Hey guys,

Wondering how many others there are out there like me?

I love writing pieces of music and have been doing so since 1990. In my time I must have wrote a franticly low amount of tunes that were ever completed. Probs about 4 tops.

The rest reside on old forgotten about hard drives or amigas or ST's disks and resemble a part of a tune at best.

I seem to be great at writing a certain part but rubbish making it all fit together or finishing it off.

Mind I am not in this for a platinum record deal. Just for fun, but still.

At the moment I have this great little Old Skool type breakdown and been messing with it for a while but can I hell work it into a tune.

Wondering am I alone here?

Yes, and that's probably the problem! Have you done much collaborating before? It often helps to have other people throw ideas in, which you wouldn't have come up with yourself but that you end up incorporating into your own.

What kind of 'oldskool break' by the way, just out of interest? If it's anything dance-y, I'd be happy to lend you a hand (was planning on doing something breakbeat-y this afternoon anyway).

Cheers!

Chris

you're grappling with the creative process as does anyone caught up in the act of making

although some find it easy many people, including successful established artists working in all mediums, find making stuff difficult

eric maisel in his book 'fearless creating' identifies writer's block as the failure to manage the inherent anxiety in the creative process

the creative process generates anxiety because it is an expression of self and this is particularly true of finishing, it is in effect your last word on the subject, it's easier to brush off judgement of incomplete work than it is completed work because you can always account for it's shortcomings by saying it isn't finished anyway

even if you approach music as a hobby don't assume it's trivial to your value system, it's likely that you'd very much like to identify yourself as a musician and be recognised as one by an audience in some sense

i find music hard but creative writing easy, this is possibly because it's more important to me to succeed in music than it is in writing, in other words i value the former more than the latter (for myself anyway)

anxiety in creativity can also arise from the fact that decision making is integral to it, to much choice can paralyse the creative process and you'll see many people on this forum and others talk of how modern DAWs and soft synths can be overwhelming

you seem stuck on the part of the process that is finishing, count yourself lucky i find starting and finishing difficult!

have a think about why you don't want to finish anything, do you worry that it's not very good or do you not know how? the former requires work on the self around judgement the latter can be addressed more practically by say studying composition

one solution is to force yourself to finish in an arbitrary sense, for a track you are working on now give yourself a time limit, if i had 10 minutes to finish this track what would i do? you often see people finishing creative work very easily in a commercial context because forces from without (budget, deadlines, clients) insist upon it

really finishing is a decision, yours, you might not like the end result but you can say it's finished (for now at least if that makes you feel better)

finishing like starting, working and presenting to an audience, is a skill in the creative process that must be learnt like any other

if you can get over the self-help nature of them you might find these books interesting ... i did but then i am a bit of a hippy

Eric Maisel, Fearless Creating

Art & Fear, Observations on the perils and rewards of artmaking

The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron

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Original artwork and unique devices inspired by vintage technology http://www.thisisobsolete.com

Quote kolakube:

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but can I hell work it into a tune.

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this is very much practical, how the hell do you work an idea into a tune? well find out, what have other people done, listen to some similar tracks, what did they do? how is it structured? etc

again its decision making, it can't take all possible directions it's got to take one! as you develop as an artist you find your own views on this but a good place to start is to literally copy others

this isn't cheating it's acknowledging the wider context and history of the creative medium you are working in

if you are starting out as an artist the uninformed and seemingly arbitrary decisions one makes lack meaning, so borrow it from those who know more

Quote kolakube:

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Wondering am I alone here?

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no!

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Original artwork and unique devices inspired by vintage technology http://www.thisisobsolete.com

@ Jim.

Some excellent points fella. I especially like the one about me not working to a dead line. Ive never thought about putting a finishing date on any of my tunes. I will try that.

I think it boils down too im not as good as Id like to be. So my standards are too high for my own ability. If this is so I need to look at this. Maybe bang a few on you tube and see what others think. It doesnt matter though if im pants or not I still love tinkering with music tech.

Another point. I come from the days of hardware and still find hardware such a turn on. However By the time ive turned on my hardware set up and inflated my electric bill I could have wrote and entire tune with some soft synths and ableton that will probs be better than whatever I could write on my hardware. You see I left the scene completely in around 98 and came back in 2005. By the time Id blinked hardware had become obsolete. I sometimes wonder if Im just a gear whore as opposed wanting to write a tune.

@ Korf

I think collaborating would be a great idea. Thing is I don't know anyone local Id be able to work with. Id guess you'd have to be good mates for anything to come of it and good mates is not built in a day. Al tough gone are the days where you have to even know each other, suppose the internet has sorted that. Not sure thats a step forward though?

