At wit's end stuck in a 3-year composer's block.

richardyot

The War of Art

nick

@richardyot said:
The War of Art

great book, even though somewhat one-sided

for balance I recommend Big Magic

decibelle

@Chillmatic said:
"Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you."-Chuck Close

I personally am struggling to find any difference between Chuck Close's disparaged "Inspiration" and his instruction to let "Things occur to you".

Did Mr Close's suggestion really require quite so much disparagement of unpaid creators? To me it sounds like his thoughts were less about helping, and more about disparagement.

I find that advice from those who despise me, generally tends to help people other than me.

In this instance I myself am not a member of the disparaged demographic, but still, my opinion of this sentiment is, blechhhhh.

richardyot

The point is that for inspiration to happen, you have to do the work rather than sit around waiting for something to happen.

A similar quote from Picasso: inspiration does exist, but it has to find you working.

As for disparagement, it's probably best to not take things too personally

decibelle

@richardyot said:

As for disparagement, it's probably best to not take things too personally

Amazing how many say that from outside the target circle. In my experience, the same people who thought like that from outside the bullseye, the moment they realise they're not outside it anymore tend to change their minds more or less instantly.

Also, I'm really happy for you that when something bothers you, one person advising you to change your feelings is all it takes for you to be all tra la tripping through the daisies puppies and butterflies a-ok again.

For me, my needs are quite different. Being advised how to feel actually leaves me feeling worse, since I fail to change my feelings for other people's convenience.

I'm happy for you that you can, though.

JohnnyGoodyear

Po-land.

Phil999

haven't read the thread, but from my experience there is always a time where production or inspiration must take a rest. This is not a problem at all, You just concentrate on other things, your daily life, meeting friends, go to the cinema, etc. Which is time consuming as well, so you're full of impressions and processes.

When there is the time for creativity, you'll know. Just give yourself the time that is necessary, and you'll be on to it with much more verve than before.

Gaia.Tree

@ion677 said:
I need to be inspired by good sounding stuff. My latest muse: thumbjam cello -->AUM with crystalline reverb lush preset.

Wow that's a good tip right there, I just put my baby to sleep with that combo.

theconnactic

Since I'm not Chuck Close, I'll quote myself, since it's more or less what Chuck said minus the disparagement. Here it goes:

@theconnactic said:
I set myself a personal goal of releasing one song a week. After struggling with deadlines for a while, I now have to hold back and don't release too many songs a week.

Do like the people composing advertisement and TV music: set deadlines and get the job done. That's my advice.

AudioGus

@Phil999 said:
haven't read the thread, but from my experience there is always a time where production or inspiration must take a rest. This is not a problem at all, You just concentrate on other things, your daily life, meeting friends, go to the cinema, etc. Which is time consuming as well, so you're full of impressions and processes.

When there is the time for creativity, you'll know. Just give yourself the time that is necessary, and you'll be on to it with much more verve than before.

Yah, I am all for taking breaks when needed. I find the best break is to engage in some other creative or productive acts, but ones that use different 'muscles'. Cooking or gardening, drawing or photography, billiards, whatever. It is like cross training and can reguvenate or wake up overstressed or dormant areas. Typicaly I am into music every day for at least an hour or two (thank you mobile) and much more on the weekends. But when I have taken a break of a few days or weeks, I typicaly came back super refreshed and excited. Sure, there is something to be said for discipline and 'showing up' but sometimes, just like with literary writing, you need something external to bring back to it.

RUST( i )K

@AudioGus said:

@Phil999 said:
haven't read the thread, but from my experience there is always a time where production or inspiration must take a rest. This is not a problem at all, You just concentrate on other things, your daily life, meeting friends, go to the cinema, etc. Which is time consuming as well, so you're full of impressions and processes.

When there is the time for creativity, you'll know. Just give yourself the time that is necessary, and you'll be on to it with much more verve than before.

Yah, I am all for taking breaks when needed. I find the best break is to engage in some other creative or productive acts, but ones that use different 'muscles'. Cooking or gardening, drawing or photography, billiards, whatever. It is like cross training and can reguvenate or wake up overstressed or dormant areas. Typicaly I am into music every day for at least an hour or two (thank you mobile) and much more on the weekends. But when I have taken a break of a few days or weeks, I typicaly came back super refreshed and excited. Sure, there is something to be said for discipline and 'showing up' but sometimes, just like with literary writing, you need something external to bring back to it.

