Hey guys,

So I have this problem. Every time I sit down and try to compose something, I'll get to a basic melody/chord progression, and suddenly that's it. I can't do anything else, it's like my creative spirit is paralyzed by the fear of failure. I'll noodle around with plugins, find interesting flavours and colours, but the arrangement stands still. After a certain point I will literally find any excuse to do something else, no matter how stupid, even though I know that continuing is the only thing that'll get me anywhere.

It's frustrating. I used to be overflowing with musical ideas, back when I primarily played the guitar and piano. Composing was natural, almost to the point of being automatic. Now I have discovered the amazing world of electronic music, and feel like I have so much to express in the genre. But the ideas simply don't translate. Part of it is probably the disaparity in workflows - the path from brain to music is much shorter with a guitar. With electronic music, there are so many things to consider: the tone of the synth or samples, the levels, the effects, the dynamics... it's all really overwhelming to me. Maybe I need to look for something that will give back the immediacy, something like Ableton's Push, but it'll be a while before I save up for that. In the meantime, I want to revise my work ethic.

How do you guys deal with that brick wall of creative stagnation? What activities help you to stay disciplined and keep on going through the tough moments? How did you move from the newbie level of just sketching out ideas to actually making complete arrangements? Any advice would be very much appreciated.

 

Last edited: Feb 4, 2016

Try thinking horizontally: structure and form. Start by the big picture, then break down into smaller parts but without getting caught into the vertical aspect.. keep the vertical side of things as a thought of density but without getting into the actual notes that will be played, kinda like if you were listening to the music in your head in a blurry way.

When you have the horizontal aspect down, start making things more "real". Turn that blurry contour of melody into notes, fill in with the appropriate bass notes, rhythms, etc.


The problem you might be having is that you're trying to build music upon a short horizontal timeframe (a loop maybe) and after you have that it's hard to deconstruct it into something that will have a flow to it because you get used to what you hear in that short loop.. which is why coming up with the horizontal intention (form basically) will help you to have a bigger picture that lends itself as a container for your draft.


I hope you can understand something from what I just wrote.

 

The only way to benefit from all your skills and put them in the process of music making

1 - Try to avoid stress (try to no think too much about the result & try to not worry at all)
2 - Try to imagine how you want that song to be {Slow Or Fast Or In Between Include The genre of course}
3 - Try to ask yourself what you will use in that song {Piano or Guitar Or Violin Or Synth Sound}
4 - Try to capture in your mind that type of effect you want to add on that sound like {Reverb or chorus or distortion ...ETC}
5 - But more important to stay positive and always be sure that you will make the best that you can offer in your music
6 - confidence is the key to get the most out of your skills while making music from scratch

 

you're not alone! It's a very similar thing for me. I started on guitar and piano and loved composing and soloing and had no problem with ideas, but I couldn't play guitar for a while so I took an interest in electronic music. After making some weird and wild stuff and deciding to attempt full songs, I realized the harder you try, the harder it is to accomplish anything! I spend hours tweaking a bass or kick drum and realize I'm so frustrated and stressed out I don't want to make music

I share your fear of failure. I think one of the major problems in my case is that I compare my music to others and the fact is, I don't have the experience to compete with half the people on here let alone the famous pros. I'm sure you've have many great ideas and scrapped them for whatever reason even when they had potential. We're always too hard on our own music.

What kind of electronic music have you been working on? I don't mind listening to song ideas. Maybe it'd help to let other people listen to convince you you're on the right track.

 

Motivation and having fun!

if u are motivated u will have fun. To have fun you may play like a child. To play like a child you need toys.

First toy that allows you hands-off: LOOPS
Try to find Rhythm loops that give you a base for creative harmonic and melodic ideas. With these you can organize your structure and form, like @kouros said. Later you can replace this loops with elaborated and complex rhythm patterns made by you, or let them be part of your composition.

Second toy very important: YOUR VOICE
Sing along this structure and form you made. Sing and sing and sing. Sing bass lines, Sing melodies (intended to be keys, synths or even voices). Sing and record your ideas (i make that often). Sing although your voice isn't going to be part of the arrangement, but it is one of the very helpful tools in your life. Sing inclusive even out of tune/pitch, that doesn't matter right now, you are assembling ideas. Be relaxed, you can erase every time what you don't need or you don't like. After this process you can translate your voice into instruments (you can even sing percussion with your voice).

Third toy: IMAGINATION & FEELINGS
While you play your keyboard or sing or hear the loops, IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE, living life in peace... IMAGINE the people's feeling or your feelings, so like here comes a break to the refrain ... wow and then full adrenalin, this section i want really to make a hole in the floor from dancing, ... or wow, now a soft pause, ethereal synths or deep sounds, a little recovering from the last section, energy gathering for the next break and... keep movin! dancing, yeah, now comes the end, full adrenalin beats intensity, hits, explosions and.... the end.