Quote kolakube:

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I think it boils down too im not as good as Id like to be.

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well of course i think the majority of people feel like this but it's one of those catch 22's, if you don't do stuff then you can't get better!

Quote:

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So my standards are too high for my own ability

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yes which is highly demotivating as one constantly criticises oneself, you have to detach yourself somehow

Quote:

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Maybe bang a few on you tube and see what others think. It doesnt matter though if im pants or not I still love tinkering with music tech.

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yeah this is good, i've had really positive feedback and it's immensely encouraging and i've had stuff panned too which stings but funnily enough the criticism doesn't feel as bad as the praise feels good if you see what i mean

making without meaning is easy, making stuff that matters to us is hard, making good stuff can be really hard, it's a nice idea that we can sit down and create brilliantly every time but it just aint so, and i and many others struggle with that

making music is complex, it isn't always going to be fun!

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Original artwork and unique devices inspired by vintage technology http://www.thisisobsolete.com

I read a book a while ago, it's been mentioned here before but I've forgotten the damn name. I'm sure someone else can remember.

Anyway, my point is that the book suggests as an exercise to write a set number of songs in a day. It doesn't matter how crap they are, the point is doing it a lot and finishing what you start.
It really unblocked me a few years ago - having to work that fast and with no quality control really got me into the 'zone'. None of the stuff I did fast was really up to scratch but there were a few nuggets that I later made into something more worthy.

It's also big on collaboration and finding someone else to also write a heap of throwaway stuff as a sort of non-threatening competition. I love collaboration. In fact I'm going to pull my finger out and find someone musical to work with again, I think. I'm getting sick of just working with video people, they just don't seem to get sound most of the time.

Great thread, some excellent comments, I can identify with the problem as a serial non-finisher of tunes.

Quote jayzed:

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Anyway, my point is that the book suggests as an exercise to write a set number of songs in a day. It doesn't matter how crap they are, the point is doing it a lot and finishing what you start.

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That's an interesting position. As we all know, quality control is a big part of the story and I find I can't finish a tune if something about it isn't quite right. The way I learned writing and recording is that you don't play the tune to anyone until you are satisfied it's the very best you can do.

Quote jayzed:

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It's also big on collaboration and finding someone else to also write a heap of throwaway stuff as a sort of non-threatening competition. I love collaboration. In fact I'm going to pull my finger out and find someone musical to work with again, I think.

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This is so true. When you have a collaboration there is at least one person in the world who is interested in what the finished product sounds like. Plus double the number of contacts who may have a listen.

To me, the end use can be a big brick wall standing in front of finishing a piece - who wants to listen to this stuff? But one thing is for sure, if you don't finish a tune then it's guaranteed that nobody will listen to it.

But collaboration is great, I've really enjoyed a couple of recent ones, and all of a sudden I feel loads more inspired to finish other work

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musics

+1000000 to the whole thread.

I've recently been offered a (potential!) release for an unfinished tune but, even with this carrot dangling in front of me and a rather sexy singer eager to sing whatever I give her, can I finish it? Can I bollox. Fair enough, the older I get the more of an engineer I become (as opposed to a musician) but I've always found composition hard. Collaboration is something I've always persued, but for whatever reason, the other musicians I know within my locality have always viewed the musical styles I write in as not particularly interesting (apart from one person, and we managed to get a record released! Hooray! He's now moved to canada! Boo...)

I can very much relate to the comments about Internal standards being too high and all that, I am my own worst enemy in that repect, and I will check out the books that are recommended (if my memory serves me right, one of them was mentioned in the Doves interview in SOS fairly recently), but the OP is definitely not alone!

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www.loadedaudio.com - Audio Mastering and home of the Mix Fix
www.audioslap.com - Audio News, Reviews and Interviews

@ Jayzed

I wil give that a go. Just churning out stuf without quality control to try and break this life time rut.

Ive always wanted to try collaboration but my idea of that is living near to someone and sharing a hardware studio. Not emailing stuff back and forth to a stranger. I duno maybes the Emailing approach would work for me, think im just stuck in 1992 haha.

@ Un Quantised

I too am from the school that if it isn't finished to you best then it doesn't get heard. However im starting to see (after 20 yrs - Doh!) that this isnt working. With the ideas and constructive comments coming into this thread I may well have a way forward. This thread could turn out to be the most helpful to me that I have ever posted. Im so pleased I started this.
I really do like taking the opposite of our training school and giving Jayzed's approach of just churning out tunes in a day or week or whatever. Think Id cut it at a week or it gets ridiculous again. I may we remix old stuff into whatever I can in a week. They will probs be 50% of what I actually want but at least Ill have fun whist Im doing it.

