Writer's Block

[Mark L]

How do you deal with it?

 

I think I might have it - I haven't written anything for about 7 months

 

Either that or I just can't be arsed at the moment

[yumpy]

probably 3 yrs or more here. no biggie. i focused on covers. (without the written music) just to see if i could pull it off,

 

playing on friends originals, learning more about recording, playing live with the P&W on sunday's, lots of crap you can do in a dry spell.

 

drop the git and take up harp, or whatever.

 

 

 

 

 

[Anderton]

Doing covers worked for me...which seems particularly appropriate, given who posted the question!

[rasputin1963]

Elton John said: "When you can't think of what song to write, write a hymn."

 

Burt Bacharach says the way to over come songwriter's block, was, for him, to to jogging on the beach--- ie., away from his axe, the piano, where his fingers tended to fall on familar chords and notes. Then, while running, he would use his own body rhythms to originate a groove or chant... that came right out of his entire organism, you might say.

 

David Bowie was crafty: He'd go to the magazine stand and buy a whole slew of popular magazines, even on subjects that didn't interest him particularly. He'd go home, sit cross-legged on the floor, and scissor out phrases--- especially buzzwords particular to the subject of the articles. Then he'd start arranging those paper phrases on the floor, mixing and matching phrases in novel and even absurdist ways. That's how he got the lyric to "Young Americans", and if you listen, you'll see that each phrase he sings does have a certain meaningful echo to us, yet they are all blended together to make an "Impressionistic" lyric. The point is, they didn't have to make sense. This is an amazingly clever technique, I think, because Bowie could make sure that all people in society-- not just his young fanbase--- would "grok" something in his lyrics.

 

At Berklee, they said a great way to come up with a new song.... is to invent your own scale! Randomly pick 7 or 8 notes, any tones at all, then declare that THAT's the scale you will write in. Of course scales give rise to triads, then to triads with sevenths, even to extensions (9ths, 11ths, 13ths), and chords give rise to chord progressions and resolutions. If you've randomly cobbled together your own custom scale, you'll be amazed at how novel, even weird, those chords are, and their novelty will encourage you to think differently about your musical assumptions, at least for a while. All creativity, Paul Gauguin said, comes from first LIMITING your resources. That's why music profs tell their composition students: "You will write a mazurka, in F-Lydian mode, for an Eb French Horn". The mazurka form limits your structural possibilities, the Lydian mode your melody and harmonies, the range of the horn will limit your tessitura (available notes for a melody).

 

Other pundits say that, when writer's block occurs, it's because you have some LARGER topic in your mind-- a "force majeur"-- that is currently occupying you... and it's usually an emotional one, like anger or frustration. You try to write a sweet song, while truthfully you're goddamned mad about the refrigerator being broken, cross with a family member, or some other vexation. Those who posit this theory say that there's no escaping the elephant in the living room: Your continued creativity must involve your exorcising the REAL demon that's bothering you at the moment, because anger carries with it great creative motivation. Maybe the result will be shocking and ugly; that's great... shocking and ugly songs are usually compelling.

 

If you study the nature of human creativity, there are thought to be two (or more) periods leading up to the creative act: Assimilation and Incubation: In the assimilation stage, you pick up all kinds of data from the world around you; in Incubation, those ideas "stew" in your head for days, weeks or months, as your mind subconsciously seeks out their meaning and inter-relationship, while no outward work gets done. Eventually comes the creative act, whose birth was preceded by a whole gestation period in your mind.

 

Marky, you might be in an assimilative or incubational period. In the 80's, I used to run with a crowd of Marin County New Agers who had many maxims and self-affirmations: One of them was: "I continue to love and appreciate myself, even when I'm 'In Process'." Good advice.

[Anderton]

David Bowie was crafty: He'd go to the magazine stand and buy a whole slew of popular magazines, even on subjects that didn't interest him particularly. He'd go home, sit cross-legged on the floor, and scissor out phrases--- especially buzzwords particular to the subject of the articles. Then he'd start arranging those paper phrases on the floor, mixing and matching phrases in novel and even absurdist ways. That's how he got the lyric to "Young Americans", and if you listen, you'll see that each phrase he sings does have a certain meaningful echo to us, yet they are all blended together to make an "Impressionistic" lyric. The point is, they didn't have to make sense. This is an amazingly clever technique, I think, because Bowie could make sure that all people in society-- not just his young fanbase--- would "grok" something in his lyrics.

 

I never knew that...brilliant, especially for someone like me who has a harder time coming up with lyrics than melodies. Probably watching dumb "entertainment" TV shows could provide some useful phrases as well.

