where did that thing go again.. whats it called? ..

[Guest etherealphaze]

Yeah ... inspiration .. how do you guys handle the day when u seem to lack inspiration.. i could sit like Hours and the result is like one crappy kick, bassline and some boring sounds... then i feel like throwing my computer out of the window

 

does this kind of thing happen to you often?

whats the remedy? plz give me advices of your thoughts!

thanks and have a good day!

/jimmy

[Guest psy-fi]

sometime it helps just listening to music, songs that reminds you of the one your making...or go do something else for a while, talk with someone.

if you still have no inspiration throw the computer out of the window, it wont help your inspiration (unless it makes a weird sound when in crashes to the ground) but it sure will make you feel better : )

[Guest Psylent Buddhi]

Nice topic etherealphaze. Long have I thought about posting something very similar to this.

 

Yeah, what is inspiration anyway? The concept of inspiration is very abstract. The conception is individual and universal at the same time. We all recognize it when it's there, but it seems that with certain people inspiration is a much more frequent visitor than with others (myself included in the latter). I doubt there is any cure for lacking inspiration. It comes and goes, like it has a mind of its own. I sure can relate to your situation. Sometimes I sit for hours, just fooling around with a single sound, playing obscure and useless melodies on the keyboard. After a couple of hours in front of the computer, I realize nothing good is going come out of this and I turn off all the fancy electrical equipment and read a book, put on some good music or simply go to sleep. I've found that sleep is powerful catalyst for bubbling inspiration.

 

When I experience inspiration at its peak, I get high spiritually and almost physically as well. It is wonderful. I remember a couple of years ago, when I was still full of inspiration, I created my own favourite track in less than 8 hours. In the hours after having finished the track I was incredibly satisfied and I experienced a degree of happiness which I haven't even approached since.

 

As I said, inspiration is a very abstract phenonenon. But it can be kept on a more mundane level. I find that the ability to concentrate and focus on both details as well as the big picture is extremely important. Sometimes when you think you have no inspiration it is actually because you lack the ability to concentrate over a longer period of time. At least I've found that to be the case with me. Try to stay fit. Do some jogging once in a while. Work out from time to time. When you are fit, you're able to concentrate harder and more intensively on things.

 

A couple of years ago I went through some rather uninteresthing troubles with a girl I really liked. She ended up effectively hurting my feelings. In the time after this incident I was very sad and somewhat depressed. In the midst of all this sadness inspiration seemed to come to life and I had one of my most 'inspirational' periods of my life. I find that to be very interesting. So, go get a girlfriend, break up with her and voila, inspiration will come to you my friend!

Maybe there is some truth to the whole "true artists are all tormented souls" hype...

[Guest etherealphaze]

Psylent buddhi:

your story was the best one i've heard today haha !! It is very weird..

I think : When u have inspiration: don't be lazy!! dont be satisfied with less. Go on on and on until the track is finished or until ur out of ideas.

and what ive xperienced : DONT Listen to your own track before it finished.. thats the destruction of your own interest in it.. u get more and more bored with it.. and thats not what we like.. but sometimes when i've done something i really like then i cant help it hehe.. :/

 

I cant help it i've been starting so many trax but i feel its very hard to finish them.. when in beginning of creation u Have no boundaries.. no limits.. u can create Whatever u want.. true freedom.. but as the track progresses u get more and more limited. thats a big issue for me and i often get bored with the sound long before its finished.

 

i think you are very right with your statement:

"true artists are all tormented souls"

this is very true lol !!

[Guest Mike Indidginus]

Artists are most definitely tormented souls Psylent Buddhi

 

I often wondered if someone like Marilyn Manson or Trent Reznor ever had any good days. Can you imagine? "Hey guys, I'm sorry. I can't do the gig tonight. I'm feeling too happy man. I'll try to sort it out soon though...."

 

Take it easy all of you

[soem aeld]

Kaspurr, I know exaclty what u mean with girlfriends. Now I do.

I'm in a period of strong inspiration right now. I made "Window", the long ambient track, in a few hours.

 

(Dripping Monotones still rules dude! Listening to it now..)

 

I've made more trax this summer than I made last year.

 

Also, I agree with allmost everything you wrote. Everything fits my description.

 

Nowdays I jogg twice a week, work out twice a week, am a sad single and

read many books + I have a lot of great and inspiring CDs to listen to.