As said, Id love to collaborate but there would have to be chemistry there between me and who I am collaborating with. SInce the 90's Ive never been around anyone that was into music tech. Quite sad really.

@ Franco

Thanks mate. As much as I hope you unlock your writers block asap, its good to know im not alone. WHen you say engineer what do you mean? More a mixer/producer than a writer? Id say im more a writer. I have little to no interest in mixing down ect.

It always makes me laugh when I look at a group. Lets take the Pet SHop Boys. May not be to your taste but in the late 80's to the early 90's they used to make these superb remixes no one else did back then. I used to think how talented they were. Of course I then find out like all other groups from Elvis to today they wrote a few lines and an engineer and producer would mould those ideas into a finished song. I men come on, they hardly done 50% and get all of the credit. Other mainstreamers we could take Maddona who was really William Orbit, Depeche Mode who was Flood etc etc. Of course when I was a youngan and the PSB would make release a superb remix I would say to my mate how talented they were. Of course it wasnt them that remixed it. Now that remixing is more popular I understand this.

So - Whats my point. My point is I constantly use standards of the best of the genres I prefer, these days this means trance. However a lot if not all of these people were a collaboration of many great people. Great Producers, great engineers, great tea boys etc etc. Of course my stuff doesnt compete.

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(Sent via my iPhone and no doubt riddled with typos as a result)

I'm in a similar situation. Been composing and recording music since around 1990 and almost never finish anything. But it's purely for my own enjoyment so I have ceased worrying about it.
I came to realise som eyears ago that my hobby is not the creation of finished musical works, but in fiddleing about with stuff; recording ideas; messing with the gear; experimenting with arrangements; producing impressive sounds etc. Once I realised where the true value of it lies for me, I became a lot more relaxed and get a lot more out of it, without the anxiety.

The only times I have completed stuff is when I have collaborated with othgers and been paid for my efforts. WHen other people's expectations and/or payment is involved, completion comes a lot easier!. Actually, that goes for just about everything I do in life.

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Nik
Godin, Axon, Tonelab, Repeater & the skin of my teeth!

Everyone gets writer's block. That's why God invented eBay.

Quote BJG145:

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Everyone gets writer's block. That's why God invented eBay.

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LOVE THIS

I'm printing it out as I type and I'm going to put it on my studio wall.

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Original artwork and unique devices inspired by vintage technology http://www.thisisobsolete.com

Quote Shingles:

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I'm in a similar situation. Been composing and recording music since around 1990 and almost never finish anything. But it's purely for my own enjoyment so I have ceased worrying about it.
I came to realise som eyears ago that my hobby is not the creation of finished musical works, but in fiddleing about with stuff; recording ideas; messing with the gear; experimenting with arrangements; producing impressive sounds etc. Once I realised where the true value of it lies for me, I became a lot more relaxed and get a lot more out of it, without the anxiety.

The only times I have completed stuff is when I have collaborated with othgers and been paid for my efforts. WHen other people's expectations and/or payment is involved, completion comes a lot easier!. Actually, that goes for just about everything I do in life.

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Absolutely. This is also a great solution if it works for you.

There is a lot of 'aspiration' in music, well in life in general. Not all of us need it.

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Original artwork and unique devices inspired by vintage technology http://www.thisisobsolete.com

I said it before but it's worth saying again - great thread great contributions, specially the eBay comment

[whisper it quietly but isn't it a bit OT? or is the implication that only PC users get writer's block since Mac users live in a paradigm of superlative workflow and no hardware or software issues?]

Quote kolakube:

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@ Un Quantised

I too am from the school that if it isn't finished to you best then it doesn't get heard. However im starting to see (after 20 yrs - Doh!) that this isnt working.

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I hear ya hahaha

I'm fortunate that back in the day - 20 years since - I did used to finish a lot stuff and it even used to get released, some of it. So I do know what it feels like and also know that it's not an impossible task. These days it's only the occasional piece for some local film makers that ever sees any final use.

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musics

Last year I had a client who was in the same position - she did a lot of TALKING about getting down to some song-writing but very little result. So we set up a routine. Once a week we scheduled an evening session. She would arrive with a song idea. She would leave with that song recorded. Next week, a new song.

Rather to my surprise, she stuck to it. 6 months later we had a lot of songs. Some were quite good. And both of us had developed our techniques enormously - she as a writer/singer, me as musician/recordist.

Just do it!

Quote kolakube:

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...In my time I must have wrote a franticly low amount of tunes that were ever completed. Probs about 4 tops.