I don't take the breaks.

I sort of use the aggravation and frustration of it all to my benefit.

It is more authentic for me and then the reward comes with success, it feels as though I overcame something as petty as it may be.

That's just me.

JohnnyGoodyear

@AudioGus said:

@Phil999 said:
haven't read the thread, but from my experience there is always a time where production or inspiration must take a rest. This is not a problem at all, You just concentrate on other things, your daily life, meeting friends, go to the cinema, etc. Which is time consuming as well, so you're full of impressions and processes.

When there is the time for creativity, you'll know. Just give yourself the time that is necessary, and you'll be on to it with much more verve than before.

Yah, I am all for taking breaks when needed. I find the best break is to engage in some other creative or productive acts, but ones that use different 'muscles'. Cooking or gardening, drawing or photography, billiards, whatever. It is like cross training and can reguvenate or wake up overstressed or dormant areas. Typicaly I am into music every day for at least an hour or two (thank you mobile) and much more on the weekends. But when I have taken a break of a few days or weeks, I typicaly came back super refreshed and excited. Sure, there is something to be said for discipline and 'showing up' but sometimes, just like with literary writing, you need something external to bring back to it.

Agreed. Especially as regards billiards!

In the same vein, I sometimes find just switching up apps helps a reset. Going back to TriqTraq or similar if I haven't played with it in a few weeks can be like cleansing the palate somehow...

AudioGus

@RustiK said:

@AudioGus said:

@Phil999 said:
haven't read the thread, but from my experience there is always a time where production or inspiration must take a rest. This is not a problem at all, You just concentrate on other things, your daily life, meeting friends, go to the cinema, etc. Which is time consuming as well, so you're full of impressions and processes.

When there is the time for creativity, you'll know. Just give yourself the time that is necessary, and you'll be on to it with much more verve than before.

Yah, I am all for taking breaks when needed. I find the best break is to engage in some other creative or productive acts, but ones that use different 'muscles'. Cooking or gardening, drawing or photography, billiards, whatever. It is like cross training and can reguvenate or wake up overstressed or dormant areas. Typicaly I am into music every day for at least an hour or two (thank you mobile) and much more on the weekends. But when I have taken a break of a few days or weeks, I typicaly came back super refreshed and excited. Sure, there is something to be said for discipline and 'showing up' but sometimes, just like with literary writing, you need something external to bring back to it.

I don't take the breaks.

I sort of use the aggravation and frustration of it all to my benefit.

It is more authentic for me and then the reward comes with success, it feels as though I overcame something as petty as it may be.

That's just me.

Been there.

jwmmakerofmusic

Coming back to this thread 4.5 years later. A short history: it took me 2 extra years after this thread was originally created to overcome that (then) 3 year creative block. Yeah, it turned into a 5 year block, lol.

Well now that you're caught up, I'm stuck again. So I came back to this thread to find out why, see what advice was given 5 years ago that I might've long since forgotten, and what Richard said below is the exact reason why.

@richardyot said:
It sounds like you are suffering from paralysis of the perfectionist. The fear of doing something that sucks, or is not worthy of your abilities as you perceive them.

It's not easy to overcome these kinds of mental blocks, but it's important to realise that everyone sucks at some point, and a huge part of creativity is filtering and editing.

So churn out as much work as you can, without worrying about how good or bad it is, let yourself go through the process of creation for a sustained amount of time, and leave the judging until later. Like a year or two later.

The key is to constantly produce, and accept that most of it might suck, and it doesn't matter, because the process itself will eventually guide you.

This is exactly why we have the Song of the Month Club here, to encourage constant, sustained and consistent productivity, because working is the key to creativity.

A lot of the tracks I made over the past month were pretty good and unique to my style, up until "Bad Connection". "Painted Infection" is possibly the most perfect, amazing track I've ever made up to this point in my personal opinion (that track which took heavy inspiration from Richie Hawtin). The tracks following it started to deteriorate in quality. There were a few more unfinished tracks that I did not post to Soundcloud, mostly IDM attempts that just don't reach the level of Aphex Twin's warped masterpieces.

So I took a small break of a few days. Yesterday, I decided to try something like melodic house again, came up with a loop, and while the chord progression is pretty great, the melody really sucks. And that is when I've realised I've hit a brick wall.

