# In your art/craft, how do you noodle? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 29, 2015, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-art-craft-how-do-you-noodle/716294 "2015-03-29T20:43:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-art-craft-how-do-you-noodle/716294/21 "2015-03-30T20:40:47Z")
Upon first reading the thread title, I thought of the pasta art we made in kindergarten. I noodled a few masterpieces in my day. Now I just cook & eat that stuff. So in terms of cuisine, when I improvise a new pasta recipe, I’m noodling sure enough. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-art-craft-how-do-you-noodle/716294/22 "2015-03-30T21:16:28Z")
In writing, I do the equivalent by “writing about writing” if that makes any sense. Like, I can’t quite get a scene or paragraph to play out right, so I’ll start writing something about how I want the scene to go. After enough time spent doing this, I almost always wind up with something that I can cut/paste/edit/rewrite into the final draft. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-art-craft-how-do-you-noodle/716294/23 "2015-03-30T23:06:12Z")
> [@OneCentStamp](#): > > I play guitar unplugged while watching TV. Most of the time I’ll just be playing simple chord progressions, or a song I know by heart. Any time there’s a song or commercial jingle on, I’ll either try and figure out the chords, or improvise some countermelody or harmony to the melody. Oh yeah - I thrive on that half-brain engagement while watching TV. I do best with sports - you can let a baseball game unfold and engage for the action while noodling away… ---
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-art-craft-how-do-you-noodle/716294/24 "2015-03-30T23:25:02Z")
As a very, very amateur photographer who has never met an editing software she didn’t like, I call it fiddling with my pictures. Long before I get to a finished state, I play and play and play with them some more. So there’s various, crops, focuses, filters, whatever attempts going on. Sometimes running them through multiple, different platforms before I’m finally satisfied. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2015, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-art-craft-how-do-you-noodle/716294/25 "2015-03-30T23:48:58Z")
I fart around with calligraphy - it’s far closer “crap” than “craft” - and I’ll do random letterforms just for the pleasure of ink on pen and paper. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-art-craft-how-do-you-noodle/716294/26 "2015-03-31T12:58:52Z")
I carve and stamp all the small leather offcuts that can’t really be used for anything else. Try different backgrounds or stamp combinations. ---
**Author:** ![DrumBum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e79b87/32.png) [@DrumBum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrumBum)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-art-craft-how-do-you-noodle/716294/27 "2015-03-31T17:03:27Z")
On the third floor of our house is a sizable space that is the designated band room for the fellows that make up our band. There are a few amps, my drum kit, mixing board, and other musical items and we gather here to practice/jam. Prominently displayed but routinely ignored is a “No Noodling” sign.:mad: ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-art-craft-how-do-you-noodle/716294/28 "2015-03-31T19:20:00Z")
I haven’t done this much lately (but I’ll have to take it up again, because NaPoWriMo starts tomorrow!), but I used to think of difficult (not impossible) to rhyme words and noodle around with finding a good rhyme. Or a friend of mine and I used to come up with wacky poem titles then write something to fit. My two personal favorites were: “How Leonard Nimoy translated Freud for the platypoda” and “On opening a door while it snows like a motherfucker.” ---
**Author:** ![misling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ab097/32.png) [@misling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/misling)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2015, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-art-craft-how-do-you-noodle/716294/29 "2015-03-31T19:58:57Z")
With fiber arts I dig out boxes of cloth or bags of yarn and spread it around the rug and put pieces that ‘go together’ beside each other in fans and circles. I stack inspiring sets of cloth/yarn together in groups. I call it ‘wallowing’. With programming design I stare into space or pace around while structures fiddle round in my head until they connect up nicely. Then I scribble very short cryptic notes as to how they all fit. Then I write a sort of ‘outline’ program with ‘the blahblah section goes here’ all through the code, just to see if it still looks feasible when (sort of) coded. ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2015, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-art-craft-how-do-you-noodle/716294/30 "2015-04-01T15:34:47Z")
I’m a jazz singer, and my noodling takes the form of singing random bits of tunes while putzing around the house. I play with improvising, and sometimes singing through a melody _a capella_ tells me how well I actually know it (or don’t). Every now and then the noodling will lead to actual work – sitting at the piano, breaking out iReal Pro to figure out a key, repeating a tricky interval over and over until I get the pitches right, etc. – but mostly it’s just various bits of singing. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2015, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-art-craft-how-do-you-noodle/716294/31 "2015-04-02T01:38:36Z")
Fanfiction vignettes. Hey, man, it works for me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-your-art-craft-how-do-you-noodle/716294.md?page=1)