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I used to be like that for years. The thing that finally got to me finish things was deadlines. This started when I did an MA in audio production, so I had to finish assignments, then I started writing library music and doing music and sound design for theatre. Naturarlly, if you have a client and a deadline, you just have to sit and work until it's done.

There are still hardly any finished pieces of my own self-inspired, self-motivated music, but lots of complete tunes for various client projects.

The trouble it, you can't fake a deadline - if the stakes really aren't high, then it's too easy to let it slide. Perhaps you can find somebody who needs some music and promise to deliver it to them by the time they need it?

Cheers,
Matt

Interesting thread, and already loads of fascinating replies, but I suspect that the more general readership of our MRT forum might generate even more responses than here in the PC Music forum, so I'll move this over there.


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

I fear I'm suffering from it right now!

I think it's a lot to do with frame of mind, which is why the answer to unblocking this damn nightmare is so subjective. At the moment the songs I'm working on are 90% finished and undergoing lengthy production, which - when the computer is constantly crashing - is really uncreative. Another example... it's extremely hard to finish that line that has been bugging me in Verse 2 of a track when my head is deep in the recording/production process. Once we've got the recordings finished I'm sure a whole load of new ideas will creep out.

But for what it's worth, I think it's really important to set yourself a deadline and see what happens.

Here's a great online piece called "the One Hour Challenge" I read a few months ago which may inspire some creativity:

http://www.homestudiocorner.com/2009/07/11/one-hour-challenge/

Hope it helps!

Great thread! Thanks for the eBay comment. It explains a lot here ;-)

I think to 'just do it' is really key as well. Every finished half-pleasing song will boost you ten times for every unfished that drags you down.

Think of your favorite artists/LPs. Do you love every piece on/of it? Probably not. Nobody produces pure gold ALL the time. Why should you?

Secondly, if the 'juices' don't flow, why not 'practise' a bit? I know it is nothing new but I still don't do it often enough: take an existing song and COPY it. Or take a 'step by step' guide for building a trance track etc. Lots of things to learn there and quite 'reassuring' sometimes to just stick to the rules (which immediately sounds 'right' because we are so used to it).

Cheers

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http://soundcloud.com/schmuckfenster

Edited by flo (09/02/10 09:09 AM)

i'm part of a collective of musicians in my area and we occasionally do a challenge we call "six song sunday". it's exactly what it says on the tin - we each try to write and record six whole songs on one sunday. we set a theme to inspire us and then off we go.

no time to think - just lay down parts on the fly and off you go. it's a great way to loosen up and forego the usual things that slow you down, like overly rigid quality control or the feeling that you might be able to record that better, or play that bit better, etc. some of the results are actually pretty incredible!

there's another thread on the Theory board about writer's block from about a week ago which is also worth reading.

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hourglass | random thoughts | doubledotdash!? collective

It's very difficult to say 'Right, that's finished' unless you have to. Because you're afraid that when you do, you'll find that your finished idea is not as good as you'd hoped. And it's a lot easier to just not quite finish anything, and to let lots of things just sit in limbo. If you can let go of that fear of failure then you open the door to some success. All the ways suggested above (writing lots of songs in one day, working to deadlines etc) are very effective practical ways to move forward. I can promise you that a lot, if not most of the great writers in every genre and every medium suffer from this feeling that they're somehow a fraud and that when they release their latest work everyone will realise. They crack on because there's no choice and because the rational part of them tells them that it's not the case. Realise that your creative side is a bit like a shy child. It's hard to initially get it to come out of its shell. Frustration is a bit like shouting at that child. It doesn't work. You need to be encouraging and supportive of yourself. You need to be accepting that not all of your work will be good. Some will be great, and some will be poor. Dont worry about it. Songwriting is a process, not an event. If you can combine a slightly more forgiving attitude with some practical changes I think you'll find this goes away.

J

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www.jackruston.com

I have suffered in the past with this issue of writers block,I have written around 80 or so songs with complete structures and probably a few hundred mini 4 bar structure ideas that never got past a simple jingle stage over a 14 year span but have never took the finished ideas beyond a simple demo stage,or have tried to work on them only to become bored or dissapointed with them not sounding as organic or moving as the demo.to the point i have often wondered selling up and taking up another hobby,however as much as I try I cannot escape the fact that I'm inherently programmed to think about music all the time and am always listening for inspiration around me and pushed by the fact of listening to some of those demos many years later and realising the songs themselves are very interesting and catchy in some cases that it would be a shame to leave them as is

Half of the problem is our expectations of how we perceive those ideas which become stale rather quickly after we have created them

