# How to keep the inspiration train going? (Giving yourself assignments?)



## Mr. Sam Flash (Jun 12, 2022)

Hi everybody,

Lately I find myself in a bit of a predicament: I want to write music, yet nothing comes out when sitting at the keyboard... 

I know, what a novel problem right? hahaha! Yet, it has become a bit frustrating that I can't seem to "just write music". A lot of my works were the result of an assignment (either an actual one, or along the lines of "I want to gift this person a piece of music before the day is over"), but when I just want to sit down and write something: nothing seems to come out. Don't get me wrong, I can get 4 bars into an idea, but then find that there's nothing that keeps the idea going. The musical equivalent of blanking after your opening line in a novel. 

My question to you, fellow composers: why does this happen? Lack of inspiration/assignment? Maybe a lack of skill to quickly expand on a short phrase, therefore keeping a momentum? Both?

I'd love to hear your input on this! Keep in mind, I've only been going at this for about a year now


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## TomislavEP (Jun 12, 2022)

From my experience, there are many possible reasons for this, including:


being overwhelmed by choice (either between compositional devices or sound palette)
having difficulty stepping out of your comfort zones
pressure and frustration (imposed either by yourself or by circumstances)
distraction by other problems (i.e. family or health ones, financial)
rushing and stress ("you can't rush art")
The most important thing is to know yourself; what works and what doesn't work for you. I'm the most creative when I feel good (both physically and mentally) and when I'm slightly distracted by some other pleasurable activities. In such moments, I usually hop to an instrument and write the whole piece spontaneously, not thinking about the arrangement, production, etc. at that point. When I have a flash of inspiration (usually the singable theme or the main motif), everything else just follows somehow.


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## PeterN (Jun 12, 2022)

Mr. Sam Flash said:


> Hi everybody,
> 
> Lately I find myself in a bit of a predicament: I want to write music, yet nothing comes out when sitting at the keyboard...
> 
> ...


You need to gather experiences in life. Isn't that what Zimmer says, *music is communication*.

I have a suggestion. Go to Lahore or Kolkata for 6 months. Or Cairo. Sit in front of keyboard after that and see what happens. As artist, you need to challenge life. But, wiithout an artist insurance (existential). Most dont leave the comfort zone. You can hear it all too well. They are bored of themselves too.


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## Pier (Jun 12, 2022)

Maybe what's freezing you is fear. Fear of making bad music, of being lame, etc. The only way I know of getting through that is writing bad music. Write the lamest stupidest music you can think of. It's fine, you can delete it afterwards, no one will ever hear it.

If you don't know what to write then just write something random and work with that. Throw a dice to find the notes, or play something random on the piano.

Anything is better than staying frozen. Writing terrible music is better than not writing any music at all.

"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working"
Pablo Picasso


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## Al Maurice (Jun 12, 2022)

David Bruce -- composer in the UK has a YouTube channel and he covered this very topic, you might find this video useful:



You might find inspiration in a piece that you like, or some other work of art. Stephen Sondheim was inspired by a work by George Seurat, who produced works on of art by pointilism, so he scored a musical based on that concept with a during the life of Seurat and after with people looking back in a retrospective sense over two acts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_in_the_Park_with_George


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## el-bo (Jun 12, 2022)

Mr. Sam Flash said:


> Hi everybody,
> 
> Lately I find myself in a bit of a predicament: I want to write music, yet nothing comes out when sitting at the keyboard...
> 
> ...


Who or what are you (not) writing for?

Also...Have you considered that maybe you don't want to write music? Maybe you just like the idea of writing music?

Lastly...Is writing 4 bars not writing music?


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## Pier (Jun 12, 2022)

Al Maurice said:


> David Bruce -- composer in the UK has a YouTube channel and he covered this very topic, you might find this video useful:
> 
> 
> 
> You might find inspiration in a piece that you like, or some other work of art. Stephen Sondheim was inspired by a work by George Seurat, who produced works on of art by pointilism, so he scored a musical based on that concept with a during the life of Seurat and after with people looking back in a retrospective sense over two acts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_in_the_Park_with_George



This video is absolutely brilliant. Thanks for sharing.


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## babylonwaves (Jun 12, 2022)

Mr. Sam Flash said:


> but when I just want to sit down and write something: nothing seems to come out.


In my case, the key to getting inspired is pretty much never intrinsic. But that's not a problem. Search inspiration by finding things you want to express in the song. For instance, on that day it first started snowing - so write something about the snowflakes you see for the first time in the year.


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## MarcMahler89 (Jun 12, 2022)

Mr. Sam Flash said:


> Keep in mind, I've only been going at this for about a year now


I suppose this might largely answer the question - because as a result of this, other things like mentioned in post #2 ( all points mentioned there i 100% agree with) become more prevalent.

My personal number one advice would be : do whatever works for YOU personally. And this might need a few more years of experience in order to correctly evaluate - and i still struggle with this personally after more than a decade, especially in the recent months :(

If your brain is somewhat similiar to my ADD pendant, you might want to mentally sketch out some "limitations" before sitting down to write, e.g only writing an uplifting piece in a major key using only piano & strings. Even better if you come up with a track-title after a short while. Try to have zero outcome expectations (this is the hard part, for me) and then just let it flow from this point onwards 

Edit : Its really hard to give a "holy grail" answer to this post, because everything mentioned by the ones before me might be relevant to your issue. Now that i think about it, even what @Pier wrote might sufficiently account for the problem, as ive been victim of this train of thought as well (and still am)


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## Jeremy Spencer (Jun 12, 2022)

Mr. Sam Flash said:


> Lately I find myself in a bit of a predicament: I want to write music, yet nothing comes out when sitting at the keyboard...


