What do you use, if anything, to generate a starting point when you're not really full of ideas?

Things like...
Cthulu
Scaler

... honestly idk what else.

 

Soundprism (iOS app), loopers and noodling.

Creating a sound from scratch with a favourite synth, creating drumkits, that sort of thing.

 

Captain plugins maybe? Girlfriend gifted them to me but I'm not really using them at the moment.

 

Well, you already mentioned it.. but Scaler 2, for sure. Also.. YouTube/Spotify, I suppose.. I listen to some other tracks and gain a bit of inspiration from others. I'll also sometimes just load up a VSTi and go through patches, noodling around until something hits me.

 

just start on something like can i make dubstep useing only the sounds of michal jackson grunting and bild from there

 

Aside from a shit ton of Max devices you're familiar with, Liquid Rhythm and Captain Plugins.
Using a modern sample manager can be creative too!
Plugins like Output Arcade, XLN XO, Sononym, Atlas by Algonaut, Loopcloud, Noiiz, etc.

I think for the past few years, I've witnessed the most innovation in iOS music apps. Apps like Blocswave, Figure, Modstep, Gestrument and hundreds more. The learning curve is less steep than before and adapting to a new workflow can be rewarding for you.
Consider getting the cheapest iPad you can find, any model made after 2017 is equivalent to an Intel laptop in terms of processing power!
From there you can go crazy with your favorite apps. Many of them have the ability to export to Ableton Live and can stay in sync with Ableton Link.

 

OpenAI Jukebox ;)

Although Google fucked it up by jacking up the price of Colab.

 

Women or Men depending on your taste.
Jokes aside, I remeber for years I tried to find tools like Cthulu, Glitch, Twisted Tools. One button solutions in general.
So you create a layer which is like a complete song and you stare beyond infinity happy for this glorius moment.

Now I can say for sure that all these tools drained my imagination and my music perception.
The tools that sharpened my music perception were (1)life experiences and (2)work consistently with spesific tools
that I had a very good understanding (3)Hear good music.
I remember that after of some years of deadlock, I heard the sound of Virtual CZ default sound.
And I started writing songs only with this. Eventually (although I have mastered its functionality long before)
I could HEAR different tones of Virtual CZ. It's a completely different thing that you are able to create a sound
and that you are able to understand its meaning and how to combine it with other sounds.

Don't get me wrong. All these "inpiration tools" are pretty amazing especially Twisted Tools.
But not before you understand the very basic tones which many times maybe are enough
for the most forwardthinking music.

 

Inspiration eh? I just force myself to sit on the PC and don't need any inspiration once I am in the flow.

 

for electronic stuff, any time I load a Midi Drummer I put a transposer as a MIDI FX insert. each +- just moves where the drummer starts playing but a different part of the kit. you can export good useful loops or even just stuff for density purposes.

I started doing this just so I could quickly check out all these kits we get. often they are a key off, an octave wrong, etc; so it makes dealing with that part way easier. but when you apply it to nearly random percussive elements you end up with some good loops. at your correct original bpm as unstretched audio.

also, drum midi files to generate percussive events from synths.

 

An actual musical instrument, imagination, my ears and creativity. The computer comes after.

 

1. A good Heroin Habit (all my favourite songwriters had one)
2. Whisky before breakfast (breakfast or Champions preferably mixed with coffee)
3. A really nasty GF or BF (nothing like a absolute cunt to get that next revenge song happening)
4. Poverty (on oldie but a goodie that turned many a broke couch surfer into the owner of a property portfolio)
5. Reading the Bible (many a good atheist turned to biblical BS for some inspiration including Nick Cave that made a carrer of it)
6. Breaking Up (C'mon who doesn't like a good breakup song right?)
7. Revenge sex (inspirational study)
8. Hate sex (makes you feel dirty and is good for perspective)
9. Any Sex (its all good for inspiration)
10. Stealing other peoples shit (C'mon we know that track, fess up)
11. A new relationship (good for the gooey shit phase, the confused hard to please stage, and the fuck you I'm outa here phase)
12. Translate really complicated uni texts into 3 minute dumbed down pop songs with word salad.
13. The Lucky Dip (write a bunch of shit on pieces of paper and pull them out randomly to make a song, worked for Bowie)
14. LEARN TO PLAY AN INSTRUMENT (music isn't a video game MOFO)
15. LEAN TO PLAY AN INSTRUMENT BETTER (See 11)

