Frreakin’ out!
At the time of writing, it’s been a few months since I last made a larger full-length piece of music. I find these very larger projects very enjoyable to work on, so maybe I should start freaking out a little bit? Creative blocks must be avoided, right?
Normally, or, earlier I would indeed start feeling a tiny bit stressed, and eventually “shoulding on myself“. Time not spent doing music is time not spent climbing the mountain towards fame, money and eternal legacy. It’s a very future-oriented point of view, and I also think it ignores the non-music aspects of making music.
I don’t think I’ve been frustrated by not making music, ever since I realised that music is more than you hear.
Chillin’ out.
My view is different now – rather than having time away from music, I’m finding time for silence, and as always, I’m engaging in a variety of other activities that benefit my mind, which again benefits my music.
Also, I find that the playground metaphor is very helpful. Whenever I wasn’t at the playground as a child, I never felt guilty for not playing enough; that would just be silly. I also needed to eat, sleep, do my homework, and so on. Now as a young adult, that means getting fresh air, learning new stuff, spending time with friends, and so on, when I don’t feel like making music.
Music is the sum of your thoughts and experiences, especially when using all your senses. Everything you do in life is connected, like an ecosystem, so in a sense, I’m never really away from music.
Yeah yeah, I know, but how can I know if I’ll ever get my creativity back?
In my case, I’ve made music for more than a decade. I have a lot of fun making music, and I always manage to think of cool ideas. I’ve succesfully identified several strategies for maintaining creative output and enthusiasm, but I don’t see many people doing them.
Some more or less unconventional methods of mine include:
- Using all of my senses
- Using my body language
- Not taking myself seriously
- Making silly music and getting inspiration from terrible music
- Not limiting myself to genres
Well, in a sense, all of my blog shows how I’m not bothered by creative dry periods. I have some new strategies in mind too, which I intend to test in future 30 day experiments.
We’re all different though, so maybe these particular ones might not work for you. I know from experience what a frustrating experience it can be, when all you want to do is create your next “best song so far” as soon as possible. Just remember: No brain, no gain.
♥ Creativity is like a butterfly ♥
Creativity is like a butterfly. Chase it, and it flies away, because it’s like “holy shit that crazy human is chasing me omg!”.
Sit still, and turn your attention to other things, and it will sit softly on your shoulder, because it’s like “‘kay, that’s chill, man.”. If it won’t sit on your shoulder, maybe you need to take a shower. Also if you collect butterflies, they die. And don’t chase them with bazookas.
