Severe Blockage

[Lee Shapiro]

I know writer's block is common enough, but I'm in a very long drought and just can't seem to get into gear.
I've written so many songs, most of them over the past 5 or 10 years  (I have 100 songs up on SoundClick dating back to the mid 80's).
I used to be able to write a decent song once a month, or maybe one every two months.  Last year (2021) I wrote a total of TWO.  They were good songs, probably among my best, but then nothing.  I'm completely constipated.   i don't know if it's a mental issue or I just ran out of ideas.   I really want to write something but I just can't come up with anything even remotely good.
Recently I got into Tom Petty, I'm really into The Live Anthology and Wildflowers and All The Rest.   I was hoping that would spark some ideas.  But I didn't get very far.

So I'm looking for suggestions as to how to get my mojo working again.   I know everyone has their own way of writing and their own ways of getting inspiration, but right now I'm open to anything.   I'm sitting here staring at my MIDI keyboard, and it's keys look like they are laughing at me.  HELP!

[msmcleod]

There's a bunch of reasons why this can happen, but in my experience the main ones (at least for me) are:

• Being too self-critical about the quality of your ideas/songs, so you abandon them early on.
• Feeling a total lack of inspiration combined with feeling overwhelmed by the unlimited collections of sounds/chord progressions etc you could use

I know it's kind of a catch-22, but I think the only way out of this is to just keep on writing. 

First of all, finish as many songs as possible -  even if you think they're no good. If you find yourself always playing the same riff when you start writing, then it's time to just write any old song using that riff and put it to bed.  Even if the finished song is total trash, there's nothing forcing you to release it, but finishing it will get it out of your system.

There's a bunch of techniques to get around a lack of ideas, and I find the best way is simply to steal. So...

• Pick three random songs written by three random artists.
• Use the subject matter of song 1 as the basis for your lyrics.  Don't worry about stealing one or two lines verbatim, but if you can paraphrase/do a variation on the theme, then do so.  One easy way of coming up with a variation is to do the exact opposite of the original song - e.g. "I love you" becomes "I hate you",  "She left me" becomes "She came back" etc..
• Use the chord progression of song 2 as a basis for your chord progression.  You may want to swap chorus/verse (e.g. your verse uses song 2's chorus chord progression, and your chorus uses song 2's verse chord progression).  You could also switch from major to minor key (or vice versa). But  pick a chord progression and stick to it.
• Use the style of song 3 as a basis for your song style - e.g. general style/tempo/feel.
• Pick some three keyboard sounds and three  guitar sounds you'll use and force yourself to use them. You can use ones similar to these from song 3, or just pick them randomly.   Alternatively, you could stick to "stock" sounds such as organ/piano/strings,  and say acoustic / clean electric / overdrive or distortion.
• Write the song. 
• Once the song is basically finished, then feel free to change anything you think might work better, or just leave it as done.

Then simply rinse and repeat.  Sooner or later you'll get back into the swing of writing better stuff, although you may find along the way you've actually written some good songs.

Give it about 6 months and listen back on what you did.  I'll bet you'll find some of the songs are no-where near as bad as you thought, or they might give you the inspiration to rewrite one or two of them.

Moving forward for ideas, I find it's useful to keep a notebook of song ideas (mainly for lyrics).   These will simply be a combination of:

• A possible song title
• A possible subject matter
• A lyric line you find is cool

Just write them down and forget about them.  Periodically go back, and fill in subject matters/stories, or any ideas for lyric lines for any of the song titles.  When you feel you've got enough to start writing a full song, then go for it.

 

[Lee Shapiro]

Thank you Mark, that's a lot of helpful information.  In fact I think I'm going to print it out and keep referring back to it.
I really like the idea of getting 3 songs and picking and choosing various aspects from them.
I'll give it a try and see what I can come up with.
Thanks again for taking the time to write all that in such a nicely formatted way.... seriously. ?

[craigb]

?

 

 

?

[Wibbles]

You could always try Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or if all else fails, do what I do, smoke a bit of weed.?

[Shane_B.]

6 hours ago, craigb said:

?

 

 

?

Roto Rooter maybe?

[RobertWS]

Go for a walk in the woods.

[Lee Shapiro]

13 hours ago, Wibbles said:

You could always try Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or if all else fails, do what I do, smoke a bit of weed.?

Looks interesting, but a little involved.   I like the "Try faking it" suggestion.  LOL!

[Lee Shapiro]

9 hours ago, RobertWS said:

Go for a walk in the woods.

Yes, sometimes I do.  Right now there's too much snow and ice on the ground for that.

[Shane_B.]

22 hours ago, RobertWS said:

Go for a walk in the woods.

Hey, it worked for the bear. Just sayin' ...

