Sometimes we forgive ourselves for having a complex schedule making it okay to stop playing
music, singing, or composing. But how can you revive your motivation to keep your projects
moving?
Yes, creative people often face this issue so let’s look at how they snap out of a funk.
They clean their instruments
A great way to take the stress of restarting is to get reacquainted with your instrument- whether
it’s a guitar, a DJ mixer and decks, or even the desk you sit at while writing lyrics or composing.
Spend just 5 mins in quiet contemplation while changing strings, removing dust and grime from
hardware, and organizing. This incubation period offers thinkers the mental space you needed
to feel creative, and a clean station definitely looks so inviting to perform.
They ask a friend for a musical goal
When it comes to your own personal music projects, the lack of outside pressure to create can
be as much a challenge as being under too much pressure. So friends challenging each other is
a great idea. Record an impromptu musical performance once a week and play anything that
comes to mind, whether it is a song played often, or something completely new. Share the first
take, no editing — mistakes and all, at the end of the week.
After a few months, you grow and more importantly become great at creating on demand — the
process of sitting down, hitting record, and playing something enjoyably musical becomes
easier every time.
They revisit ideas
Everyone has a folder of short audio recordings, a board on the wall, or a notepad with snippets
of lyrics and poetry. Unfinished projects can be a gold mine of inspiration.
They check their current skill set
If you want to be creative but aren’t feeling particularly inspired, now is a good time to polish it or
take something you’re proficient with and give yourself some time to simply play with that skill
and have some fun with it. Then you remind yourself why you even played music or created art
in the first place.
But if you find some weaknesses, don’t be hard on yourself. For example, very successful
musicians, even the ones who live and breathe music day in and day out, write dozens of “bad”
songs for every good one. The same can be said about playing dozens of bad scales practice
sessions to one good practice.
They don’t give up on their process no matter what
Most professional musicians write more songs that are discarded and will never be heard by
anyone than amateurs will write in their lives. But their process of finishing a song is so well
exercised that when an inspiring riff or chord progression comes along, they’re able to turn it
into a finished song out of habit.
So, if you struggle with getting songs started, challenge yourself to write or sing something for
just 10 minutes. Now do it five more times. Now you have six new song intros written in an hour
— they may not be “good,” but that’s not the point. The point is to sharpen your capacity to
make music and finish a song. You’re exercising the optimizing of the process of creation itself
without getting caught up in the contents of the actual music.
They take action
There’s no such thing as “writer’s block,” only a lack of action. The thing that is holding you back
isn’t an inability to write music — it’s something in your subconscious mind that makes you
hesitate. So today, don’t ask questions, and don’t doubt yourself — simply start playing notes,
or putting words on the page and keep doing it every single day.
