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Post by fuguestate on Jul 19, 2018 20:58:02 GMT
Since it's been so quiet here lately, please excuse me bringing up this trite topic again(?).
Lately my musical inkwell has been rather dry... I keep having moments where I feel like I want to start a new piece, but the notes just don't come to me. I keep feeling like I'd love to start working on new music again, but my mind just draws a blank after that. I'm sure we've all felt the same way at some point or other. So. What's your way of overcoming composer's block? How do you get motivated when motivation seems to have gone on a permanent vacation to Neverland?
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Post by Tim Marko on Jul 19, 2018 21:34:01 GMT
Something I use is a collection of folk tunes, (I have a number of them I got from IMSLP), and start arranging it. I usually do it for a small ensemble (5tet,4tet,etc.).
I'm not looking for this to become a work per se, but as a way to be writing. I try to make it an interesting arrangement, but am looking for hopefully something unique that gets created that I then can take on a tangent. I've been working lately on expanding my harmonic language, so many times it turns the folk song to crap, but gives ideas for use in other ideas. I try to write something every day just to keep at it, and this keeps me from staring at the keyboard and getting frustrated.
At the very least, I'm expanding my "tool kit".
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Post by Dave Dexter on Jul 20, 2018 9:58:53 GMT
It helps if I have a specific goal or motivation behind a piece. The feeling of wanting to write, feeling that you should, and coming up with nothing is not a great one; some general fixes for me:
Go for a walk.
Get hungry or slightly drunk. There's a very precise point of light-headedness in those states that makes me preternaturally confident in my music - same goes for being very tired. However, I've never got into a creative hole and deliberately made myself drunk, hungry or tired, just noticed a side effect to all conditions.
ENERGY DRINK
Tidy your work space, or just go and do something entirely unmusical and physical for a few hours. Your brain can mull things over as you saw manly pieces of wood, and throw up an idea.
Imagine music being played - picture an orchestra or whatever musicians at a concert, and picture the music completely unrestricted by your abilities to notate or capture it. Picture them playing the best music you can. That's yours now, go and write it down. This seldom fails for me.
If you have a workflow impediment, try to remove it. My understanding is you write via coding or some such? so this might not apply, but - for example - I hate midi automation and the process of making samples sound good. Writing without worrying about it and just getting the notes in feels liberating by comparison. In your case, you could try going back to a DAW-based workflow and seeing if this different approach sparks some writing.
Listen to your own music that you're proud of.
Listen to other people's music that intimidates or inspires you.
These all apply to self-determined work, though. If you're being paid or commissioned then things change and, of course, you cannot afford the luxury of composer's block in some of those situations.
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Post by fuguestate on Jul 20, 2018 16:36:01 GMT
@tim: that's a really good idea, actually. When I was younger, I used to love taking an existing song, stripping it of all but the melody, then repeatedly re-harmonising it with a different style each time. Maybe that's the ticket out of my current bind, which is the self-imposed restriction that I need to be working on my own music and it has to be good. Writing throwaway pieces just to get back into the groove sounds like an excellent workaround, thanks!
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Post by fuguestate on Jul 20, 2018 16:55:52 GMT
Dave Dexter : Yeah, between a 2-year-old very eager to push the limits of acceptable behavior, a full-time job, and several other obligations (including some non-musical personal projects), all of which take lots of time, I think I'm overdue for a good old walk in the park to clear my head. Not really into starvation or intoxication, though. Or infusion with stimulants. Though a nice little sweet snack could certainly help lighten the mood. Unfortunately, the doing-something-unmusical thing has been tried, and has gone a little too far, and now I have on my hands several non-musical projects that are taking time away from composing. Sigh... so much to do, so little time! Since you live in England, I'd appreciate it if you could point me out to your local time shop where I can purchase more time per day, preferably at a discount but I'm ready to pay premium prices. As for workflow impediments, the coding thing really isn't much of an issue. I usually don't actually start writing until I have quite a good amount of music already composed in my head. I'm also really weird, in that the very thought of having to use a graphical interface and touching that digital rodent makes me cringe, so the coding thing is actually an aid to my writing, not a hindrance. Now, as for listening to my own work... it helped at first, but then it passed over the boundary of intimidation by my own achievements, because now I feel obligated to outdo my past self. I've been repeatedly listening to Exuberance, actually... and... is it too solipsistic to publicly admit that I really enjoy it and am inspired by it? I've been playing it to my son, too, and now he calls it "daddy's music". (Though being a 2-year-old, his enthusiasm is completely unreliable, as the next day he would say "you don't want daddy's music" (he means "I don't want..." but he hasn't learnt how to use pronouns properly yet).) But now whenever I sit down to compose, the success of Exuberance bears down on me and makes every idea I have inferior in comparison, and I'm completely paralyzed by my inability to outdo it. Thankfully, I haven't gotten to the point where anyone would commission me. It's a double-edged sword; OT1H there is nothing more affirming to a composer than to receive a commission from a fan, but OTOH it also puts you under a lot of pressure, both time-wise and quality-wise, since your reputation is at stake. But on the flip side, not being under time pressure also means the demon of procrastination is always knocking on your door.
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Post by Bob Porter on Jul 20, 2018 18:57:48 GMT
Of course you should listen to your own music. We are oft times our own worst critic. If we don't write stuff that is worth listening to, by anyone, why bother? I like the stuff I write, but that's not to say it's great. Just that I think it's worth listening to. Perhaps your method of having to have things already started in you head is part of the problem. I don't work that way because as soon as I get a few notes down, the whole plan changes. So why bother. I just start writing and see what happens. Music is a hobby for me. Away to get out all the other stuff that gets crammed into my life.
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Post by BootHamilton on Jul 20, 2018 22:33:17 GMT
Right now, in order to get SOMETHING done fer Chrissakes, I'm going back to my bottomless well of unfinished attempts, sorting out the keeper parts, with the intent of finally turning it into something presentable. It helps me sometimes to go back to some incomplete thing and find sections where I can say, "Hmmmmm... not too shabby. If I just put this chunk over here, write a transition from here to here, re-voice that, try my new watchamacallit VSTi here & here, maybe this isn't too awful after all." Keeps me moving, anyways.
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Post by fuguestate on Jul 21, 2018 6:36:38 GMT
Bob Porter I think you misunderstood what I meant. I don't start writing down stuff until I've already worked through it in my head, but that doesn't mean I start with fully formed ideas right off the bat. I usually begin with a small motif, and play around with it in my head, letting it develop and unfold, perhaps occasionally looping back to the initial idea and proceeding differently than before, perhaps with some refinements, etc.. It takes a while before I'm reasonably satisfied with it to start writing it down. My current problem, though, is that I don't even have the starting motif yet.
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Post by fuguestate on Jul 21, 2018 6:40:54 GMT
BootHamilton That's also a good idea, going back to old / abandoned ideas to see if there's anything that can be borrowed for other purposes. I have several folders of stuff like that, though presently I don't have access to them. At some point I really should, and especially now that I got some ideas from Mike Hewer how to milk more out of small motifs than I've previously thought possible.
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