[Grem]

On 1/27/2022 at 1:53 AM, msmcleod said:

There's a bunch of reasons why this can happen, but in my experience the main ones (at least for me) are:

Great ideas Marc

[Doc H]

I tend to take a sit down in places frequented by people. I pick one and make up a story about them by the way they look or what they’re doing at the moment. It used to be easier when there weren’t any thing such as cell phones….. then use the stories as a way of creating song lyrics and then build a melody around how the syncopation feel would,be from the lyrics. 

[AndyB01]

I sometimes write lyrics in complete isolation to the music track - so you're essentially writing a poem. Themes that I use to help me form and tell stories:

Real life experiences - the more painful the better.

People and places I have met/ been but change/ invent what happened.

Things I read in the media that catch my eye - build a story around it.

Things you'd really like to say to someone but you can't articulate it directly to their face.

The music can follow the words, I also use songwriting tools like Toontrack EzKeys and Scaler2 to help me create new musical ideas.

Might not work for you, but you were after ideas...

Hope some of that helps.

Andy

[craigb]

I used to collaborate with a guy in England who would give me a song title that I had to create lyrics for.   Then we would both come up with a riff in the same key and figure out how to merge them together. 

[Bapu]

17 minutes ago, craigb said:

I used to collaborate with a guy in England who would give me a song title that I had to create lyrics for.   Then we would both come up with a riff in the same key and figure out how to merge them together. 

IOW mashup

[Shane_B.]

The songs I've written came to me almost instantly like a valve opened and they just flowed out of me. I'm most creative at song writing when I'm very tired and it's late at night or very early in the morning like 1 or 2 am and I'm alone. I've never been able to sit down and say, "Ok, I have an idea and I'm going to write a song now.". I wrote a lot when I was a kid by myself in my bedroom and after almost 24 years of being with my wife the only time I write now is when she's gone on a work trip for a week or two.

[Jeremy Oakes]

I have a Project that contains muted tracks - mostly audio, some midi/audio, but  each one is a riff or musical idea.  

Every now and again i solo each track, one bt one, incase i’ve thought of an extension to a particular track.

i go to this project if i’m feeling a little « dry ».

J

[craigb]

30 minutes ago, Bapu said:

IOW mashup

I've always heard a mashup was taking two existing songs and putting them together, but OK, I guess!

[Lee Shapiro]

On 1/28/2022 at 1:13 PM, Shane_B. said:

The songs I've written came to me almost instantly like a valve opened and they just flowed out of me. I'm most creative at song writing when I'm very tired and it's late at night or very early in the morning like 1 or 2 am and I'm alone. I've never been able to sit down and say, "Ok, I have an idea and I'm going to write a song now.". I wrote a lot when I was a kid by myself in my bedroom and after almost 24 years of being with my wife the only time I write now is when she's gone on a work trip for a week or two.

Thanks for all the great suggestions, I appreciate them!

Shane, I finally started working on a song which started in a way that you described.   It was the middle of the night and the lyrics for (what is now) the chorus came to me when I was lying in bed.  I grabbed the nearest piece of paper and wrote them down so I wouldn't forget.  It started with a simple premise of "I got nothing to prove".
I don't know if there is a song with that title already (I wouldn't be surprised), but from there I wrote the chorus, and the verses just fell into place.  It took me a few more days to find a decent chord pattern, but at this point most of the instrument tracks have been recorded.  I just have to record vocals and a lead/solo part.

And yes, it's like you said, sometimes songs (lyrics) just flow out, once you get the initial blockage unclogged.   Laying in bed, half asleep, your mind is kind of in neutral and it allows all sorts of things to just enter your thoughts.  Sometimes the less you try to think of something, the easier it is.  Forcing creativity never worked for me.

[sarine]

Sometimes when you feel uncreative, the simple interpretation that your well has dried up, your muse dumped you -  i.e. you're "out of ideas" - may be a matter of fact.

For me, the feeling of comfort is a universal red flag that my mind is gravitating towards a standstill. If something feels too easy, familiar and unconflicted, I know it's about to turn flat, one-dimensional and uninspired unless I somehow grow outward from it. Artists as communicators need high exposure to the world around in order to make meaningful comments about the nature of things. High sensitivity is an asset but not a substitute for going out there and letting people, stories, phenomena, and sensory experiences influence you directly. If you only reference the most familiar of your own thoughts and feelings when observing the world and in creating art, you're becoming an immobile, static, outside observer that winds up cataloguing reality instead of interpreting and reformulating it. Comfort attracts to the familiar, and the seeming repetitiveness of the familiar will desensitize you and dull your perception, creating even stronger bias towards the familiar (the dried well).

In my case, curiosity is the strongest predictor of increased creativity. When I get curious about something and it sparks my imagination, it's like an invitation from the world to come in and see for myself; there's this miracle, it wants to be seen, and you're welcomed to approach it. You get closer and closer until you're so infatuated with its soul that you lose sense of the boundary between the two of you, and it does too, and so it starts speaking through you. A more superficial take on the process is what people casually call "being inspired by something". These are variations on the same phenomenon in varying degrees of depth, breadth and intensity, similar to religious experiences.