The other technically aspects (plugins, daws, software, virtual instruments, etc) are there for you to make it possible to translate your thoughts, feelings, into music.

Cheers

EDIT: music is about feelings!

 

Last edited: Feb 4, 2016

If your frozen turn the heat up.

 

Keep projects short and realize even great songwriters create many duds before they make a hit.

 

Go back to guitar and piano for composing, once finish, translate and arrange with synths and computer etc...

 

Try start with different elements, whenever I can't think of a nice progression i'll switch to starting with percussion or a even just a kick, sometimes even the pitch of a sample can spark a whole ocean of ideas.

Get back to basics, as Olymoon said, with all the lovely software out there, it's easy to get caught up in the 'tech' side of things instead of just wanting to make some good music.

If things are still not working out, take a break from production, read a book, take a walk, if you really love what you do, you'll start to feel that sensation of wanting to produce again and naturally get back into it.

I've learnt the hard way that there's no shortcut to creating a ' perfect arrangement '. You just gotta keep working until whatever you do sounds like magic to somebody, people walk in and out my studio and might be amazed at a certain beat, but to me, it's not finished, or i'm not happy with the mix.

Just some ideas, good luck

 

You have uncovered the secret and dark underbelly, the killer of men and poodles, the scurge and antithisis of goodness...that is, the guitarist/keyboard player forsaking everything they know and love about making music in a bold and somewhat foolish attempt to...I don't know what. I did the same thing. Now don't get me wrong, I really really really really really love sound design using soft synths and all the great tools that there are now in this world that enable us to manipulate tone within the confines of time and space. The problem for me was and is THE LOOP. The loop, the loop, the loop, the loop..............it has no relationship to anything you have spent countless years sweating out to be able to express yourself musically. We are not alone. There is an army of folks out there that have laid down their picks and no longer pluck out their hearts and souls, swallowed whole and spiritually laid to waste by a succubus called Midi. We have moved from the living to the land of the dead, a place where the sun don't shine and all color and life has been rent assunder, destroyed, drained and sorrowfully replaced by matt gunmetal grey.

But do not give up, we can foster change, get back what we have lost. Purge you hard drive of all but one synth (you can keep any and all fx), buy good microphones, preamps, START TO ONCE AGAIN DO THE THING YOU LOVE AND ARE GOOD AT.

Let the games begin.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Feb 4, 2016

You are always so full of good motivational stuff that i completely agree with.

@lpu2n you've addressed the problem right away in your first post. It was the first problem you mentioned. Fear of failure. I used to get myself tied up in knots about what I was going to do with a sound or with a track, etc. And it literally made me afraid to try some things. As if there weren't an undo button.

Whatever this means for you, you need to learn to approach it from a state of amusement and (in my experience) curiosity. "I wonder if this will sound cool? Let's find out"

Confidence is king. Visualize yourself making the music you hear in your mind. Capture that feeling and apply it. Know that you are an exceptional person in that your are creating while so many people do little more than work and watch reality TV. Trust that when you need to draw on your creativity it will show up for you. It is endless and the only thing that can cut you off from it is an unproductive mindset.

Good luck

 

Easy, go back to your roots and comfort zone....the guitar and piano. Then if you feel you must, start adding in electronic stuff into your compositions.

 

Dont force yourself,it doesnt work that way.
Play with different sounds,once you find a great melody record it and build around it.
You can see that for example modern film scoring is just building around one melody,few chords,adding/substracting instruments,its about dynamics.
And its funny because at its core its very repetitive BUT dynamics,automation,filtering etc make it very interesting.
Listen to Time from Hans Zimmer,simple yet very,very effective.

 

Maybe the problem isn't a creativity block at all, but rather the need for the average musician to acquire the techniques and tools that the composer and/or arranger and/or producer are using to develop a few bars of material into a full, articulated, satisfactory piece of music. No matter how good he/she is at playing his instrument(s), he/she must learn the tricks of a different trade.

You'll find a fresh treatment, that can suit the formally trained musician as well as the self taught one, in a great little book that recently resurfaced on AudioZ: William Russo's “Composing Music, a New Approach”.

Beyond this compulsory reading I could suggest, even if I know that this will rise an eyebrow or two here in audiosex, a clever use of some composition software. Once you know how to handle the manipulation of the melodic and harmonic raw material programs like Impro-Visor, Rapidcomposer, Liquid Notes, Harmony Builder or Tonica Fugata will never generate by themselves the next hit to top the charts, but they will help saving time to accomplish repetitive tasks, and eventually offer some stimulating new ideas to work upon, and eventually overcome an occasional real creativity block.

