Musician's Block
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Other music related lounges
Forum Name: Music and Musicians Exchange
Forum Description: Talk with and get feedback from other musicians on the site
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=63763
Printed Date: February 23 2025 at 16:19
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Musician's Block
Posted By: Tengent
Subject: Musician's Block
Date Posted: December 22 2009 at 19:32
|
I've felt I've lost my mojo. Recently I've been working on a few prog songs simultaneously and I cannot further them. Thinking about it now, each one of these songs could fit into a different genre of prog (Canterbury Scene, heavy prog, experimental, etc..). I've also been listening to less prog rock and more acoustic, celtic influenced works by Led Zeppelin and Sandy Denny. A week ago I was absolutely obsessed with Soft Machine. Could these contrasts spike a creative block? I wish I could simply merge all of my influences into one giant fusion. I'm sure if I find a band our ideas will work together. How do you deal with your musician's block? |
Replies:
Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: December 22 2009 at 19:47
|
it was rough cause I felt the same way as you; I liked tons of different stuff and couldn't quite figure how to bring it together and still sound original.. inspiration can come from other sources, so stay open to the many influences around you, not just music
|
Posted By: Epignosis
Date Posted: December 22 2009 at 19:52
The easy thing is to say I don't suffer from musician's block. If it doesn't progress on it's own, why try to force it? A good pop song is much better than a bad prog one.  ------------- https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays" rel="nofollow - https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays |
Posted By: clarke2001
Date Posted: December 22 2009 at 20:56
/best possible answer. Also, I started http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=48131 - this thread while ago, perhaps it can be helpful. ------------- |
Epignosis wrote:Posted By: mono
Date Posted: December 23 2009 at 04:03
+1 Unless you're a professional musician, you don't need to rush yourself into something you won't be able to continue well. ------------- https://soundcloud.com/why-music Prog trio, from ambiant to violence https://soundcloud.com/m0n0-film Film music and production projects https://soundcloud.com/fadisaliba (almost) everything else |
Posted By: Pekka
Date Posted: December 23 2009 at 06:07
Agree with Robert on this, and you pretty accurately described me in that other thread. I've been playing guitar and bass for eight years now, and until the end of 2008 I had written two, just two, somewhat complete tunes. And that's just the basic guitar riffs, no vocals or anything. I had hours and hours of riffs and melodies and chord progressions and whatnot on tape and I always thought that one day I'll go through them and see if there's anything I can build upon... Well, that day still hasn't come, I'm not even sure where those cassettes are now, but the breakthrough for me was buying a decent microphone and an electronic drum kit. I've never been in an active band so I really had no actual reason to write anything, but things started to roll, slowly but still, when I got a chance to finish the ideas into complete tracks with proper instrumentation on my own. I'm still pretty slow writing stuff, I've finished two pieces during the last year, I've got one under construction right now and one demoed pretty completely. Last Friday I bought an acoustic guitar, I'll be very interested to see how that affects my writing... ------------- http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=42652" rel="nofollow - It's on PA! 
|
Posted By: comus
Date Posted: December 23 2009 at 09:53
|
This may sound ignorant, but watching television helps me sometimes, as far as writing guitar parts goes. It puts you in a hypnotic state after a period of time (I forget how it works) and if you go with it unconscious ideas can spring from nowhere. Just put on something and start noodling. I like "The Joy of Painting" for instance because there's no background music to distract me and watching a painting come together is better than say watching some stupid celebrity newsflash. Pot helps too. (just kidding for all intents and purposes) Of course, this is for individual parts. Composition demands more focus. That is where I take the individual parts I've created and put those that go together well together, but some don't fit tonally so transposing one part to another part's key can give you some momentum and sometimes new ideas, melodies, etc. spring from the composition process. This can be tedious, however. Especially if you're a perfectionist like me and nothing ever comes out the way you want, no, need it to. Like Pekka above I take a pretty long time writing music. I've taken finished songs (that I put a lot of work into) and cannibalized them for their individual parts just because I felt they sounded better elsewhere. That gets frustrating. Whatever happens, keep writing, even if what your writing sucks because eventually you'll be back out of your rut and you can use your not so good stuff as a reference point for your masterpiece. Make mistakes so you can learn from them. |
Posted By: The Pessimist
Date Posted: December 23 2009 at 12:21
I concur also. Can I add as well that even if a song doesn't sound like the desired style originally, you could always tweak it so that it does sound like it. I'm not saying murder a decent song for the sake of it being prog, but I think you'll find a lot of prog songs are prog due to the instrumentation. Take Shine On You Crazy Diamond for example: the melody and the chords could very easily be an acoustic pop song on their own. However, add some f**k off long instrumental passages, sax, keyboard and guitar solos, some time changes and an atmospheric build up and you have a 20 minute long archetypal Floyd epic. I could say similar things about CTTE also. Most legendary prog tunes are actually very poppy at heart. Simple chords and melody are the very skeleton of all diatonic music. ------------- "Market value is irrelevant to intrinsic value." Arnold Schoenberg |
Posted By: The Pessimist
Date Posted: December 23 2009 at 12:24
|
Oh, and the way I deal with it is to simply take a break. As for fusing all genres, have a long think about it. It will always work if you've got a definite formula, and it WILL come to you, you've just gotta wait it out.
------------- "Market value is irrelevant to intrinsic value." Arnold Schoenberg |
Posted By: MovingPictures07
Date Posted: December 23 2009 at 12:25
|
Never try to write prog music; just write whatever inspires you. I echo previous posts in that if you're suffering all-around composer's block (as I call it), then take a break. ------------- 
|
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: December 23 2009 at 12:31
Maybe this would help: Then again, maybe not.  ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
|
Posted By: Vompatti
Date Posted: December 23 2009 at 12:44
|
I've got every block imaginable. Instead of forcing myself to create I sit on the sofa, pick my nose and accept the fact that like most people I will probably never achieve anything even remotely significant.
|
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: December 24 2009 at 12:10
|
I don't know if I've ever suffered writer's/musician's block as such, so I don't know if this helps, but I've switched disciplines a fair bit over the years ... painting, music, writing, crafts. As long as my creative energies are channelled somewhere I'm generally content, so when I grow a little stale in one I can pick up one of the other's with renewed interest. Therefore I'm not overly concerned that I've only written one piece of music in the past 4 years - I've written a novel and taught myself airbrushing in that time. Still, I hope I do return to painting with sound sometime, it's enormous fun. ------------- What? |
Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: December 24 2009 at 12:56
This sounds good but in reality I don't know if it really leads to greater production... work, work hard, re-write, record, re-work, re-record, perform, and work some more. Merry Christmas to you, BTW. |
Posted By: Kazza3
Date Posted: January 04 2010 at 20:02
| I don't really get blocks, I'm just a perfectionist. In the actual composition of the song, I often begin to doubt myself and start again. Or I'm not playing the instrumental parts perfectly. It's slow, and out of many ideas I've never finished one. Things often get in the way. |
Posted By: FusionKing
Date Posted: January 05 2010 at 00:17
|
Use the multitude of styles that you are hearing to further your creativity.
After all to be truly progressive is to boldly go where no musician has gone before!
Don't panic about the fact that all your works are vastly different from each other because if anything I'd say that it keeps it fresh and innovative.
Plus a bit of basic psychology for you, if you convince yourself strongly enough that your going to hit a creative block you probably will so just chill out and see what comes of things.
|
Posted By: TODDLER
Date Posted: January 05 2010 at 09:00
|