This is normal, still happens to me after 30 years of composing. I prefer having projects with looming deadlines, but also write for personal enjoyment. Sometimes when I’m in a rut, I’ll open a VI such as Omnisphere and just randomly scroll through the patches (there are thousands). Inevitably, an idea will ignite and I’ll run with it from there.


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## NekujaK (Jun 12, 2022)

When I'm low on ideas/inspiration/musical-mojo or whatever you wanna call it, one of the best ways for me to get back in the groove is to find an existing piece of music I really like and try to emulate it. I don't mean copy - just loosely emulate the overall sound and feel of the piece. This could include using the same chord progression and similar instrumentation, but take it in my own direction.

TV show cues are a great source for this, since they tend to be short and often not very complex. Also, the context of a scene helps spark my creativity. If nothing else, just the exercise of deconstructing an existing piece of music can be incredibly eye-opening and educational, and I often come away with at least one new composing/arranging technique that I can put to use in the future.


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## Mr. Sam Flash (Jun 12, 2022)

Some great tips and tricks here, thank you so much!


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## youngpokie (Jun 13, 2022)

Mr. Sam Flash said:


> Maybe a lack of skill to quickly expand on a short phrase, therefore keeping a momentum?


If I might offer a slightly contrarian opinion, I think the lack of skill is the culprit here.

Consider how composition is taught in traditional education: you are trained to write melodies (for a prescribed number of bars), to develop them using prescribed techniques, to apply them over any given harmonic progression, to write appropriate countermelodies for them, and to write convincing transitions, to modulate correctly, etc.

In other words, it's all broken down into specific steps you learn them one by one, and there is absolutely zero inspiration, just lots of perspiration. Orchestration is taught in exactly the same way - thinking logically, understanding instrument combinations, volume balancing naturally, and mastering all of this while orchestrating existing piano music into self-standing and highly idiomatic pieces, as if they were conceived for orchestra.

Without this knowledge, you'll probably wing it on occasion when you feel inspired but more often feel frustrated and unproductive. And you probably won't even be aware of all of the possibilities in front of you, only what you picked by trial and error.

The whole point of traditional education is that you are able to write music that sounds solid, professional and sophisticated even if you are not at all inspired (and in the course of education your "sophistication" meter will develop exponentially). I think "inspiration" is a different concept altogether - it's what allows us to take the mundane and elevate it to the level of art.

My suggestion would be to look into how composition is taught, the techniques and their learning sequence. And either borrow that approach for self-study or find a professional composition course. And if this is too much, a suggestion upthread to emulate the music of others is truly excellent! Good luck!


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## Pier (Jun 13, 2022)

youngpokie said:


> I think "inspiration" is a different concept altogether - it's what allows us to take the mundane and elevate it to the level of art.


Personally, I think there is no practical difference between inspiration and motivation.

When you're highly motivated, you get in the zone and just work effortlessly. But for some reason when it applies to the arts or other creative endeavors they call it inspiration.

Some people think inspiration is when you're magically infatuated with an idea. I think it's the other way around. You're first in an inspired state and then you stumble upon an idea which you're capable of evaluating with a different perspective.

When you're not in an inspired state, all ideas seem bad, and because you have no motivation working takes a lot of effort.

Some guy with an unpronounceable name (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) studied this flow phenomenon and published https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000W94FE6/ (a book) decades ago.


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## el-bo (Jun 13, 2022)

Pier said:


> Personally, I think there is no practical difference between inspiration and motivation.
> 
> When you're highly motivated, you get in the zone and just work effortlessly. But for some reason when it applies to the arts or other creative endeavors they call it inspiration.
> 
> ...


Yeah...it does seem as though inspiration is still equated with the idea of 'divine' inspiration i.e that it's something we are struck with/by, from a higher, invisible but benevolent, source. But regardless of where it may or not come from, inspiration and motivation are rare...and fleeting. And the sad irony is that unless one already has a 'practise' of actually doing the work, it will be harder to notice when that inspiration arrives and/or how to leverage it if/when it does.

"What good is waiting for the rains to come, if we've yet to plough our fields..." ~ el-bo...Just now

The idea of just 'showing up and doing the work' is not new, and is explored at length (Over a few books - books that might never have been written had constant inspiration and motivation been a pre-requisite) by Steven Pressfield.

Some of his main ideas are summarised, here:

https://www.bidsketch.com/blog/everything-else/war-of-art/ 

...or put way more succinctly by another Stephen (King):

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”​
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When I suggested earlier that the OP consider how much they want to make music, I did so because I think it's an important thing to consider. And it's something i have been wrestling with, in a bid to understand my own inability to finish projects (or indeed, get past that initial four-bars).

In my case I concluded that I like coming up with those initial ideas. And I like playing those initial ideas, daily, and hearing the actual music. I also like (At least, I have a distant memory of liking) when the project is done/fully realised.

What I don't like is everything in-between.

I know all the reasons why I don't like the part between conceptualisation and eventualisation/realisation (And a lot of people have it right that the 'key' is at least being conversant in the language of music, and of production). But in answer to my own question, I do like the idea of making music. But I can't say i do (currently) enjoy 'making'/writing music.

However, it turns out that after all this time I do want to be able to actualise my art. That's going to be easier said than done. But I know that the biggest part of it is to overcome resistance(s), sit my arse on the chair (in my case, a cushion) and just do the work (I'm already sitting there anyway, but I seem to be putting all my energies into chatting shit on the internet ).



Pier said:


> Some guy with an unpronounceable name (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) studied this flow phenomenon and published https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000W94FE6/ (a book) decades ago.


I believe it's pronounced: Me high...Chick sent me high


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