Anthony Brandt: Composer Who Realized Creativity Is Part Of Our DNA

unproductive by daydreamers

The Chat

Dr. Anthony Brandt is a world-renowned composer, Professor of Composition and Theory at Rice University and co-author of The Runaway Species, a book that inspired the Netflix documentary, The Creative Brain - and deeply impacted our philosophy at Daydreamers.

In our chat today, Tony (or Dr. Brandt) shares some awe-inspiring truths about the human experience - most importantly: creativity is part of our DNA. As humans, our ability to imagine a future that doesn’t yet exist is literally what makes us different from llamas or robots, and what Dr. Brant calls “magical.”

Tony not only does a brilliant job at explaining the biological and neurological research behind creativity, but he also gives accessible and tactical advice about how to exercise this muscle in our daily lives. As a career artist and composer, Dr. Brandt walks through the exact steps he takes to buck fear, access vulnerability and create something new.

Join us for a deep conversation about what makes us human over robots (or llamas), how we can move beyond fear to actually start creating every day, and what we need to do to access our imagination and logic at the same time.

Some stuff we also cover:

• Why our education system today makes kids adults too quickly - and what we could do about it
  
• How human beings evolved to create - and why our brains are different from every other animal in the world
  
• The difference between creating and coping - and what Beethoven + Picasso had in common
  
• Why creatives aren’t loners (in fact, it’s the opposite)
  
• How we can reframe “failures” and why we need new language around risk-taking
  

Resources you might want to check out:

• Book: The Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes The World
  
• Documentary: The Creative Brain, Netflix
  
• Website: anthonybrandt.net
  

As always, this podcast is sponsored by:

Daydreamers. At Daydreamers, we’re redefining how we all spend our free time and making space for adults to build creative hobbies. Get on the waitlist to meet us IRL at: daydreamerspace.com.