how to surpass creative blocks

i'm not really talking about music specifically

i haven't made anything satisfactory musically in quite a while

though i would like to but my block is more of a writer's block

anyway i figure the techniques to get over it would be similar for other artists, like musicians

so what do you do when you get stuck making a track or can't even get one started?

I pound the keys and then delete random notes and then slap on the amen break.

  IRARI said:

i'm not really talking about music specifically

i haven't made anything satisfactory musically in quite a while

though i would like to but my block is more of a writer's block

anyway i figure the techniques to get over it would be similar for other artists, like musicians

so what do you do when you get stuck making a track or can't even get one started?

ive been dealing with this off and on lately and sometimes i just wait for inspiration to strike and/or i have a notebook of musical ideas i always keep around with me. Any thought or emotional inspiration i get musically related i write it down even if its just a few words.

I try to keep a lot of surrealist/colorful paintings around. Think about different mediums and how they all work in their separate fields, and how you can imitate them with a different medium. I get a lot of ideas from listening to classical music, even though it really has nothing to do with what I write...

Honestly, I don't really get writer's block a whole lot these days. I can't remember the last time I really had trouble finishing a song. It's just all so mechanical to me now, I can just sit down and bang it out in no time [not to sound conceited or anything].

Setting deadlines helps me out a lot. I started a track on thursday with the intent of finishing it tonight and altho its mostly done, i wanna wait and give it one more listen tomorrow just to make sure.

My music friends and I will sometimes try to write a song in 1 or 2 hours (sometimes 30 minutes). The tracks are sometimes shit, sometimes they can be turned into full songs afterwards, but whatever the outcome, just finishing something crap usually slingshots me into something else.

On the same line of thinking, having friends that are finishing songs usually inspires me or motivates me to finish shit.

Whenever I am stuck, I just go back to old songs, and stuff that I never finished, to see if I can develop older ideas.

Though, the main thing for me to have any sort of artistic inspiration, is having a lot of other things going on in my life... Any form of excitement usually gives me new inspiration for songs. I can't really make music without having some sort of emotion attached to it, and it can't be something "thought up", it has to actually be happening to me at the time...

I do a lot of things. First, I always keep a notebook as well as a book of staff paper handy for when I get ideas. I am constantly writing my thoughts into it simply so that I can articulate and better develop them. I will often pick up an old notebook and try to tackle an idea I had.

Another method is to try a different medium. If I'm not feeling creative in one respect I switch over to another pursuit which I may have neglected for a while such as drawing, writing or cooking. Sometimes things just dont come to me and it's best to keep moving and try something else. With that being said...

I keep moving. Even if I'm working on a track and pounding out complete shit I dont turn back and dwell on my mistakes. I just simply create more things to complement the crap and hopefully get inspired by it.

I try to recreate someone else's work. I sit down and analyze something that someone else has done. I try to get inside their method and follow their reasoning. When I do this I often find myself thinking "This isnt how I would have gone about doing this at all... I would have done it like this..." which usually provides enough of a spark to put me on my way.

If it's musical inspiration I'm looking for I open itunes and put my entire library on shuffle. I will then assign myself to another task that I can busy myself with, usually cleaning, and wait until something I dont recognize comes on and provides a spark. Of course, I have an enormous library of stolen music which I've barely listened to half of, so this may not work for those of you who keep their collections slim and familiar.

buy an analog synth

also, go to a modern art museum, and try to imagine how you would translate each painting into a track

Try a new style of music, you'll always learn something from it.

Concentrate on the music that you love, pinpoint the aspects of it that you love and try and recreate it.

Indulge in other art that inspires you - my personal taste is for 60's french cinema because im a knob.

If there's something else you can do which is musical but piss easy, do that. I've got a drumkit so i usually take out the rhythm tracks of stuff i'm doing and drum along.

OR....just do something else for a bit.

yeah, listen to something totally different, and "be inspired by it" (copy it)

Work ethic.

  IRARI said:

so what do you do when you get stuck making a track or can't even get one started?

have a smoke.