 

[guitarville]

This is well said:

If you study the nature of human creativity, there are thought to be two (or more) periods leading up to the creative act: Assimilation and Incubation: In the assimilation stage, you pick up all kinds of data from the world around you; in Incubation, those ideas "stew" in your head for days, weeks or months, as your mind subconsciously seeks out their meaning and inter-relationship, while no outward work gets done. Eventually comes the creative act, whose birth was preceded by a whole gestation period in your mind.

 

I think that about sums it up. Next step is to just do it. My approach to songwriting has been and probably always will be is to start a song and finish it, then start another song. This has been my style of songwriting. I've always felt your wife can't be half pregnant, so why just write half a song and start fresh on another and come back and now you have two songs to finish. Just didn't add up to me. Of course, being in the construction trade also taught me, you don't do half a job and expect to get paid for it. The payoff by writing one song at time is you are training your mind to focus on one song, which is very hard to do if you just continue to write parts of songs.

[thankyou]

I can't remember the source, but one writer suggested going to an airport to people watch. Then make up a narrative about those folks.

 

My problem is follow-thru. I have hundreds of song fragments that seem to be a good start, but they just don't end up finished.

[nat whilk II]

I've started a number of tunes by loading up the DAW, bringing up the staff view, and clicking in a random series of notes in sequence assigned to a piano sound. From there, figure out some chords that work with the random melody and I'm off and running.

 

I think a lot of people get stuck songwriting because they see if as primarily getting into a mood, and then hopefully the music will flow from the mood. Personally, I think moods have to be involved, but they don't have to be there at the start necessarily. You can discover a mood after workingfor while with stock or random or other people's material, and then sculpt, enhance, alter, morph the mood as you go.

 

nat whilk ii

[nat whilk II]

I can't remember the source, but one writer suggested going to an airport to people watch. Then make up a narrative about those folks.

 

My problem is follow-thru. I have hundreds of song fragments that seem to be a good start, but they just don't end up finished.

 

Yeah, I do this too. I've found some help for this by making a point of at least sketching out a preliminary full tune and not just stopping with the first fragment idea. I'll do this in my DAW, just copying things out, adding some perfunctory chords for sections that are actually not written yet, and then the task becomes tweaking and replacing sections which seems easier, more of a workman task than a creative task.

 

nat whilk ii

 

[AlamoJoe]

 

I never knew that...brilliant, especially for someone like me who has a harder time coming up with lyrics than melodies. Probably watching dumb "entertainment" TV shows could provide some useful phrases as well.

 

Interesting isn't it? I was always just the opposite. Someone could come up with a riff and I'd just instantanously have lyrics pop into my head. Wrote an entire songs lyric, chorus and all in fifteen minutes once.

[Anderton]

 

I think I might have it - I haven't written anything for about 7 months

 

Let's see, the Line 6 event was in July, so 7 months...OH NO!!!! I killed your creativity!

 

 

 

[Mark L]

Thanks for all the ideas, guys

 

And Craig.....it would appear that you did. Damn!

[Iamthesky]

Mark, if you think it would spur your creative juices to write on commission, my new band could use some more songs. Just pulling something out of my head at random: write one about the majesty of wind farms, full of metaphor and peace and love and what it's like to sit and stare at them while high. In the musical style of Hawkwind, Man, Pink Fairies, that kind of stuff (or like Black Market Daydreams). Just write 5 minutes and we'll fill in the other 10-15 minute jam section.

 

And, of course, whether you'd like your commission in lump sum or royalty, or combination thereof. .png.197c47f720636f02390cc2b0a33804da.png' alt='smiley-veryhappy'>

[thankyou]

My toes just found strawberries in the wild,

Tiny red jewels of the prairie,

Somewhere between the hipster and man-child

They melt like candy on my tongue.

 

The wind is the muscle of the open sky,

And a hundred windmills help them flex.

Round and round they reach higher and higher

Than I could ever expect to be.

 

[WRGKMC]

I rarely have this problem with music but I do get it writing lyrics.

Its often because I just don't have something to say that fits the emotional content of the music

 

I've used a few things to get me going again.

Sometimes its just finding a poetry book and forcing myself to find a melody/song from those lyrics.

Or I may just read through other peoples lyrics, not even knowing the songs and see if they give me any ideas.

 

One thing you do notice in a hurry, there's allot of lyrics to major hit songs which when read in text without the music

don't have much meaning or insight of any kind. Without the music to back them up they wouldn't pass a first grade poetry contest.

 

Few an far between are the artists that actually have some great lyrics, and even those may not have the best music or gained

the fame others have.

 

The best breakout for me though is just forcing myself to write. I may use a rhyming dictionary as a crutch to get me in the swing again.