So yes, I definitely have the "paralysis of the perfectionist" at the moment. The fear of doing something that sucks and is unworthy of my abilities is exactly what I'm experiencing, not because I didn't attempt new things, but because I went from a godlike ability to create music in May and early-to-mid June to purile midrange cack in the space of a few days.

So, I'm going to skim through this thread to see what was said in the past to move on into the future.

shinyisshiny

never compare yourself to apex twin, your setting urself up or failure. Referencing a song for a mix is one thing, but trying to make the next aphex twin song will never work. do your own thing.

Ailerom

I haven't written anything on my own since being in a duo for about the same time. Have cowritten about 20 songs in that time though. I tend to spend that time practicing. If I can't write I still do something productive. In the last few years I've enhanced my understanding of theory and just practiced a whole lot. When the songs come I'll be ready for them. My advice is to just relax and do what you want. Even if that's not music related. If you really want to write music you'll come back to it when you are ready. You can't really force it.

Krupa

Yeah, after many many years as a professional creative, I know from painful experience that you simply have to accept the crap when it shows up, do some more until you get the stuff you/the client need/want(s).

Also, look at Leonardo da Vinci, hardly ever finished anything, just proved his point (to himself mind, wasn’t bothered about anyone else’s opinion), and moved on before he screwed it up by trying to perfect it, never mind even finish it 🤣

I’ve been taking a lot of inspiration from that old goat the last few months, I’ll confess 😁...

_smund

You could always learn to play the flute?

richardyot

@jwmmakerofmusic said:
So I took a small break of a few days. Yesterday, I decided to try something like melodic house again, came up with a loop, and while the chord progression is pretty great, the melody really sucks. And that is when I've realised I've hit a brick wall.

What I do in that situation is to just try writing another four or five melodies to replace the original one - just keep going until you stumble on something you like. It usually works

benlefoe

I can jam on the piano all day, so noodling and making up melodies isn’t a big issue for me. But finishing things is - actually recording it all properly and mixing it and saying “enough”.

But the time I was most able to complete stuff was when I had a music partner. We’d try and do a track a week and inevitably each week one of us couldn’t be arsed, but the other one would have come along with an idea or was just keen that week... so we would encourage and cajole each other. In the end the project made us no money, but we finished off a whole bunch of things which neither of us would have made on our own, which I still take pleasure from.

So maybe see if you can find someone local who has the same musical interests and see if you can encourage each other? Bring in an element of fun, and also find someone who when you are looking for perfection can say “but that’s already great”.

rs2000

@jwmmakerofmusic Now that you know a number of tricks to get the song machine going, what stops you from using them now? You've only explored .001% of the musical universe so far.

LinearLineman

@JohnnyGoodyear said:

@ecamburn said:
Lots of great wisdom on this thread. As others have already said it's helpful to keep the perspective that this one man band form of music creation is really difficult and it's easy to get blocked on really challenging tasks. It's interesting to me to contrast this kind of music making with "just" being a musician. I've bumped into many musicians over the years who don't have the knowledge or the interest to compose, mix, master etc.

This is an excellent point. If the human tendency is to mull over weaknesses rather than celebrate strengths, the variety of requirements the one-man-band must master open many doors to potential disappointment....

Surprisingly, Mr. Goodyear, this is the first thing you’ve ever written that I disagree with. I don’t think it is human nature to focus on weaknesses. I think it is the result of most educational systems which focus on “needs improvement” rather than wow, you’re great at making mudpies. Children, before they fall into the clutches of educators, or critical parents, love what they create and are proud of it... even their own shit. But enough of that.

@jwmmakerofmusic, since you came out of it once you’ll come out of it again, but unless you get to the bottom it will keep happening, IMO.

You can try all sorts of stuff, but until (IMO) you get totally honest with yourself the demon will always return. It did for me on and off for decades. I don’t know what you have to admit as truth to get there, but here’s what I had to admit...

1. I’m not a fucking genius... and if I were life would still be problematic... maybe moreso.
2. No one will ever care about my stuff as much as I do. Proof again that I am not a genius.
3. In fact, aside from a passing glance, no one cares very much about my music at all. There’s plenty of genius stuff for that.

4.I have nothing to keep me going but willpower... and when that stops I’ll know it.

5. It doesn’t have to be fun.
6. When I finish something, then it becomes fun.... like an infant in love with his own excrement.
7. I forget everything I create except songs with lyrics that I wrote 30-40 years ago.
8. I will always want affirmation. Not getting it is as powerful as getting it.
9. Every reason I had for making music was irrelevant to the making of it... except getting girls.

