What Fuels Or Inspires You To Write At What You Feel Is Your Best?

randomhandclaps

Does some particular emotion, state of mind or state of health or other push you to write? 

For work there are times when I have to sit done and write or reinterpret music for a purpose and it feels very much like a job at points. Not unenjoyable and certainly preferable to a lot of other things I have to do in life but I always feel quite detached from it as I'm writing from a calculated or almost scientific manner, my heart isn`t always in it. 

 
For a while now I haven't written anything for myself partly because I've been too busy but in truth the greater part is that I just haven't felt inspired. 

 
Yesterday we awoke to some pretty horrific news and late last night the trauma was further hammered home when fuller details were made clear to me. At first this brewed as shock and upset then today I awoke with an anger about it and probably a healthy dose of 'life's too short' get going in mind. 

Today for the first time in a while I started writing quite furiously. It helped that rare free timewas avilable but again I realise that I always write best at the lower ebb, although what I write doesn't necessarily reflect that emotion. 

You read about artists who write sporadically based on emotional state and equally you read about other who write regularly like an exercise. Other feel most inspired in a particular location or setting. So does something inspire you to create in periods or do you try and stick to a regime like you would with practice? Obviously this is complicated if you write in a band situation but there must still be times when you feel you are writing at your best. So full moon, Jack Daniels and coke, chicken salad sandwiches, motorway tailback or pictures of fluffy kittens.... What kicks you up the arse and most has you reaching for a pen and paper or the record button?

randomhandclaps

I know it's been asked before but what is is with paragraph spacing when posting from a tablet?

DulcetJones

Can't help you with the tablet, but I can identify with the "feeling inspired" part.  Before I embarked on my current project making multi instrument spooky music as "Dulcet Jones" I had a lengthy career as a solo fingerstyle guitarist during which I wrote a lot of complicated songs in the classical/flamenco styles.  At one point I was asked to compose a song regarding the great potato famine of Irish fame and was told that in Gaelic it's referred to as "An Gorta Mor".  The members of this organisation were quite well known to me as I attended a lot of the local Irish jam sessions they hosted and they described the hardships involved with the people affected by the famine, especially the many that made it to Canada only to die of typhus once here.  I thought about what they told me and came up with a fingerstyle guitar solo instrumental song that I titled "An Gorta Mor" at their suggestion.  It was the simplest, easiest to play song I had ever written and yet it became the most popular song of my solo guitar career.   It got airplay on some college radio, and the CBC, was included on 3 compilation CD's, including one in Korea, was transcribed for piano by a local performer and several of my students at the time learned it and some went on to perform it live.  Not bragging, just expressing my bewilderment that all the complicated flamenco influenced songs I wrote got barely applauded and this simple piece got all the attention.  Isn't there an old saying along the lines "you got to live the blues to play the blues"?

randomhandclaps

I think you are completely spot on in regards to the 'live the blues' angle and I suppose that really is significant for emotive writers especially. Maybe there is also there is also the element of looking at it retrospectively and not feeling completely 'genuine' if you didn't really connect with or understand what you were referencing..... Like when a bunch of forty somethings write a #cough# comedy about a group of 20 somethings for BBC Three. 

 I completely understand you puzzlement at success of some pieces over others. I doubt their at many artist who feel their most recognised work is their best. I'm certain Jeff Beck probably cringes slightly each time someone asks him to play Hi Ho Silver Lining.

bluechargeboy

For some reason I can write really cool riffs and chord progressions when I am jet-lagged. I fly a few times a year to California or other places in the US/World, and when I get back I seem to make some nice grooves. Perhaps the creative parts of the brain are the first bits to catch up with their sleep!

Or it may be that I can't remember any music "rules" so I just make stuff up that sounds nice.

PS @randomhandclaps hope you and yours get through your bad times OK.

randomhandclaps

@bluechargeboy Thank you dude. Its funny that you say about jet lag as I sometimes think of extreme tired as being quite similar to being drunk, where our judgement are probably less complicated by self doubt.

bluechargeboy

People think jetlag is just tiredness but it plays all kinds of tricks on your mental and physical state. Forgetfulness and a distinct lack of comprehension suggest that the brain is busy doing other things while you're trying to use it (like Microsoft Windows)

Our drummer (who is a multi-instrumentalist) maintains that playing music in the morning is an abomination and it should be primarily a nocturnal activity. I am the only 9-5 corporate drone in our band so I have to take my musicianly inspirations wherever I can!