Shit that never works:

1. Inspiration from a plugin (seriously? just go and have a walk instead)
2. Buying new gear (Gear doesn't write tracks, you do so you're the problem not the gear)
3. Successful experts telling you what works and how they did it (yeah nah.. figure it out and bang it out)
4. Writing in a Genre to mix it up (if you can't get one right what makes you think... well, you know the rest)

 

My brain.

 

A guitar and a doobie...done.

 

"LEARN TO PLAY AN INSTRUMENT (music isn't a video game MOFO)", why not? You play both of them, right? A studio is an instrument also, right?

And besides sometimes getting new shit and learning to play it can break through a block. For instance, I'm playing a borrowed Ukulele at the moment (will get one for myself later), and I'm a) getting new gear and b) learning to play it and I'm already getting weird things coming out of my hands which has been inspiring, cause being a guitarist the whole different tuning thing messes up my normal fingerings.

And before we get to it, synths are instruments as well and you need to learn how to play them to get anywhere.

But I'll agree that unless you're willing to put any work into it, new gear doesn't just magically do anything. Though there's a few fuzz pedals I could get...

 

Listen to old music - look for a groove or a melody that says something to you, try to recreate this melody. Incidentally, Gershon Kingsley copied a few notes from Mozart.

As an an example:



Hot Butter - Popcorn - 1972

Hot Butter – Popcorn (Version 2021) 4K

Jean Michel Jarre - Popcorn - 2009

Hot Butter - Popcorn (Techno Mix)

 

Nope, the studio is a tool, you don't have to be a musician to operate one. Even the greatest producer/engineer.. studio pioneers on the planet are mostly great musicians.

We have 24 Ukes at last count

Maybe leave it Alone you may well go blind

 

Those guys generally developed the habit AFTER they got rich and famous. All of the heroin addicts I've ever known (and they were legion) were far too busy trying to make money to score to be bothered with writing music.

 

Inspiration is an application developed to stimulate the creativity of music composers.

Influenced by Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies, and techniques described in several books about songwriting, Inspiration allows its users to get random, more or less abstract advice that can provide ways to handle the blank page syndrome, new "cooking recipes" to create music in general, ideas to develop or finish your last song, write a lot of music in a short time, take different musical paths...

Considering Inspiration as another software adaptation of Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies is wrong:

• Indeed, those advice items are gathered together like the Oblique Strategies, but also other thematic sets like the Horizontal Strategies from -musicalentropy for example, the Frustrated Songwriter's Strategies, the Advancing Guitarist strategies, and others.
• The advice items are classified and can be filtered with numerous tags, allowing the users to target specific needs at specific moments. Some examples of these tags : musical instruments like the guitar, the drums or keyboards, various abstraction levels, themes like motivation, harmony, rehearsals, sampling, the development of existing ideas etc.

Moreover, a special editor is included, allowing users to create their own sets, with an efficient and ergonomic interface. With this functionality, you can :

• Create your own advice sets, corresponding to your needs, your personality, and the way you work.
• Share your own advice sets with all the users of Inspiration.
• Fill a list of composition ideas, new tracks or concepts you would like to work on in the future.
• Have a work plan for your preferred musical instrument, full of random exercises to do or existing songs to include to your musical repertoire.
• Optimize your 20-songs game sessions, as described in the book "The Frustrated Songwriter's Handbook" by Nicholas Dobson and Karl Coryat.

