Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic Learning and Expression
Everyone has a natural inclination to different learning styles when it comes to taking in new ideas and concepts. Despite these styles that comes easily to us – it’s often a unique variety of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning that produces the most comprehensive results of understanding. What’s interesting to note, is that these learning styles can assist us in expressing ourselves in unexpected ways.
I primarily play music, shoot photography, and write as my main outlets for creative and personal expression. However, I’ve come to understand myself primarily as a kinesthetic learner. From one point of view, one would think photography and music are just visual and auditory, respectively. Technically, writing would be the only form of creativity I participate in that is kinesthetic, but it’s not in quite the same form of kinesthetic as building something with your hands - such as one would in creating furniture, sculpting, or painting.
However, there is more to an art than just one style of learning. When I look at a photograph, I’m not just thinking about how the photograph looks. Of course, it’s important to have a photograph that is aesthetically pleasing – however, the feel I get from a photo is where my “gut” instinct comes from and is usually the deciding factor in choosing preference for one photo over another. Even though a photo may be pleasing to look at, I won’t be interested in it for long unless it elicits some kind of emotion or feeling for me.
Music is often the same. When I see bands playing music, there’s more than just sound involved - I want to be able to feel their energy through the music. Watching footage of bands when they are or were in their prime is fascinating. YouTube has a lot of old footage uploaded from old concerts from classic bands of the past. When you hear them play the music from when they were in their prime compared to when they play now – there’s a completely different feeling. Bands can mechanically playing the same thing, but without the energy and feel, it’s hard to hold my interest for long.
I think that artists, especially bands, should always play music that is relevant to them. Why play a song that is over 30 years old if you are a completely different person now? It’s unfortunate when I hear of bands playing old songs in a casino circuit or at state fairs because people want to relive the “glory days.” Time would be better spent into producing something relative to life as it is now instead of playing a song without the heart behind it anymore. It would bring forth more emotion for me to just listen to an old record than to hear an old musician try to emulate the song in concert without the feeling being there.
Think about your art and how you could express yourself dynamically, whether it’s visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. There are more senses involved in learning and creating than meets the eye. Learning to explore different creative outlets is a great way to get in touch with a variety of learning styles - which may have previously been unknown to you before you gave it a try. Read Try Out Your Other Talents to learn more about why and how new creative outlets can help you develop as an artist.