I always enjoy the Writing process,its come naturally to me,its the engineering of those songs which I really detest and find the hardest process,mainly because of a few points

half of the problem is the environment in which we work,most of us have some form of access to a studio setup at home which creates allsort of distractions,irrespective of getting some "Me time",and I personally beleive that it takes a good few hours to really get into the proper creative zone which is why having a home studio is really never gonna be the ideal solution for sound engineering and furthering your ideas and having the setup ready to go as an when your ideas flow is also paramount to having success and staving off the boredom process,I was in a room in the house where everything wasn't connected as it should because of room size restrictions and various other issues,so I built my new solution from scratch and took into account all the issues I had with the not so ideal environment i know not everyone has this luxury,but i would say that this is a big factor in making your ideas flow,and not having to play fix it or spend time making things gel or having to set up a mic hear ofr there or patching something here and there only to become frustrated or annoyed at not getting things done.

A big problem I have always suffered with which seem to become obsessive over the years is GAS

I have a decent setup with some really good equipment and some pieces I have stuck with for many years but have always changed or selling things on or trying newer things or bought something becuase it was cheap which hasn't really allowed me to settle into a really deep knowledgable setup that I can get totally to grips with,I'm interested in music technology but its become a part of the stigma in allowing me to do what i enjoy and thats writing songs something that before I could afford these instruments was never really an issue,I was always chasing that perfect instrument whilst neglecting the older things I knew inside out

so part of the newer setup meant I sold on anything I didn't really use much or spend time learning,I always seemed to use a few choice pieces as my main writing tools and these were things I know well,everything else was basically sound fillers or simply bought because they were so cheap its seemed criminal to not buy it,even if they were bought and never switched on for 6 months after initially being excited by them,sticking to a few good Instruments and learning them inside out is worth a studio full of glossy gear IME

This was a big factor in allowing my ideas to work better,if your constantly learning a new synths patch structure takes away the inspiration if it strikes as your always working out how to intergrate it into the setup,I did away with the obsession of buying and since have begun to find new things in the older synths

I do beleive that having a set plan of a song is also healthy to getting something finished,simply writing a four bar loop on the fly with no direction or idea of structure as to where to go,always ends in disaster for me, I see this as a trying to write a book scenario,you need to have a start,middle and end if your gonna make it happen everthing else is simply filling space,however i suspect many people succeed expanding a simple four bar idea from nowehere,its always been counterproductive for me and always found the songs that have been finished structure wise are the easiest ones to write as they kind of dictate the structure themselves without being forced and kind of flow more naturally,they also tend to be the more melodic or catchy tunes I've written

I decided to take the plunge and also for my own sanity to seperate the recording environment from home and have a dedicated outbuilding,where I can escape and use it as a hideaway,this removed the area of the home where I could be distracted by family/Social issues, and meant I had a room built for the purpose rather than making an already built room fit a studio setup,

so now I essentially treat the time I spend in the outbuilding as a kind of working environment it also meant I had a blank canvas to build an ideal studio setup around and also create a decent listening environment that was partially soundproofed and acoustically treated,this has helped my creativity and because I can shut myself away without distractions means my concentration span is far more productive,although i don't grab as much time as I would like due to family commitments,the time I do get in there is a quality time meaning I'm more or less in the correct frame of mind becuase things are ready to go quickly and easily and I'm able to hear things in a new light because of a semi decent listening situation and also those ideas are working better means I don't feel so much pressure to write things

I have since worked on several of those Older demos and written some new stuff that have ignited my creative process again partly due to being able to go with the hardware as soon as I fire up the idea without having to play fix it,things are looking forward for me in my creative processes and I've seen the dramatic change almost instantly havign also had a break from recording to build the new building meant I had some time away from making music which also fuelled my desire to get back to it and what was essentially causing my writers block and because I don't get distracted i can get into the Zone quicker,and removing the studio from the house means I can walk away from the studio and not feel pressure or guilt about not being able to get things done or conflicting with the family pressure

Great thread! Jellyjim, thanks, brilliantly put. Thanks for the links.

I think the key is- don't judge. Don't hate yourself. Don't criticise. Or at least, at various points in the process of creating the track, you should just let yourself play, let your mind wander, and judge nothing, just enjoy it. Like a kid in a sandpit. It doesn't have to be actual playing of notes. Set up mad feedback loops, run stuff through silly amounts of processing. Whatever appeals to you at the time. Then edit later.

That's the great thing about computers- you can just hit record, record for hours, and you can loop sections and overdub continuously. I always get good "ear candy" type stuff that way, which helps enormously in developing the original idea into a finished piece.

Finally, don't say anything bad about yourself. "Be impecable with your word".

