agree entirely. Absolutely. Now I was going to ask you about what's the overall impact for replenishing your creative energy from negative sources.
Cause I, I read your book on play it, like you mean it and you had talked about you know, you had overcome smoking, which is something that I'm overcoming right now to get that out of my my thing. And now, you know, I I'm talking with my hands too with my, you know, famous quotes, but I've relied on that as a in the past, as a creative energy source.
What's the impact of, you know, those negative. Sources of creative energy.
Emile: Well, I think that what I have done over time is remove from my day, those things that I don't like, you can't remove everything, but removing those things that I don't like to do and I'm left with what I do want to do. And as far as the the, I'm not exactly sure what the question is, how do I use negative things to, to turn it to a positive.
Well,
Tim: actually what, what's the impact of using negative sources of energy on on your craft, maybe that you, you know, not that you do, but maybe that you've seen other people.
Emile: Okay. I can say there, there are many times in my career where I'm doing, I'll just call it, work for hire. I have to play a certain song for a certain event.
Right. And I don't even like the song. I don't want to do it, you know, and I keep finding other things to do besides work. Thanks. But then I think it comes down to, in my book, I call it digging a ditch. You start working on like, just disinterest in thinking about your day at the beach, but you're playing the notes and you're reading the notes on the page and you got to go through humdrum.
I think, and because at sometime this has happened to me many times I was a piece of music that I didn't. I could even do like maybe a Michael Jackson tune or something that is not me at all. Even though, even if I love the song or, or I admire the artist. I discover, wow. I actually could do something with that.
And because the work, the job has made me do it, otherwise I wouldn't have touched it, but because which is, to me, that's a kind of a negative, I, I, I avoid music that I don't like, but if I have to play it for a deadline, because it's my profession, it shows me. You know, you got to think outside your box and we all know that as a phrase, but you actually have to do it.
And the more, excuse me, the more I do the busy work of going through it while I'm thinking about being at the beach, all of a sudden something clicks. And I say, so that's how they get that sound. And, and I've discovered something new that I never would have discovered if I had my druthers.
Tim: Absolutely.
Now my tagline for create art podcast. As everyone knows, is taming your inner critics in creating more than you consume?
Emile: love that.
Tim: Well, I got to credit my wife for that cause she's she's fantastic with one-liners she's married to me. So obviously she has to be good with one-liners, but for you, how do you.
How do you tame that inner critic that we all have? You know, obviously we don't necessarily want to get rid of it because it does have some benefit to us, but how do you tame that inner critic in your practice?
Emile: That's a good one.
I guess
I don't, I don't, it's a funny, I'm not having an answer for that. How do I tame that inner critic? I guess I don't, I just, I leave it. I let it be. And I, and I it's part of my process of learning. It's I say, okay. If I really don't like that. Meticulously looking at it. Just take it apart. What is it? I really don't like, because I think the inner critic says you don't play Michael Jackson tunes because that's not who you are.
Well, okay. That's a big generality. So what part of it is actually happening? It's kind of like, I can't play. Piece of Chopin, but what I really can't play is those two bars, the rest of it I could get away with or I could play. And so I think when I Michael Jackson is a good example because I love his music, but it's nothing, whatever, like me is not in my background.
My whole background is classical. It's just completely different and he's a wonderful artist, but I start examining it closely, closely. How did he get that sound? What, and I, it becomes a detective work. Did it and, and I come away learning some technique in my case, F the piano to imitate. The rhythm that he has in that piece of music I'm working on, on his tune bad right now.
And it's not, it's not a penalty in any way, but it's, but you can do it. And I will have to discover how they it's just like when I'm playing my classical, I'm used to really intensely looking at how did they make that sound? I mean, from nothing, they got that. And so I, I do the same with. Pieces of music that I'm not familiar with or that I feel like I cannot do.
And I think, I think meticulous investigation is what works for me. So
Tim: for you, what's the next thing coming up for you? I obviously you are an accomplished And you have this wonderful book out, which everyone should go grab a copy of. I know I got a copy of it. I'm very happy that I did play it. Like you mean it, and it's not just for folks that are, are musicians.
I found a lot of things that I could relate to other art forms with that book, but for you, what's next on the road for.
Emile: For me I'm I have been kind of away from, I've never stepped away from classical music, but I haven't done classical performances in a very, very long time. My whole career is my arrangements of movie themes and musicals and that's, that's my, that's my thrust.
That's what I love doing. And it's also. My career, but for now I'm backing off on public concerts to like put together a classical performance. That for me, I'm always, I always have the listener in mind, so I'm not trying to play for the Juilliard crowd. I'm trying to play for you and me and plays on the classical pieces that I'm playing or those that are probably like Clair de Lune a constellation by list trauma.
I mean, I think there are things that. Even if people don't know them there, pop songs has some things, you know, that you can do excuse me. And it for me, because I don't do classical on a regular basis, it's going to take a lot of months. So that's my next goal. And it's just for my own pleasure, really.
I'll keep doing my other things.
Tim: Gotcha. And for those for our listeners out there, You know it might be a good idea. It let's say you're a painter or a dancer or something like that to pick up a meals book and take a look through it because I found I've got three pages of notes. I, I gotta say single-spaced times new Roman eight point font from from from.
Where you do talk a lot about creativity. You do, you, yes. Your main thrust is the piano, but you do talk a lot about our creativity and, and how we can do better with it. And one of the things that I really liked, and that was back in chapter 19 when you're talking about the doldrums and the whole the whole ditch digging candidate.
And can you elaborate a little bit more on that? Because that's, that's one of the things that really resounded with me is you know, when we're doing the things that we have to do for for money for pay, but then, you know, I putting it into that whole ditch story that,
Emile: yeah, for me that that's a very accurate metaphor because and, and by the way, Elaborate on what's in the book.
I say, you, you, you've got this hundred foot ditch to dig, but you've, you've got a dull shovel and you're starting on a hard ground and you just give up, you've got a dent going...