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One thing that I've noticed tends to help me get started on things over the last couple years is participating in the monthly cover challenge. Working on a cover (and trying to do it with imagination tends to grease the wheels, and I can usually finish something in a couple days, after which I'll frequently get 3-4 originals done or mostly done.

losthighway wrote: Sun Dec 19, 2021 8:12 pm I'd also say just casually strumming a guitar for even short amounts of time with frequency helps. Once you start doing a little thing you think is neat you start thinking either of where it goes next or what other instruments should be doing around it.

Really good advice. Just start doing something, with no greater goal in mind than just doing something for the sake of it because it's fun.

The hardest parts of anything creative are getting started and calling it done. All the stuff in the middle usually takes care of itself. Once you get going, if you're inspired, one idea leads to the next and you're rolling along no problem.

So just get going. You don't have to write or record a ridiculous fuck off masterpiece right this second, you've just gotta strum a guitar (or whatever your instrument of choice is). So sit there and strum a guitar, like you have a thousand times. Maybe the first two chords you play suck but just keep going. Within 15 minutes you'll be doing something cool. Your Reaper is all set up and ready to record your new cool idea, just press the button. Now you have a new idea recorded, what can you do with it? And you're off and running.

Agree with eliminating distractions, I normally don't bring my phone out to the studio, and while the studio's wired for internet, the computer's only ever online for s/w authorization or whatever. So if I'm out there I'm either working or playing.

TBH I just cant write lyrics anymore at all. I think i ended up so emotionally spent after my relationship, that part of my soul like dried up or something

On my modular apparatuses i just basically sit down and explore what happens when you patch things on the fly. Sometimes ill have a vague idea sometimes not, sometimes this play will create a sound or pattern worth investigating more. Usually it comes out sounding nothing like i think it will/should. But…

This is fine and fun for like an instagram vid or like 2-3 minute demo but i cant consider it a song unless theres some sort of movement or progression or something moving things from one place to another. And that is HARD because you are riding a very fine line between chaos and complete randomness/nonsense. Then to make it actually interesting…

My band/collaboration is cool b/c i can create raw material and then the guitarist/engineer is the guy that can actually build a song out of it. But now we have been working for more than a year on out first collection and its really lost some wind over time sadly. But the songs are still really great. Im hoping if Slowdown Mercury can actually master & release a couple of EPs or whatever in the next few weeks, it will give me more assurance about stuff.

The other record i contributed to was mush the same, and may parts are a lot more subtle, but at least its actually out now (in another country though lol)

Anyway back to the topic at hand, id say in the studio setting maybe bring in a friend? Or just pointlessly jam on your gear until the point comes to you, rather than

This kind of thing goes in waves for me. My big issue is thinking of the "next thing" while I am working the "current thing", and that can really screw up my workflow and make me anxious. I have to remind myself that I am only doing "this thing" right now. That helps.

I have this (perhaps unhealthy) drive to accomplish something creative and productive each day. I have to learned to work in zones to keep moving sometimes. If nothing good is coming out of the guitar/my head, I move on. I go work on a pedal build, clean my shop, re-org the pedal board. Some days I just got to grab the real low-hanging fruit to feel at ease. That could be something simple like making a playlist, organizing my files.

I get edgy when I know I will have the house to myself and I can fully dedicate to recording something without interruption or guilt of not hanging with my family. I keep a punch list handy of stuff to do in these situations, but it can burn me up when I can't get a good sound or pull off a good take while the clock is ticking.

I feel like cutting myself some slack and and breaking things down into micro-goals really helps a lot.

bishopdante wrote: Mon Dec 20, 2021 12:29 pm

losthighway wrote: Sun Dec 19, 2021 8:12 pm. All the stuff in the middle usually takes care of itself. Once you get going, if you're inspired, one idea leads to the next and you're rolling along no problem.

Well, free wheeling ramble jam is... sustainable, but proper articulation involves emphasis on starting and stopping. The working ends of beginning and ending take the most work, and the opening and finale are the most crucial parts of any production.


It isn't advisable to assume you can go from zero to a hundred instantly. It's possible, but is the most difficult.

I think I explained poorly. I actually work on really structured songs with very intentional parts. The ramble jam is more of a pre writing exercise. It lasts until something worth remembering pops out. That thing will inevitably be a chorus, intro, verse or something. The problem of what to put next to it is far more interesting and motivating to me than the blank canvas ever was. From there it's a series of decisions directed to reach a satisfying whole. Some of this work can happen outside of the music making space: musing on lyrics, brainstorming a big left turn. I get into these things in the car or shower. Then a minute with a notebook, guitar and or microphone is a long awaited opportunity to test something as opposed to a daunting thing.

Now ending things is definitely a beast, you're right about that. Not ending a song, but deciding it's good enough to be released.

I never have this problem, and I believe it's because I have a condition that knocks me out of commission when it so chooses. The idea of being able to do the work in a later slot isn't assured, so any workable slot is where shit gets done. Professionally or for pleasure.

Outside of that, just for creative methods' sake, I live by the following:

1) Knock something out. I write a scene a day before I start any work. Doesn't have to relate to anything in particular; purely an exercise (although some of these do get developed);

2) My knockabout music-related: Similarly, bash something out purely by gut. I give myself half-an-hour and stop there;

3) Maybe the best one for me, is to end the work on an ascent to something known. That way I can immediately get going at the start of the next session, because I know where things are going. Ending 'at an ending', if you like, always makes it a little tougher to get into gear the next day.

4) A little psilocybin.

bishopdante wrote: Mon Dec 20, 2021 10:38 am Elon Musk recently noted in a satellite-link interview with Bloomberg (which looked like the set of 1984) that governments and law-makers are always making new regulations, but never remove them, and that this is a garbage collection issue. What he'd like to see, he said, is not new strict regulations, but the removal of a whole bunch of regulations that apply to situations which no longer exist and no longer serve us.

Oh yeah, of course he fucking said that. Governments frequently cut regulations, remove old laws or pass regulations that supersede old regulations. Every time a right-wing government gets in, half the environmental and labour protection laws go in the toilet. Elon just wants fewer regulations because he's a narcissistic libertarian cunt with a tiny face who doesn't believe in government or taxation except when it's grant money going to him.

Anyway, yeah I have a hard time producing stuff on my own if there's nobody else to do it for.

twelvepoint wrote: Mon Dec 20, 2021 10:16 am My understanding was these 2000 riffs were all decent, and the effort wasn't so much "red light/green light" as much as turning them into recordable songs. Which of course can be a shitload of work and I'd consider more than just an editor.

You are correct on both counts. I need to find a collaborator that hears something he/she likes and runs with it. I'm super good at writing a part and terrible at taking it somewhere else. Conversely, I'm pretty good at layering parts on top of existing things as well. I can start something and finish something. It's the middle framework part I get hung up on.

tommy wrote: Mon Dec 20, 2021 2:19 pm You are correct on both counts. I need to find a collaborator that hears something he/she likes and runs with it. I'm super good at writing a part and terrible at taking it somewhere else. Conversely, I'm pretty good at layering parts on top of existing things as well. I can start something and finish something. It's the middle framework part I get hung up on.

If my laptop ever gets out of surgery, and you're partial to a long-distance collab with a musically-challenged DAW/sample-based imbecile, I'd fancy a slice of this.