See this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Four-Agreements-Practical-Personal-Freedom/dp/187842 4319

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madtheory creations
Synths and pianos for Kontakt

Quote Jack Ruston:

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Songwriting is a process, not an event. If you can combine a slightly more forgiving attitude with some practical changes I think you'll find this goes away.

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+1 !!

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madtheory creations
Synths and pianos for Kontakt

Quote Jack Ruston:

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It's very difficult to say 'Right, that's finished' unless you have to. Because you're afraid that when you do, you'll find that your finished idea is not as good as you'd hoped. And it's a lot easier to just not quite finish anything, and to let lots of things just sit in limbo. If you can let go of that fear of failure then you open the door to some success. All the ways suggested above (writing lots of songs in one day, working to deadlines etc) are very effective practical ways to move forward. I can promise you that a lot, if not most of the great writers in every genre and every medium suffer from this feeling that they're somehow a fraud and that when they release their latest work everyone will realise. They crack on because there's no choice and because the rational part of them tells them that it's not the case. Realise that your creative side is a bit like a shy child. It's hard to initially get it to come out of its shell. Frustration is a bit like shouting at that child. It doesn't work. You need to be encouraging and supportive of yourself. You need to be accepting that not all of your work will be good. Some will be great, and some will be poor. Dont worry about it. Songwriting is a process, not an event. If you can combine a slightly more forgiving attitude with some practical changes I think you'll find this goes away.

J

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nicely put Jack.

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hourglass | random thoughts | doubledotdash!? collective

Quote kolakube:

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I seem to be great at writing a certain part but rubbish making it all fit together or finishing it off.

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it sounds like you're good at composition but not so good at arrangement (putting it all together and making a "song"). nothing to be ashamed of - many great songwriting partnerships are formed out of a composer and an arranger. so perhaps you do need to find a collaborator as suggested above.

if you'd rather work alone, there are a few things you can do to improve your arranging skills, the foremost of which i'd recommend is to listen to songs you like. make notes of how they're organised, including structure, how the various different elements and instruments interact, how themes are established and developed. use your own notation, just something you understand. then deliberately try to ape a structure you like; you'll probably find you change it a little to suit your own work as you go along. this is a great way to get things moving when you're stuck. after a while you'll have a library of structures and progressions that work that you can refer to to banish the gremlins of "unfinished work".

the other thing to bear in mind is that if you can write a four bar bit that works, but doesn't have a "song" to go with it, you can just file that away for a rainy day. not everything has to be written from start to finish - just put away that one bit and then one day you'll have a song that is done except for one hole in it. out comes that four bar bit and you might find it fits. you can make whole songs by recycling bits and pieces you haven't found homes for yet. like Jack said, songwriting is a process, one which can take years and years, not an event that happens all at once.

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hourglass | random thoughts | doubledotdash!? collective

Everyone goes through this at some stage.

Writers Block for me has always been a sign that I need to gather my thoughts or inspiration by taking a Break from Making Music,sometimes thats a few days or sometimes a few weeks.

Change the way you approach things every once in a while,push the boundaries and work in a different way,we all get into Familiar territory and that breeds contempt and boredom.Making Music can be depressing sometimes and rewarding at other times,learn to understand the balance

I find having a clear up and tidying up the Cabling or filing and backing up old data or simply just making some new sounds can be just as productive to give your Block a kick in the groin

Its certainly difficult to Justify your output of what your doing especially if you've invested a large amount of money into your hobby,that can put mental stress on your mindset,just thank your lucky stars that you don't need to pay the bills through it!


If your only having luck writing some minimal bar tunes,set yourself a challenge and try and write some music for Adverts or Film scenes,get a tv or DVD player in your Studio and mute the Volume try and imagine what music you could compose for it,much simpler than trying to write a symphonic 12 minute piece!

The problem with me when I get into a writing phase is that all too often I'll end up working on so many songs in parallel (over 20 on some occasions) that many just get left behind as part complete. As for actually finishing things, I know when it's finished because it sounds exactly like the ideas I have in my mind.

I've recently gone into a writing phase as it happens (the first time in ages) and already I have 7 songs on the go.

That's not to mention all the little ditties that I come up with when I'm working on stuff. Just little 4-16 bar melodies or chord sequences and the like, not related to the tracks I'm working on. They seem to come out of thin air, I must've saved about 100 of those over the past week alone.

great thread btw

my answer has always been collaboration...another viewpoint seems always good, and is why i still play in bands...my own stuff suffers from lack of completion cause i get stuck so often it's not funny!

