Ways to rejuvenate and replenish your creative music juice

Writer’s block – not just for authors anymore!

Musicians are often known for being some of the most creative people on the planet, and rightfully so. There have undoubtedly been times when you’ve rattled off a new song in a matter of minutes, or other times when you can’t fill a notebook fast enough with the best lyrics you’ve ever written (hopefully it just wasn’t after a bad breakup, though we all know that sometimes helps). 

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How The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” Lifts Beethoven’s Ideas to #1

Abel Tesfaye, also known as The Weeknd, and Ludwig van Beethoven don’t appear to have much in common. Ok, they’re both musicians, there are the repeated digits in their birth years (1990, 1770), they share perhaps a similar amount of curly hair… But, otherwise, come on, right?

And yet, although classical music of Beethoven’s era and pop circa 2020 are different beasts, music that works is music that works. Sometimes it just works because it’s performed or produced effectively. But often I submit that better music is better because the notes are better — the pitches and durations and the relationships and patterns these form, however they’re performed.

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How Listening To Music At Work Can Boost Your Productivity

Music has existed since forever. It may sound odd, but our ancestors were listening to music too. Only in other forms. The birds chirping, the splash of the waves, the fire burning, or the sound of rain can also be categorized as music. Especially nowadays, when all these basic sounds and many more are combined to make relaxing tracks. 

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Strategies For Songwriting: The Anti-Artist Way

Are your songs starting to sound the same? Do you find yourself covering similar ground, reinforcing old tactics in your creative process? We’re habitual creatures. It feels safe to tread on familiar ground. I’ve often thought of going to the same vacation spot every year. Although repeat visits could deepen my understanding of this place, I wonder if it would all become too familiar. How long before the sense of adventure and mystery is lost? If you’d like to develop your creative work, it helps to get to a place of excitement and danger again. One way to do this is to oppose, modify, or destroy previous habits or strategies, or as I like to call it, become an anti-artist.

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The Creativity Danger Zone

Creativity can be dangerous. It is fraught with anxiety, peril, isolation, displacement, boredom, dread, pain, and damnation. At the same time, the desire to create things seems to come from a joyful place. It’s the joy we experience when we accomplish the goal of finishing our work. Of course, there is the happiness we experience during the process. Then where’s the danger in undertaking a creative endeavor? Setting out on a creative journey is dangerous in that it’s a lot like exploring the bottom of an ocean.

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Tips For Increasing Your Creativity

All musicians work differently when it comes to playing, writing, and coming up with new material. Some people have specific routines to get into the right creative headspace. Others wait for inspiration to strike before they dare to do anything. 

But no one is immune to creative blocks. 

And creativity isn’t something that can be taught.

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7 Fun (And Free) Apps Musicians Can Use To Remain Creative At Home

Guest post by Efa Etoroma. This article originally appeared on Soundfly’s Flypaper.

Over the last several years, dozens of apps have emerged to help musicians stay creative while they’re on the go. These applications provide multi-track recording, synths, drum machines, DJ apps to pitch correction and AutoTune applications, in the compact format of a phone or tablet.

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Yin And Yang And Your Music Career

I’m failing as a musician. Life is unfair.

I didn’t get that gig I wanted. The music industry hates me.

My music isn’t getting on any Spotify playlists. I can’t win!

That manager never called me back. Why doesn’t anything go my way?!

If you’ve said any of these things, join the club. This post is for you.

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Accessing Greater Creativity Through Sleep And Dreams

Whether you’re a songwriter, guitarist in a rock band, sound technician, or music educator, there’s a high likelihood that you’re not exactly a morning person. Night owls are rampant within the music industry, especially among touring musicians who typically book gigs at nightclubs, bars, and theatres. Research indicates that this backward sleep-wake schedule can make it difficult to maintain relationships and balance obligations outside of the industry.

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3 Tips For Video Game Score Composers

Composing for video games is much like composing music for other productions. However, it is also a unique and relatively recent form of musical expression that requires its own approach in many ways. This can be a difficult niche to break into, but success can be extraordinarily satisfying. These three tips should help set you on the right path.

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10 Unlikely Blogs Where Songwriters Should Seek Inspiration

Guest post by Sammy Hakim. This article originally appeared on Soundfly’s Flypaper

One of the questions I get asked most frequently as a professional songwriter is: “How do you stay inspired when writing every day?” And it’s a valid question — one with multiple answers!

Songwriters like me often draw from personal life and experience, or from the experiences of those around us; which is probably true of almost any writer in any literary format. But we may also get inspired by and invested in the characters in TV shows, films, and books as well. In fact, it is completely possible to get inspired by anything and everything in the world around you as a creative person. As long as you’re looking for it…

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How To Tap Into Creativity When Inspiration Won't Strike

Guest post by Randi Zimmerman. This article originally appeared on the Symphonic Blog.

If you’ve ever sat down to get some work done and been suddenly hit with a mental roadblock, this one’s for you. We all have moments where we feel uninspired no matter how hard we concentrate, and it can be frustrating when we can’t seem to find our way past it.

Luckily, there are many ways to boost creativity in a situation like this.

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Nick Cave’s 9 Primary Bedevilments Of Creativity

Guest post by Will Marshall. This article originally appeared on Soundfly’s Flypaper

Over the last few decades, there have been few songwriters as enduring or influential as Nick Cave. Originally of the anarchically violent post-punk band The Birthday Party, he subsequently formed the seminal Bad Seeds and has been releasing critically acclaimed music for four decades. He’s also a poet, a novelist, a screenwriter, and a film composer, sharing as much creative DNA with authors and visual artists as his cohorts in the post-punk movement.

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Could Strict Copyright Laws Stifle Creativity And Discourage Originality?

Back in March of 2015, Pharrell Williams claimed that the Blurred Lines copyright lawsuit will stifle creativity. Speaking for the first time since a jury determined that he and Robin Thicke copied Marvin Gaye’s ‘Got to give it up’. He explained: “The verdict handicaps any creator out there who is making something hat might be inspired by something else. This applies to fashion, music design…anything. If we lose our freedom to be inspired, we’re going to look up one day and the entertainment industry as we know it will be frozen in litigation. This is about protecting the intellectual rights of people who have ideas.”

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