 

och inte bara det!

 

Incensesticks and -cones are inspiring too!

[Guest Mike Indidginus]

Soem, I'm sorry to hear about your break up man But I'm glad to hear you are describing it as a period of "strong inspiration" - that's very positive, & only good will come of that

 

I agree with the incense too Nag champa - inspiration on a stick

[Guest Psylent Buddhi]

etherealphaze, you're spot on about starting tracks. Once a track gradually becomes lenghty, the number of things you can do with the track decreases significantly. Geeez, I've started countless tracks without finishing them, because I got bored somewhere in the process of making them.

 

Hey Mike Indidginus (you poor, tormented soul), Marilyn Manson looks like this when he is not dressing up like a fucking idiot to make money:

 

Anton... good to hear about the inspiration. Hey, could you hook me up with a decent quality mp3 version of Dripping Monotones?

[Colin OOOD]

A very personal subject, inspiration; different for everyone, I'm sure.

 

For me, a strong source of inspiration has been smoking weed, listening to music with my friends - many of whom I collaborate with from time to time. However, getting too stoned can sometimes be a definite hindrance to the correct operation of a computer, although the level of stonedness I personally have to achieve for this to be a problem means that unconsciousness is an equally likely effect!

 

Now that I'm trying to cut down on my ganja consumption I find equal inspiration in my choice of collaborators. I find it incredibly inspiring to work with people who are excited about making music, of whatever kind - and who are able to express themselves well with it. Mike. Geoff. Ryo. Steve. .

 

Colin

[Guest Maccster]

I get a lot of inspiration when I'm on a dance floor. Problem is that my gear is mostly nowhere near that dance floor so I try to memorize the vibe when I'm at home in my studio. The first two days after a steaming party are very good to make music.

 

I agree that being in emotional pain can drastically enhance creativity but I believe that all strong emotions have a positive effect on creativity, also happiness.

 

Music making can be very good therapy also.

I was also in pain because of a girl some time ago. She cheated on me and kept on lying to me until I completely hated her and I really wanted to physically hurt her. Because I had these feelings I locked myself in my studio and I made up a plan to take revenge without hurting anyone. I started to make a track in witch I tried to put all my pain and frustration. I wanted to play it live for as much people possible and I wanted them to dance to it.

The track was the most aggressive one I made until then. When it was finished I burned it on CD with 5 other tracks of mine and I gave some copies to a few dj’s on a small open air festival. Two dj’s chose that track to play the very same night.

I played it myself a couple of times live and from CD. One night I had the opportunity to play it for a bit more than thousand people and saw a lot of them dancing. That moment my feeling of revenge was gone. I had turned something very negative into something that made people dance and smile. That made me very proud and strong again. Even the girl’s new boyfriend came up to me saying he loved that track. Little did he know what it was about.

 

Ok, I’m drifting off from the subject of this thread but maybe this story can help some of you producers with love-pains. Yes it takes a while but the satisfaction is better than getting aggressive and it’s one of the advantages of being an artist.

[Guest Slidingtrancer]

I felt mighty inspired when I broke up with my girlfriend in Februar after 3 years, but I never seem to have finished the 'great' song I hoped to make. Good ideas have just been scattered around various tracks...

 

Anyway, Psylent, when will I hear some new stuff from ya mate?

 

Inspiration is as abstract as love itself and maybe that is why you need either one of em too go bad for the other to be good.

 

Two abstract things at the same time might just make it understandable...

 

Peace...

[Guest blink]

i find God inspiring personally. or at least nature.

 

get a good book, some nag champa (inspiration on a stick), hop on your bike and ride to a nice quiet spot outside. inspiration in the long run must come from within. external things are just a catalyst to it

[Guest norb-e]

hey guys,

 

i'm gonna tell you about the spiritual point of view on this... if you dont believe in things i say here, just ignore it.. i dont want to force you to believe in anything... if you are open minded, you might get curious about the topic, and you'll go after it anyway, you'll read books, etc... if you dont believe these things, thats cool too... i'm just sharing with you some things i've learned and experienced in the last couple of years...

 

inspiration can come from a lot of sources...