We have one main songwriter. She will come up with very basic structures and musical ideas but with lyrics almost wholly written - all written on bass guitar and vocal lines!. The guitarist will flesh out and expand the songs and we the rhythm section will often quality control and arrange properly. Each of us can't live without each other (musically that is) and thats why we've been together (on and off) for the past 6 years (before hand, me, the guitarist and perc player have been playing for 20 years!)
and as for deadlines...nothing like a gig to get you completing the writing process! The audience often decide that the songs finished!

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http://soundcloud.com/seaapes

Hi guys.

Honestly, for me to quote all the best bits and reply individually, well Id be here all night! Im so pleased I posted this, I have been given some great idea's toward with.

Just a few points in general.

I would love to collaborate but there is no one I know into the same stuff as me. As said Id guess you would have to collaborate with someone you at least had a feel for? Defiantly something Id like to give a go too.

The one hour challenges are superb but do I class the tune as finished after this? Even though it would be dog rough or does this just become yet another unfinished symphony?

(Thanks to mod for the relocation.)

Great thread,

Always have some way to record ideas - the best set of songs (about 5-6 of them) i ever wrote were written after the most intense period of 'trying' to write songs for a year i had ever tried. I eventually (after a year) became so frustrated that i gave up trying - and on the same day, i wrote songs like i always believed i could do if i left the anxiety behind. Unfortunately i didnt have any means to record the songs and the fear that ensued the next day abolished all trace of them from memmory!
I then spent 7 mad years trying to recreate them (im alittle obsessive), obviously to no avail and i wrote very little else besides.

Now i see writing like Jack says - as a process that you go through. Its not always fun, and you need to know when to call it a day but you need to not shy away from it too. Im learning to be kinder to myself and just let go of the pressure to write 'the most amazing songs'. This pressure killed creativity for me. Instead i just start by saying it doesnt matter if its all crap today - its part of the process - and i play what ever comes into my head. I now record everything that has any semblance of musicality (and some things that dont!). When good stuff comes along it usually inspires me enough to finish it - atleast untill my band gets ahold of it (they are good at arranging), but the vast majority (by an enormous margin) of ideas, stay at just that, because i know they may resurface in the same form or their natural form after time and get integrated into a song - they might become the verse or a break or a chorus and i probably wont even remember writing it first time because it will be in a different context/timing/changed form, but its definately a process and the nicer you are to yourself, rather than beating yourself up over things not being the way you want them, the less painful that process becomes.
Just my little story and to say i empathize.

Quote kolakube:

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I would love to collaborate but there is no one I know into the same stuff as me. As said Id guess you would have to collaborate with someone you at least had a feel for? Defiantly something Id like to give a go too.

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why not create a thread on the My Sound Files board with some of your rough ideas and your rough geographical location and see if anyone round here bites? you never know who might be into your stuff.

Quote kolakube:

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The one hour challenges are superb but do I class the tune as finished after this? Even though it would be dog rough or does this just become yet another unfinished symphony?

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once the time limit's up the song is "finished" whether it's rough or not. it's a sort of exercise to force you to let go of something and resist the urge to continue tinkering.

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hourglass | random thoughts | doubledotdash!? collective

What kind of music are you producing?

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"Perfect yourself in Solitude, prove yourself in public."
www.velcrocityrecords.com

Quote kolakube:

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Mind I am not in this for a platinum record deal. Just for fun, but still.

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This is your problem right here! Lack of ambition!

If you had it in your head you NEEDED to finish some tunes and they HAD to be good because you were aiming for success, you would get it done! By aiming low, part of your brain is thinking, "oh well this is just messing around, why bother doing the hard bits of structuring and finishing the track when its not going to lead anywhere."

Jonny H:-

Sorry but I disagree. By your reckoning anyone who NEEDS to wright a good piece of music CAN?

I dont think thats very accurate at all. If it were we would all be able to paint, write a book, write music, do athletics etc etc just by having ambition. Think you ruling out ability, contacts and god knows what else.

Im damned sure there are a lot of unsigned bands who are ultra ambitious that never get anywhere because there pants.

@DJ Hero:- Trance (ish) / electronic / early 90's type techno / mid 90s type house / ambient.

@Mysecondglance:- May do just that on the soundboard. Never knew it existed. Thanks for the suggestion.

Quote francobidanco:

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+1000000 to the whole thread.

I've recently been offered a (potential!) release for an unfinished tune but, even with this carrot dangling in front of me and a rather sexy singer eager to sing whatever I give her, can I finish it? Can I bollox. Fair enough, the older I get the more of an engineer I become (as opposed to a musician) but I've always found composition hard. Collaboration is something I've always persued, but for whatever reason, the other musicians I know within my locality have always viewed the musical styles I write in as not particularly interesting (apart from one person, and we managed to get a record released! Hooray! He's now moved to canada! Boo...)

