Inspiration Needed
I once read that no one really gets writers block, you just get harsher in your judgement of what you produce. You then stop producing because you think it will be crap, meanwhile you romantises that your creativity in the past was better that it really was. As a result you set a ridiculously high level of expectation for your next big inspiration and you dismiss ideas as worthless that you once would have pursued and developed into greatness. In short keep writing, no matter how much rubbish you produce.
Creativity (or problem solving) is often the combination of 2 disparate ideas into a new into a new synthesis. With a song it could be words and music, words and words or even mixing music styles or structures. But mostly it is your subconscious that does this – so doing things like taking walks, contemplating nature, free writing; actually access those unique combinations that resonate with you and therefore a potential audience. But it is no good doing that if you are not feeding your subconscious with digestible ideas.
The guy who discovered the benzene molecule Fredrick Kekule said (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_August_Kekulé_von_Stradonitz)
that he work it out that the molecule was round (up until then the math didn’t work out like in other molecules) after he had a day dream of a snake eating its own tail. But his subconscious wouldn’t have spoken to him, if he didn’t spend hours going over and over the problem.
My point is that to often we try to write songs instead of a song; thats why working from titles or single phrases is such a good idea. Even start with a known song or musical genre in mind that you want to emulate and do a ‘homage’ its not what you end up with as what you discover along the way.
Note books are great when you have a lot of random ideas thrown together – note the ideas from your book on a big single sheet (A3) of paper then see if any of them link up well or even tenuously – the combination of unrelated idea will often spark new directions.
Free write for 10 minutes, just write the first thing that comes into your mind (or record it) then put the best phrases and use the ‘big sheet’ technique above – or better still cut them out put them in a hat and pull them out and write them as lines to a song – some make sense some don’t; Bowie has done this all his career (there are computer programmes that do this now).
TV is a great source of inspiration – sound bites or answers to interviews often can be a staging point for a whole song – particular when it is someone who is speaking passionately about a subject – the language is instantly emotive. Just jot them all down.
My theory basically goes that you feed your subconscious as many different idea as possible (listening a lot of the time) then try techniques that allow its lateral nature to surface (Like above – do not forget a brisk walk – or treadmill) and let the divergent think grow. It is only later, much later that you bring judgement to bare and you start to think convergently as you edit and craft the song.
I hope this helps people it has helped me for the last 10 years
