Technique and Creativity

I see it in all three of the areas of creativity in which I'm active: writing, music, and now pottery (from poetry to pottery).

Without technique, one's creativity is limited.
True, children are endlessly creative and boldly imaginative, but the limits of what a child can do are evident.

However: the effort to acquire technique often stifles creativity.
The young writer becomes aware of the need to write correctly and stifles her imagination.
The young musician strives to control her instrument and stifles her expressivity.
The young potter concentrates so hard on producing centered, symmetrical, and light pieces that she loses the drive for originality and spontaneity.

For the mature artist, technique and creativity feed into one another. One enhances one's technique in order to create things that were beyond one, and one's enhanced technique spurs one's imagination for further creativity.

When I took up music again after more or less giving up on it while I was in college, I studied for two or three years with Stephen Horenstein, a brilliant composer and virtuoso saxophone player - who became and has remained a good friend. At the time, Steve said that if someone were just playing his instrument without being creative at it, there was no point to it. That was the first time I'd heard that from a music teacher. Up till then the challenge had been to play the notes correctly.
I wasn't ready for Steve's message then and, while I kept on playing saxophone, never really extended myself creatively at it.
About fifteen years down the line I acquired a musical guru of sorts: Arnie Lawrence. Perhaps because I was ready for it, I let Arnie push me hard in the creative direction.

Have I become a creative musician? A creative person?
These are the wrong questions.
I am more creative than I was and more appreciative of creativity when I encounter it.
That's already a lot.