If I smoked weed more often in general, I'd probably bring some greens in to the equation to make my brain a more passive receptacle for inspiration when I'm not feeling much otherwise. But instead I just listen to a lot of music and read comics etc. Or sometimes I try the opposite, and just abstain from absorbing the creative artifacts of others for so long until I'm forced to make my own.

i watch films

  telikan said:

If I smoked weed more often in general, I'd probably bring some greens in to the equation to make my brain a more passive receptacle for inspiration when I'm not feeling much otherwise. But instead I just listen to a lot of music and read comics etc. Or sometimes I try the opposite, and just abstain from absorbing the creative artifacts of others for so long until I'm forced to make my own.

i never lack ideas, i have more than i know what to do with, in fact my head is so full of stuff that i want to claw my eyes out.

however, some days, i hate every idea that comes into my head, which is more due to my mood than the ideas. a little smoke puts me back on an even keel, and i'm more willing to try things i'd otherwise write off... and contrary to general perceptions of the effects, it makes me far LESS lazy. a lot more tolerance for tedium, attention to detail.

it's funny, but the best analogy i can think of - i was terrible about eating healthy until i started smoking. i just refused to eat most fruits/veggies, had written them off as awful. one day, however, i just had a serious craving for bananas. i followed up on it, and shortly after started trying lots of other things i'd just written off up to then... it's not like it never occurred to me to try that stuff before, i'd just say, nehhh... fuck it. whereas when i've had a smoke, i say... yeah! let's go for it!

it gets me going. once i get going, often i can subsist on pure momentum... so find something that gets you going, i guess! it doesn't have to be weed at all, could be exercise, sex, nice walks in the woods, meditation...

marijuana

  acid1 said:

just finishing something crap usually slingshots me into something else.

good advice

Don't force it, do something else for a month or two and one day you'll burst out in a creative explosion.

Musically speaking, I find it's quite fun to record yourself hitting different objects to get various sounds, take all the files, crop 'em up in your favourite wav editor then just sequencing it into little breaks/whatever -- I guess it depends on how you write your tracks but I really enjoy a bit of hands-on recording to shake things up (plus: bonus track bank material!)

Little book/ pen/ try to look into the things around you more deeply than usual and write down any old shit that comes into your brain when you do.

ive had some awesome ideas on the bus this way.

check out the complexity of a certain tree, and then propose a piece of music in which every aspect of it builds and dims withint the visual bulging of the tree as you look up it vertically. dynamics, tempo, texture.

as for melodies, steal them.

  messiaen said:

as for melodies, steal them.

quite often i'll just nick a riff from some obscure ska track, after i'm finished playing with it and finished the song, the melody is often no longer recognisable as the original riff. so you'll go out looking for melodies to steal and come up with something unique anyway. go me.

Oblique Strategies: Brian Eno & Peter Schmidt

A deck of cards with phrases and ideals that help break mental blocks and other such things.

http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_Strategies

The website has a random card generator located here:

http://www.thraeryn.org/strategies/draw.cgi

but it doesn't seem to be working anymore.

  sysex said:

Oblique Strategies: Brian Eno & Peter Schmidt

 

A deck of cards with phrases and ideals that help break mental blocks and other such things.

 

http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_Strategies

 

The website has a random card generator located here:

http://www.thraeryn.org/strategies/draw.cgi

 

but it doesn't seem to be working anymore.

you forgot this one:

http://www.ricedoutyugo.com/wisdom/

and it works.

  hahathhat said:

you forgot this one:

 

http://www.ricedoutyugo.com/wisdom/

 

and it works.

bookmarked

this one is good too: http://www.guitarcraft.com/aphorisms/

  sysex said:

Oblique Strategies: Brian Eno & Peter Schmidt

 

A deck of cards with phrases and ideals that help break mental blocks and other such things.

 

http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_Strategies

 

The website has a random card generator located here:

http://www.thraeryn.org/strategies/draw.cgi

 

but it doesn't seem to be working anymore.

wtf £30 for a deck of cards!?

edit: from wikipedia http://tools.blackhat-seo.com/strategies/

like other people have said - smoke some weed. seriously.

i'm not saying smoke some weed and then sit down in front of cubase and start banging stuff out...you'll probably just sit there staring at a blank screen until you're sober again. rather, you should just smoke and hang out, let you mind wander, think about shit, watch some tv or something. for me, a lot of moments of epiphany come when i'm smoking and just working things out in my head. all of a sudden, connections will become clear, patterns will become noticeable or ideas will float to the surface. if you think about things like "what am i getting at here" or "what's the common thread that connects all these things i'm interested in", etc. you might be surprised how things just start to click into place.

another tip...

go on youtube and look up a bunch of shit you vaguely remember from your early childhood. a lot of times, things that you discovered early in life have gone on to mold many aspects of your personality today without you really being aware of it. bringing those memories back to the surface will most likely refocus your creative energy and inspire you.