 

We're humans, not robots - Here's the truth about inspiration.

Inspiration - what is it actually?

What exactly is inspiration and what do we need it for? Inspiration - the Duden defines it as "a creative idea, thought, sudden realization, illuminating idea that leads someone, especially in a spiritual activity, enlightenment, inspiration". Wikipedia explains it as follows: "Inspiration comes from the Latin: inspiratio" ensouling ", breathing in spiritus" life, soul, spirit ". In general terms, it is understood to mean an unexpected idea or a starting point for artistic creativity.

The conceptual history is based on the idea that on the one hand works by artists and on the other hand religious traditions are inspirations of the divine (not necessarily understood personally) - an idea that can be found in both Near Eastern religions as well as with pre-Socratic philosophers and then unfolds a broad history of impact ”.

The ancient Greeks, especially Hesiod and Democritus, felt inspired by the divine and saw themselves as recipients of divine inspirations. Democritus put it: "Whatever a poet describes with enthusiasm and with a divine touch or spirit, that is certainly beautiful."

Cicero used the Latin expression afflatus in the poetic as well as in the religious sense for "inspiration" or "divine inspiration", as "blowing in something" by a divine wind. The Roman lawyer, politician, poet and philosopher describes inspiration as an unexpected breath that overtakes the poet - a powerful force whose essence the poet is helplessly and unconsciously exposed. Cicero got it right to the point.

But what does inspiration mean to us?
Without inspiration, our life would be a lot poorer. Even when mankind was at the beginning, she was inspired by her surroundings, nature or other people: she created tools, created works of art and invented stories.

How do you find inspiration?
Inspiration is breathing in the mind and soul. Inspired life is lived life, independent, self-determined and completely freed from everything. Inspired life is also about doing what we really want, what we really want and, above all, what we are meant to do. In short: inspiration means taking the freedom to live life consciously.

People like to be inspired or inspire themselves. Often you just have to sit there and stare into the air - as some contemporaries like to call it pejoratively - that can be fantastically inspiring. Sitting on a bench enjoying the sun, thinking about nothing and then comes this one thought, this one picture or whatever that inspires us, abducts us and sends us on a journey whose destination we do not yet know.

Inspiration as an elixir of life
Inspiration is an elixir of life. Unfortunately, many people around them know little what to do with inspiration. But what do you need inspiration for anyway? Isn't it possible without it? Isn't it enough to be creative?

The soul needs inspiration
Do something good for the soul, this is how the ancient Romans or Greeks saw inspiration. Inspiration is food for the soul and that in turn is important to feed our emotions. Without them we would not survive, we would become extremely depressed.

People need the inspiration to find solutions, to come up with new ideas, to break new ground. If you can't have one thing then inspire you to do something else. A small, banal example: In some regions people have too little sun. And we know that sunlight is very good for us, yes, it is even vital. So man invented artificial sunlight, which is supposed to help people to produce serotonin, the happiness hormone, which we just lose on dark days.

There are so many ways in which people can be inspired and so many different triggers. Inspiration has a lot to do with ideas, whereby “having ideas” is not the same as “being inspired”. Inspiration is not sustainable, inspiration happens. If you are inspired, then you cannot preserve this inspiration, you cannot put it in a drawer and take it out again when necessary. Inspiration always happens in the NOW. Inspiration motivates, it makes people more productive, more lively.

Implementation is important for any type of inspiration. The stronger an inspiration is, the more you will want to implement it - and also be able to do so.

Erich Kästner once said: "You need more dreams than other people can destroy."
So let's not let our dreams be destroyed.

Let us let our inspirations run wild and live our lives that are meant for us. It often starts with a little inspiration, a little dream, which then suddenly becomes something big, wonderful. Admit it.

Source: www.alexander-maria-fassbender.de/inspiration-ist-das-eigentlich/

 

Last edited: Oct 28, 2021