Best bet for me often is step away and work on a different yet engaging passion for a day or two.

 

Life, Love, Death. Nature all around. We are all the same, the studio is where you throw that all. All da best!

 

For myself personally when I get brain locked and find it difficult to come up with new ideas, I put my guitar aside for a few days or even up to a week or two. This time away allows me to free my thoughts from music, just relaxing and doing other things that I have neglected usually works wonders, When I start envisioning new musical ideas in my mind again, I know it is time to return to playing and composing. It may not be the same for everyone but for myself this really does wonders.

 

This is a really good post, because this happens to a lot of people, and I don't see many people discussing it.

Set a deadline. Maybe tell your friends that are invested in you that you need to set a deadline, so they can set it for you, then you'll feel like you're agreeing to meet their deadline. They will be invested in you hitting the deadline, and you will be motivated to hit it, to not let them down, and to not let yourself down.

Make it a realistic deadline, and a realistic amount of tracks, then just crack on, but don't allow yourself to make a new track, only the ones for the deadline. If you get stuck on one tune, go onto the next one and keep cycling around those tunes if you get stuck, because ideas come at different times.

Make it a routine, and map out how many hours you can do each week, and get 8 hours sleep, so you have energy after work. You'll get into a groove and build momentum.

Don't worry what people say online, everyone gets criticism online, only care about what people you respect think. There will be plenty of people online that will like what you're doing too, and use their positive feedback as encouragement.

You've got this...

 

maybe more people should be forming bands. it's especially hard to be an isolated bedroom producer who doesn't have regular input and feedback from encouraging peers. plus, in many cases we're trying to be self-sufficient producers from oscillator to master. i don't know if anything has been tried here, but if there's a general contribution project, where people can upload and download DAW files, presets, multitracks and so on, i would be very happy to jump in.

 

Yes! I can't underline enough how it helped me getting really deep into production being "a band guy" before. Their are so many positive effects I can benefit from, beside the regular input and feedback you mentioned. All the talking about the process of making music together helps a lot understanding how music works. The vast majority of (bedroom) producing scenarios are mimicking band scenarios (with different tracks playing different instruments). There is so much inspiration inside playing music together. It also helps that you have to commit yourself when being creative with others (time for rehearsal, shows, recordings, etc).

To me one of the best things: playing with others is always coming with compromises, because of many heads means many visions. Being in my home studio I'm free to leave all those compromises/"boundaries" behind me and focus only on my own vision. I can't complain about having the feeling of being uninspired very often... only from time to time, when I need a certain break. Having many things inside and outside musical worlds which inspires you is great. Making music with others is a HUGE factor, for sure.

 

One more lesson I experienced myself :

The more I thought about how to have more success or how to reach more people, the less inspired I felt.
My main goal is to create for my own satisfaction and to squeeze my insides out in musical ways.

If your goal is having success with music (which is not a bad thing at all), I thinks it's one area of tension to be aware of.
It easily gets in your way. I've seen so many people having frustration with this topic.

 

If you got nothing else but music, then play what you already have to people and make it make them enjoy it.

DON'T make them enjoy it, but be flexable with your creations and make it so they enjoy it.

You'll learn from the changes that you need to make, and find yourself ideas to create someting that is made for the purpose of others enjoyment.

You get the fun of creating using what you learned and they get the fun of the end result. Win win.

 

Always cut yourself some slack. Anything when all of your energies are channeled in only one direction is a subliminal form of overkill.
Take breaks, go for walks, do something different. This is not replacement therapy, not even slightly. It is like your digestive system for the brain. When you eat a lot of food and do not go to the toilet, you get constipated. Same principle. Flush it out. Then you can put more creative food back into your brain without the blockage.

Yeah, I know the imagery isn't great but it's about the process and allowing your creativity to flourish instead of stagnating.

 

I'm going to be simplistic, bc other folks already went deep on this thread about the role of anxiety, social pressure and stress related to the lack of creativity.

But what works for me, when everything is ok but i'm still not creative, is listen to music; no pressure to find a template or idea, just enjoying the songs, until by some sort of grace, the ideas start coming to my mind in a way i can't resist to open a DAW and put em together. A party with a good sound system that allows me to feel the music on my body works a lot, since i'm out of the focus of producing but still got my mind figuring things while i enjoy moments outside.