I can very much relate to the comments about Internal standards being too high and all that, I am my own worst enemy in that repect, and I will check out the books that are recommended (if my memory serves me right, one of them was mentioned in the Doves interview in SOS fairly recently), but the OP is definitely not alone!

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Too funny mate, exactly the same story here!
For me recently though I have had a lot of issues at home which stopped me from writing any music, had to take the studio down temporally, then you have state of mind...Plus I decided to change my whole setup as I wasn't happy with the old one and decided to go back to a DAW setup which would be great if I had the money to do it all in one go but I still need to get a few things like a MIDI interface and actually buy the sequencer (Logic Pro 7 or 8) then I can concentrate on making the tunes again, but in a fresh way

I would write more but I need to go quickly here lol

Oh yea Mickey I got my iMac G5 here, also just got my MOTU 828 mk1, it's funny the guys who want to sign my music all want the stuff I don't like and the stuff that has s*it production, they say they want it raw and with mistakes..wtf, they don't want it computer like..yea well ok but the computer is not the fault lol it's the people writing it making it boring. I'm fedup with hearing new house records just ripping off trax records and sounding like they are out of 1988..jezzz do something new..so no I won't be trying to rip-off old Chicago house records ;-)

Edited by vinyl_junkie (10/02/10 10:36 PM)

Sorry Martin (vinyl Junkie) but you are barred from this thread. You have a you tube account with a trillion tunes on. Writers block is something I would never accuse you of.

Great you got a G5. I use Macs and much prefer them. Not going to go down the PC v Mac route that has been done to death, I think the answer to that is much the same as soft synth vs hardware. Its whatever works for the individual. For me thats Mac OS.

Its a shame we couldn't have done a collaboration mate as we have now known each other for a few years and get on well. Shame were into drastically different stuff.

Quote kolakube:

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Sorry Martin (vinyl Junkie) but you are barred from this thread. You have a you tube account with a trillion tunes on. Writers block is something I would never accuse you of.

Great you got a G5. I use Macs and much prefer them. Not going to go down the PC v Mac route that has been done to death, I think the answer to that is much the same as soft synth vs hardware. Its whatever works for the individual. For me thats Mac OS.

Its a shame we couldn't have done a collaboration mate as we have now known each other for a few years and get on well. Shame were into drastically different stuff.

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Lol yea but u see I haven't written anything new since like November
I really like the mac and OS X is nice although I'm running e'oldie 10.4.11 it does the trick, this is my first time at home with a MAC and it's a nice experience. Both of my other friends now have gone and brought new mac book pro's after playing with mine lol
Man if u ever down this way we should do a colab it would be interesting on what we come up with as we into to completely different things. Or just end up fighting about things LOL no I ain't puttin dat JP trance lead over that drum beat hahah

Quote kolakube:

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Jonny H:-

Sorry but I disagree. By your reckoning anyone who NEEDS to wright a good piece of music CAN?

I dont think thats very accurate at all. If it were we would all be able to paint, write a book, write music, do athletics etc etc just by having ambition. Think you ruling out ability, contacts and god knows what else.

Im damned sure there are a lot of unsigned bands who are ultra ambitious that never get anywhere because there pants.

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And why exactly are they pants? Where do these contacts come from? Do lucky people get thrown a book of useful contacts out of the sky?

No, it takes hard work to get a load of contacts. It takes hard work to get good. To write good songs. To take criticism and throw out bad ideas, bad band members and stay away from unproductive routines (like smoking weed and jamming all day rather than writing good tunes).

Talent comes into it, but its only a relatively small part. The original poster claims to be able to write good musical bits, so I'll take this on face value that they are musically talented. The question is why do are they unable to translate this into commercial success? (the argument that they don't want it is too absurd to deal with - anyone who takes pride in what they are doing wishes to be respected and rewarded by others)

Writing music can be fun, certain parts of it are anyway. Coming up with great new sounds, melodies, chord structures is the exciting part, but not the one of the hard parts. The hard part is to sculpt all this into a coherent structured track. The hard part is making contacts and building hype about it, getting other people interested in what you are doing.

And of course it all requires risk. Risk that people might turn around and say "i'm sorry i think your music is rubbish." Then you need the confidence to overcome this, determine whether you are trying to connect with the wrong people, or whether they have valid criticisms which you need to address.

In the end its better to plough ahead and decide you will only be satisfied when you are making music which is superior to anything else. Along the way you will improve and improve and improve. The trick is not to fall for the myth that making music is only about feeling and enjoyment; there is a tough work ethic involved too, and you have to be prepared to deal with that or else accept your position as an eternal amateur.