Coloring Outside the Lines

Once upon a time, one of my students came in with a piece he just finished learning. He started playing. I thought to myself, "Wow, this is going well."

But then, without warning, there were some random bars of stuff that weren't in the music at all. I asked what the deal was.

"I added this to make it better."

My traditional training screamed at me, "No, that's not how this whole learning music thing works! You're supposed to learn what's there!"

But then, my non-traditional creative side asked, "Why not?"

The funny thing is, it actually did kinda sound better with the added bars. What's more, this was one of my most enthusiastic, musical piano students. Maybe this freedom to explore was a reason why.

This got me thinking. I think we can all afford to color outside the lines more. Metaphorically speaking.

Unless you're actually coloring. Then, literally speaking. 

(But, the real definition of literal. Not the fake one we made real.)

Can we take a piece of music and find a way it could be improved upon?

Can we add an extra page to a book that would take it in a new direction?

Of course, we need to learn how to color inside the lines first. We don't want to cover up silly mistakes and cover by saying we were "being creative."

The time signature and basic grammar still need to apply, or it gets confusing.

People will love it. People will hate it. Most will probably ignore it.

But at least it will be interesting.