Ways out of the hole...
Hi Jimini & all,
I've been there more than once, frustrating stuff isn't it... as a guitarist-songwriter this is what has helped me most, maybe something will work for you as well?
* I try to bend myself "away" from thinking about any frills like production, arrangements, even away from thinking of vocal harmonies, anything "layered", any "trick" chords & chord changes, and try to find my way back to the basics - like just basic chords and humming - for a while. Sometimes, imposing those limitations has helped me get down to the root of things, and eventually led to coming up with a couple of good, simple ideas. Then I'll try to start there, and build from those.
* Retuning a guitar (usually acoustic in my case) to an open tuning like open G, open D or open E and then fiddling with that for days or even weeks has been immensely creative for me when I'm in a rut. Having less familiarity with my instrument has helped me approach writing from a different angle. Plus, these open tunings can sometimes push you towards a more piano-like approach - I find it comes more natural to play basic chords and play a melody at the same time.
* Again on the guitar side, just using a good old capo has been really useful in getting me going as well. The different tonal quality has pushed me down other paths, sometimes starting me to write again. If you are a home recorder, recording guitar parts with different capo positions "per guitar" can give really nice sounds and get you thinking in different ways, waking up your creativity! Combining open tunings and capos can be even more challenging, creative and fun...
* I've sometimes used Brian Eno's "Oblique Strategies" cards (which can be found in PC or PDA format here and there on the web, if you can't find the actual box of cards) as a way of pushing me to think out-of-the-box and approach things from new angles. I've mainly used them during arrangement and production in "blocked" studio situations, but they should work in any creative situation... maybe they're an acquired taste, or not appealing for everyone, but they've been useful and a lot of fun for me at least...
* Finally, sometimes I've scrapped "trying to compose" during blocked periods, and instead dug out, bought or borrowed a bunch of albums by other artists I like, but whose songs I've never bothered to learn playing, and just play along with them for a while. Usually I try to learn ALL the songs on the albums - not just my favorite tracks, since they're probably the most familiar ones, and will for this purpose help me the least. This always ends up with me learning something new, may it be licks & riffs, chord progressions, ways to approach and build songs, whatever. More importantly, I always pick up a lot of inspiration, sometimes from the most unexpected sources, which can at best turn into that little piece of string you start pulling at, and eventually off you go in your own direction from that starting point. Listening to records/artists/types of music that you normally don't listen to that much can be a really good source of inspiration as well! For me personally, the soundtrack from "Oh Brother Where Art Thou", which is mainly full of bluegrass/old American mountain music, really got me off my chair a year ago, even though I needed to write more structured Beatlesque-type pop songs at the time. Whatever gets the wheels rolling...
What kind of stuff do you like to listen to, what kind of music do you write? For what kind of "context"and instrumentation do you usually write? Knowing that, maybe different people here could suggest some songs/albums that might kick you off in a good direction? Would be fun to try...
Hope something here is useful & helps, I'll be writing you guys when I get stuck next time.
good luck /Tommy
