Find Inspiration as a Song Writer
I look at being creative and finding inspiration as coming from two things. First of all it is the result of what you put into your mind. This means all the music that you listen to, the movies you watch, the food you eat, the places you visit and the people you meet. If you are continually doing the same kinds of things in your life then you aren’t getting new and interesting thoughts and ideas in your life that will inspire you. So make a point to have new experiences as often as you can in order
The other side of the coin is that people are being creative and are coming up with new ideas all the time. It’s just that we are too critical of anything that we come up with and dismiss it before we give it a chance. There are several ways to get past this. The first is by recording or writing down all ideas you have. Even if they seem stupid or some how derivative of something else. Promise yourself to not throw anything out for at least a week. Then leave all those ideas for the following day. If after a couple of days messing around with an idea you are still not convinced by it then it’s ok to let it go. But I’m sure you’ll find that a whole bunch of melodies, chord progressions or other song ideas will at the very least find themselves being put in your category of ‘something to work on again in the future’.
The issue here is that we are creatures of mood and what might seem like a bad idea one day might seem like a brilliant idea the next. So take advantage of your changing moods and tastes and allow yourself to work on your ideas at different times.
While the first two methods of finding inspiration depend on your psychology and your attitude the next few are more to do with how you approach your instrument from a technical view point. Whether you are playing guitar, piano or some other instrument you might unconsciously be in a rut where you play the same chords, scales and melodies over and over. No wonder you can’t come up with anything new. There are a few ways to break out of this.
A great thing to do is to start playing in a way that you normally do until you find some melody that is pleasing but something that you are kind of bored of. Now try playing that melody back to front. Then try playing it from the middle onwards. If you find that your fingers are always moving in certain directions and between certain chords, try to mix it up and move them the other way. These are all ways to break out of old habits. Read the rest of this entry »