Just to show what I mean, here are a couple of videos showing Tonica Fugata Pop at work!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adUVtKKwJLY&feature=youtu.be

 

in my case i was stuck for 3 years.. it happens.. before I made 7 records in 10 years.. with nuendo.. sony vegas and fruityloops.
then.. I started learn about Logic Pro I started to get really like you said.. what now¿..or I want that sound.. but I can make it.. and watched tutorials about .. bla bla bla.. nothing help me..ha.. then I started to make "Presets" pianos.. synths...strings... drums.. guitars.. bass.. percussion.. etc etc.. then I keep it simple.. 4 or 6 tracks no more.. drums.. bass. 2 guitars.. vocals.. etc etc sometimes synths.. But I like more the organic side of synths.. like Autoria ones.. then I can make 6 songs every day.. sometimes 2 sometimes none.. but what it is important is that don't FORCE your self.. don't try to make music when you don't want.. You have to Study your Mind and your Self.. then you start tricking your own behaviour when working.. if you are not inspired better do something else.. then open the DAW when you feel you have something to say.. not the otherway around..
Don't try to Hard... just relax ,,, and play kind of "Bullshit" in your mind.. let your subconscious do the Job..
and don't spend Days Years or Months in your DAW.. you will end wasting your Time ... Know the Basics Effects and instruments..
you have to feel confortable with your self.. and always have somekind of hungry inside .. if you don't like synths well.. DOnt use them.. anyway.. I guess.

 

It's sound like what you are coming up with is not inspiring you, as if you are composing by numbers. You should feel a spark of excitement as your feelings turn into music. Try composing rhythmically, collaborating, or any other different way. You may be stuck in your comfort zone without even realizing it.

 

Last edited: Feb 4, 2016

Every other respondent has, thus far, provided some gems of advice. It sounds to me that the new envirorment of electronic music-making is daunting by its conflicting with your habitual creative process.

The way I myself had adapted to it was by primarily relatingh to the DAW as little more than a four-track tape recorder. That enabled me to just play or think in terms of song structure and some familiar sense of music-making. Along with that, after I had the song laid-out linear, time-line fashion, I could add, tweak and embellis accordingly, in layers of processes according to either priority or capricious whim.

Learning the electronic environment is crucial, but the best way to get into it, and to get anything done in it, is to not try to tackle it all at once; learn how to use features and effects as you need them.

Finally – and this is my personal motto, when either blocked or uninspired – JUST DO ANYTHING. Then let the ideas beget ideas; don't worry about where the stuff "should" go, how things "should" result. There's no fear of failure possible, that way. Eventually, you'll develop skill and confidence in it, enough so that you'll be able to come close, or to an at-least-as-good result as what you had imagined. The things which one imagines beforehand are always just carrots at the ends of sticks, and seldom what one attains, anyway.

The DAW environment is my ideal situation for creating things by "What does this piece want to be?"

 

I can tell you this... "writer's block" affects every creative mind at many points in their tenure. It won't be the last time (if this is your first bout with it). What I have done to circumvent the problem (and it works for me but may not for everyone) is to just step away from it all.
You're having an internal struggle. What I think is happening during these "creative struggles" (to me anyway) is that the ideas are too many. Then there's the other side of your thought process that questions everything you do. Add to that, the desire to make it perfect and it just becomes overwhelming... to the point you are rendered incapacitated. Really.

So... I just say to the demon inside me. "Fn¢k you... you aren't going to beat me. I will step aside, regroup and replenish my troops (thoughts) and come back and beat you DOWN!!" (yeah... a little dramatic but it's because I've been binge watching "Supernatural"!!!)

I WILL take a break though. Sometimes, by simply putting aside that project (the one I'm stuck on) and working on a completely different thing. Sometimes it's shutting down the studio and going on a "mental vacation". Do some physical, outdoor activity that will inspire the music again. I will go on an extended road trip. It's amazing how seeing new places and new things inspire fresh ideas... You will see and hear music when you do these things.

Just don't be afraid of it. Embrace it as an opportunity to grow in a new direction... it's a sign from a higher power!!

 

Didn't bother to read the whole thread, but it could be a ADHD-related problem, in that that you had the motivation to start up an idea, but not the motivation to expand on it, because you thrived on that initial sprakle, and when it cooled off, you didn't have the thinking tools to see the end result (which would motivate you to continue working on it). Well, that's my experience with the cause of these kinds of symptoms, anyway...

 

Last edited: Feb 5, 2016