Armed with these cold truths and almost three quarters of a century, in the past three years I have made 416 tracks and 30 albums. Will I make another? Who knows.

Get laid if you can. That’s the best advice I have to give.

Artj

@jwmmakerofmusic I've found that the way I think or make any creative work has changed over time as I'm getting older. For me at least, the beautiful melody, chord progression, etc. came easily when I was younger - perhaps because I still knew little and so had no fear in trying. Once you went through schools (I was in music school like you), what you've learned, although good things, could be part of things that prevent your creative mind to flow like it was before. The brain changes, sooner or later anyway. We've got older, learned more, become more "formalist" each days.

So, what I'm saying is you might as well accept that the old way of composing might not work for you today. In the old days, whatever you did was still experimental and fresh. Now, after a long time in the craft, it becomes a formula. You might want to find a new way to do your craft, some way that you don't know how it will turn out, a more risky way. It might turn out to be shit, but then you know it's shit and you try another way.

Sorry, longer than I expected! But, coming from a guy who struggled with the same problem, I hope it helps somewhat!

jwmmakerofmusic

@shinyisshiny That's the thing though is I am trying my own thing. What got me stuck moreso than "trying to be Aphex Twin" is "trying to match how amazing 'Painted Infection' was". Trying to repeat that same vibe, that same feeling, and not hitting the mark. It's me trying to top myself. In second place is "trying to be like Aphex Twin".

@Ailerom That's absolutely true. Cowriting music/collaborating might be an idea to try later down the pipeline.

@Krupa LOL! That's very interesting actually and a good source of inspiration.

@_smund and disturb my neighbours? Nah, lol.

@richardyot That's good advice. I'll try that once I'm done knocking out the current project I started (after rereading this thread).

@benlefoe That's a pretty great idea. Just as I was telling @Ailerom , cowriting/collabing might be an idea to try later on.

@rs2000 Getting stuck, lol. But, one route I did NOT consider was sound design for sound-design's sake. Building more complex patches from scratch. Trying out new things. Etc.

@LinearLineman I think thinking about the cold hard truths is a good way to become self-motivated. I know for a fact I'm not a genius. If I were, I'd never get stuck. The truth I admit to myself is that The world doesn't owe me a damn thing. I just do music for fun, and if I get accolades and riches, so be it. It's more about "fulfilling my soul" and "granting my own wishes" if that makes any sense.

@Artj I think you also hit the nail on the head. The more I know, the more formulaic it becomes, and the more formulaic it becomes, the less intriguing and fun it becomes, and the less satisfying it becomes. "Painted Infection" was my first attempt at trying something new, and 5 tracks in that style later, it became formulaic.

---

Well, after mulling it over, I think I found the solution - sound design. When all else fails - sound design, and by that, I mean "can I make passable Dubstep in Gadget?" So far, the sound design is fun. Pretty soon, it'll be about arranging things in a rhythmically pleasing manner to see how crazy I can get. I know, I know, "Dubstep sucks/is dead", but at least I think I got a good idea going here.

shinyisshiny

nice!! glad you are working on getting out of it. and i wouldnt say dubstep is dead, its just evolved to the broader term of Bass Music. Theres Leftfield bass, Riddim, Tearout dubstep etc, all alive and well in their niche communities as well as on the Festival main stages.

AlmostAnonymous

@_smund said:
You could always learn to play the flute?

"Guys....East Harlem Shakedown, E-flat. Keep the cymbals splashy, and Jay, lets take the bass line for a walk.."

Artj

@jwmmakerofmusic said:
I know, I know, "Dubstep sucks/is dead", but at least I think I got a good idea going here.

Nothing is forever dead, so you'll be fine. 😉 Congrats on getting over the block (again)!

michael_m

Why not try some different genres? Sounds like you’re focused very narrowly. It might help to just randomly try in other styles and get out of your comfort zone.

rs2000

@jwmmakerofmusic said:
...
Well, after mulling it over, I think I found the solution - sound design. When all else fails - sound design, and by that, I mean "can I make passable Dubstep in Gadget?" So far, the sound design is fun. Pretty soon, it'll be about arranging things in a rhythmically pleasing manner to see how crazy I can get. I know, I know, "Dubstep sucks/is dead", but at least I think I got a good idea going here.

In fact that's how most of my songs happen to pop up inside Drambo 😄

onerez

What amazing thread. This place rocks.