I may not even have the whole sentences complete, I may just have the beginning of a sentence and the rhyming words at the end.

Then when I have 10 or 20 sets in hand, I'll go about adding the melody and words to music that's already recorded.

 

Once you're back in the pocket, its like turning on a water tap and you can write as you go to fill in all the gaps you didn't have an idea for.

 

I have the same thing happen with music. I may pull out an old song I write and try and redo it better. It usually leads me right into new stuff

or I may just come up with new ideas for the old song.

 

I'm in the middle of finishing a song which has been evolving for a month now. It started with 4 simple chords and a chorus of three chords.

It stuck in my head for weeks and every time I picked up my guitar I was able to modify it a bit to expand the bridge, breaks etc.

Most was done in my head though.

 

I finally got down to tracking the rhythm part to several different drum beats, and have added the bass since. After that The songs stuck in my head

for two days while at work and I'm beginning to hear a live version complete with horns, vocals, keyboard, and leads develop. Its really clear in my mind

in some areas and others like the actual lyrics I'd sing aren't quite there.

 

Its at the point where I know what's needed and its just a matter of putting sweat and hard work into it to get the results. The inspiration part is done,

its just the implementation part that needs completion. I would have had it done this weekend but I had to play out last weekend and I abused my hands

playing hard in the process and have an ache in my right thumb. It will likely take a week to heal it probably won't be till next weekend till I'm ready to track again.

 

I rarely miss a weekend writing though. Even if 90% of what I'm tracking is junk I later delete, there's always that one song you didn't even

realize had potential that winds up being something super cool. My advise is just plow through some songs writing even if they wind up sounding like crap.

Its not the content that counts when you been out of it for a long time, its the process of grooving to the tunes as you play them that gets you back in the pocket.

Then when an idea comes up you snatch it when it happens, as it happens.

 

You cant do that if you're just sitting around for lightening to strike. You are

the one who generates the lightening, not others. Inspiration is so fleeting you completely miss it when you aren't in shape. If it requires playing other peoples music

then do it. Otherwise get back to disciplining yourself to work even if you don't think the quality of work is your best.

[Mark L]

 

Mark, if you think it would spur your creative juices to write on commission, my new band could use some more songs. Just pulling something out of my head at random: write one about the majesty of wind farms, full of metaphor and peace and love and what it's like to sit and stare at them while high. In the musical style of Hawkwind, Man, Pink Fairies, that kind of stuff (or like Black Market Daydreams). Just write 5 minutes and we'll fill in the other 10-15 minute jam section.

 

And, of course, whether you'd like your commission in lump sum or royalty, or combination thereof. .png.197c47f720636f02390cc2b0a33804da.png' alt='smiley-veryhappy'>

 

 

What a splendid idea!

 

 

I think I might have the first verse:

 

 

Working on a wind farm

Tryin' to raise some hard love

Gettin' out my pitch-fork

Pokin' your hay

 

[rasputin1963]

Marky, you'll have to work in the phrase "being blown" somewhere in that lyric...

[Mark L]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNQNF6rKnDk

 

Marky, you'll have to work in the phrase "being blown" somewhere in that lyric...

 

Just in case you're wondering....

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ernest Buckley]

How do you deal with it?

 

I think I might have it - I haven't written anything for about 7 months

 

Either that or I just can't be arsed at the moment

 

Writers block is a myth. It occurs when we are judging our creative output so stop judging. I haven`t written much in the last two years and its not because of writers block, I`m just not in the mood to write but if I had to write something, I could at the drop of a hat. I`ve been spending the bulk of the last two years working on work related projects, recorded close to a 100 songs for Churches I work for and producing some tracks for artists here and there.

[Ernest Buckley]

I forgot to mention, if you`re really stumped for ideas, I do one of two things:

 

1) Listen to a song I really like and write new lyrics using that borrowed melody.

2) If I have lyrics and need music, I find a song that I can fit my lyrics into and then change the melody and chords.

 

When you have something substantial, then revise the lyric or melody or chord progression and make it your own.

 

This process has worked for me many times.

 

EB

[guitarville]

 

Writers block is a myth. It occurs when we are judging our creative output so stop judging. I haven`t written much in the last two years and its not because of writers block, I`m just not in the mood to write but if I had to write something, I could at the drop of a hat. I`ve been spending the bulk of the last two years working on work related projects, recorded close to a 100 songs for Churches I work for and producing some tracks for artists here and there.

 

 

I agree.

[sailorman]

I've suffered from writers block for going on 62 years now :-) I can fiddle with someone elses work, or come up with parts to contribute to a piece, but couldn't write a song if I as in front of a firing squad. Only one time, did a song come to me. I was fiddling around on a bass (I play guitar) and a bassline came to me. Recorded it and the rest of the song came right behind it. Stuck on the middle bit, but have a friend who may help. Only time that's ever happened to me. Writing is a gift, I just don't have it.