 

psylent buddhi said:

"When you are fit, you're able to concentrate harder and more intensively on things. "

 

that is because everything is about the energy, your energy level...

for example, when you are really tired, you are like a dead battery, you have to sleep to get back the energy from nature... but there are other ways to raise your energy level: yoga is probably one of the most effective ones... other than that, i usually go to a forest and spend some time with the trees and plants (nature is where the energy should come from, and not from other people), or just put on CD, listen to it for half an hour, after that i'm usually in a good mood so i dance for 1-2 hours... you all know that one can get high just from dancing alone, in every culture and tradition they had dancing, all around the world... for thousands of years..

 

being high = having a higher energy level... when we dance its not our body that reacts to the music... when we are in a trance its our energy which moves us... now i'm not talking about "feeling really energetic"... when i say "energy" i'm talking about a field of energy thats all around our bodies... or you can also call this your "non-physical body"... if you dance constantly, after a while you feel like your (pysical) body is just not there anymore... only the "dancing" stays there, the "dancer" disappears... it becomes a mediation...

 

but lets go back to the energy .... once you achieved this (raising your energy level)... you can be very creative... and you will not be depressed... you cannot be depressed because depression comes from having a low energy level... and when you have a higher energy level, that is where the real creativity comes from... and once you create something, you get excited about it, and that gets you happy, keeps your energy up... this is why we enjoy being creative... it just feels good...

 

now, creativity is not just about creating something... u can be creative in doing just about anything... driving your car... playing video games, washing dishes... u can turn anything into a creative fun process... the way to do this is simply (well, first its not so simple, but with some practice it will be easier to do) just turn off your brain... dont think of what you're gonna do tomorrow... dont think of a TV show u saw last night... etc...

in other words: when you drive your car, really drive your car!!... you have to only think of driving your car, nothing else... if you turn off your mind, and concentrate on driving your car, it will become a creative thing... you will drive happily, with love... u will put emotions into driving your car... the whole thing becomes a real meditation...

 

if you do this often, inspiration will always be there to help you : )

 

if you turn everything you do into a meditation like this, and keep raising your energy level often,... u will live life fully... and living life fully is one of the things you must do if you want to eventually lose your ego, and reach enlightenment... (in case you are in a quest for that kind of thing, hehe)

and after that, nothing can stop u from being creative all the time...

 

good luck, guys...

 

hope this has been helpful information to many of you

 

so be creative!!!

 

love!!!

 

dance!!!

 

and join us in this movement towards worldwide spiritual consciousness!!!

 

 

 

peace!

[Guest Gaittins]

Often times inspiration comes to me when I've stopped persuing it. When the day is new or at it's end, it reveals itself to me. During the thick of the day I'm working transcribing songs and doing various tasks and I don't have time to listen to a forming idea but once I've finished and cleared my mind there it is. A new idea in an old melody or a concept for a sound design or even just the thought of sound and its properties. I've had periods of incurable drought, wanting only to hear what's in my inner ear but it doesn't work that way. Even after years of musical study it doesn't make a damn bit of difference.

Whatever you do don't try to write from your knowledge of music. If you look to the harmonic language for inspiration you'll just come up with some crafty progression that takes you where Richard Strauss was in the 40's. Then you'll realize the error of your ways and try to break out of the tonal mess that you've created. The harder you try to break free from tonal conformity the more you begin to sound like a poor copy of Wolpe, Varese, or Stockhoussen.

Knowledge of a subject doesn't mean that you can produce anything of worth with it. It just means that you can describe in a definitive way the mechanics of how it is executed. The other day I had to transcribe just the horn parts and hook of an Earth Wind and Fire tune for a medley, 'Boogie Wonderland' so that it could seemlessly transition into another funk tune hook. It totally took all of the fun out of the whole experience of listening to that tune which I have enjoyed many times before. I can listen to the song and still enjoy it but there's something missing. Before I really knew the parts I just thought wow! These dudes are heavy. This song rocks! It makes me want to break out my roller skates and fly down the city sidewalks shuffling to that old school funky hook. I have to shelve the song for a bit to get that feeling back but eventually it will come back and the roller boogie quads will come out.

As far as inspiration goes don't look for it. And don't write just to statisfy a deadline. Quality can't be rushed. An idea must come to fruition naturally.

I don't want to sound stupid here Jimmy but I think you'll find it and I hope that you do.

Much Love

Gaittins