[WRGKMC]

I don't see music or writing as a gift. An aptitude, yes. Gift, no.

 

The word gifted is used by non artists to describe others who have no idea how much work is put into an artists work.

All they see is that one five minute song being performed. Not the tens of thousands of hours of perspiration put into

getting that 5 minute performance to look so simple.

 

Same thing with writing. It really takes thousands of attempts to start becoming fluent in writing and just like performing,

you can get out of shape in no time at all. Even a dud, its better than no work at all because you spend allot of time fixing that dud

to sound better than it is and in doing so exercise all the things that make a good song sound better than it is.

 

Once you're worked up to a certain level slugging it out, auto writing kicks in. (at least for me) Its not dissimilar to playing

extended lead parts and playing riffs that come from nowhere and you're just expressing the mood of the moment and following

the tide of the music and other players. Athletes call it the runners high where they at one with the motion and have this inner peace

that kicks in and become disconnected with the physical. Music writing and performing can and does reach those zones but its by

no means easy getting there. You can sit around and wait for lightening to strike you but you'd have a much better chance

of being hit moving around in an open field in the center of the storm.

 

Lastly Truth and honesty do come into play. I used to do allot of copy cat stuff when I started 40+ years ago writing music.

I thought it could be a short cut like learning to play songs was. It was only mildly effective. I consciously knew where the music

came from and felt guilty about it even if others didn't suspect it. I later did a 10 year stretch playing nothing but original music

with to other writers in a band and it was like opening up the valve full bore.

 

I started writing ten songs a week and collaborating on others sharing ideas for their music and you'd get to the point where maybe

one or two out of the bunch weren't so hot but still better than anything you had done before. I was smart enough to record

all those thousands of recordings as well so I could quit writing today and spend another 10 years

editing and touching up all that stuff if I chose to. If anything you have something you can pull from the one song and put it in another that's better.

 

Like all good things you do need to know when its time to give that creativity a rest and have some down time.

Most know how Mozart and many others died at an early age and the peak of their creativity. Those are only the successful ones

we know of. There are surely thousands of others who are unknown that push themselves too hard burning the candle at both ends

too long trying to outdo themselves and burn out just like you would in any other field overworking.

 

Pacing yourself is what its all about and finding a challenge to take that pace back often requires

blind faith in your abilities even when there are no other good reasons to do so.

[Folder]

Well I don't write lyrics only music but what I've found is that just changing my approach to composing can inspire me.

 

For example if most of your songs are based on riffs then try to write a song without a riff. If most of your songs are based on chord progressions then try to write a song based on a riff.

 

Use different chords and chord inversions than you would normally use. If you use a lot of complex chords try using basic chords. If you use mostly basic chords try more complex chords.

 

Write in different keys than you would normally write in and try different modes like Dorian or Mixolydian and modulate. Maybe your bridge should be in a minor key while the rest of the song is in a major key. Maybe you could modulate up a half step towards the end of the song or change modes in the middle.

 

Try a different instrument than you normally write on or approach your main instrument differently. If you write on the piano then play notes with your left hand that you wouldn't normally play based on the chords of your right hand. If you write on guitar learn how to play in different keys up and down the neck with open strings ringing.

 

Combine ideas. Maybe that riff or chord sequence you wrote two years ago but could never develop into a song might make a good bridge for a different song.

 

I recently wrote a second part and a bridge to an idea that I originally came up with over thirty years ago. Six months ago I restrung an old twelve string acoustic guitar with six strings and started experimenting with open drone strings. I've written five proper pieces of music on it and I've come up with dozens of riffs and chord sequences to add to my catalog of unfinished ideas. I think the novelty of the guitar has something to do with the fact that almost every time I pick it up I come up with something new.

[Ernest Buckley]

I've suffered from writers block for going on 62 years now :-) I can fiddle with someone elses work, or come up with parts to contribute to a piece, but couldn't write a song if I as in front of a firing squad. Only one time, did a song come to me. I was fiddling around on a bass (I play guitar) and a bassline came to me. Recorded it and the rest of the song came right behind it. Stuck on the middle bit, but have a friend who may help. Only time that's ever happened to me. Writing is a gift, I just don't have it.

 

I`m sure you can write. Grab the simplest poem and add 3 chords: G, D, Em, and C…. it may suck but you can write.

 

Every person whom I`ve ever spoken to about "writers block" are judging their work. Judgement kills creativity.

 

The greatest works of art/music broke rules and in order to break rules, you have to be willing to suspend judgment.