LastMantra

For me it's about emotion. I can be listening to someone else's music or watching a movie or whatever and if I feel some kind of strong emotion I'll stop what I'm doing, grab my guitar and try to evoke the same kind of emotion through my own music. 

Off topic but something I was thinking about is the amount of times I've come up with a riff or melody or lyric and thought 'yeah that's cool, I'll need to remember that' then forgot it. Must be thousands of tunes. I wonder what happened to them? Sometimes I wonder if it's worth recording anything or if I should just enjoy creating it then forget about it and do something else. 

randomhandclaps

I think that forgetting of great stuff aflict most of us and that's why I have a bit of admiration for those who are disciplined enough to write down everything immediate. I have got better at this in a way since recording ideas to my phone. A difficulty I find with writing on the back of an emotion is if you don't finish the piece it can be tricky to feel completely confidently revisiting it.

LastMantra

I'm not sure that finishing a piece is actually that important to me. I just like to enjoy the moment, and tend not to play things more than once. I've got a few pedals like a Fuzz Factory type thing, a DMM clone and a EHX Flanger Hoax that between them have so many knobs and different settings that it would be near impossible to get the same sound twice...I don't mind that. Occasionally it's a little heart-breaking when you get a really awesome sound and you know once you change the settings you'll never get it like that again...but I think there is a certain freedom in accepting it. I do go back to things as well though, I find recording/mixing good fun too and if you do manage to capture any of that emotion in the original recording it should still be there. Can't do it on demand though really, I need to feel it. I'd make a terrible session musician.  

I don't think writing everything down immediately would be something I'd want to do either. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be. People have talked about playing when being high. Something can sound totally awesome at the time but when you listen back the next day with a clear head it doesn't sound half as good. In a way sounding awesome once is good enough for me. 

I'f I find I have a decent piece of music at the end of my noodling it's a bonus.

guitarfishbay

I write sporadically and usually am my most productive when I'm away from the instrument for a day or so (I don't like taking much time off though).  I think this is because at least instrumentally I can hear things in my head, and having time to think over stuff without being distracted by patterns you play often or technical constraints (i.e. not being good enough, lol) can mean you focus on just the music.

These days I use my phone and take down everything.  You never know when you might be able to tie in an idea that seems isolated and incomplete with another piece that was also incomplete, or maybe just not good enough.

Writing vocal parts for someone else is what I struggle with, I can do it then and there in the room with the other person because I can hear what is working and what isn't.  But I have no idea how best to approach exploiting the strengths in someone's voice when I'm writing on my own.

littlegreenman

Deadlines.

I find that without a "finish-line" to adhere to I can carry on waffling for ever, redoing parts and tweaking indefinitely.

Having a defined point in time focuses me, and removes the whole "get it perfect" aspect. Once it's done, it's done and move on.

That said, I only do stuff for myself and as part of challenges like we have here and elsewhere, so there's not much need for pristine production.

randomhandclaps

@littlegreenman I'm definitely one for need deadlines two.  I manage to finish stuff quickly for work or other yet my own stuff can enter a sequence of perpetual tinkering and tweaking.

skay

When I was a miserable teenager and 20-something with nothing but 'issues' I wrote loads of songs, probably 3 or 4 a week, plus even some good ones IMHO!

Now I'm older, happily married, more financially comfortable and contented with my life I have no fire and haven't written anything decent or exciting for quite a few years... I'm too happy to write these days it seems, I appear to need misery and despair to bring out the good stuff...

Dominic

odd sayings or catchphrases give me instant and powerful lyric inspiration

as soon as I have the lyric I find that the music builds around it

it usually starts as a formulaic cliche progression or melody line that I try to pervert or extend a resolution to fit the words and just builds from there disguising the cliche as I go -some are better than others-if I am not happy I take the lyric and wrap something else around it.....

I love all music but I am a big country fan - I do rocky / soul stuff too but the country songs are often built on quips or funny one liners- All my exes live in Texas- I want my mullett back- etc etc

However tacky it does work

my most recent title ........" First outta the taxi ( last into the bar ) "  is a typical rocky modern rocky country written about a certain aquaintance who has consistently come out for evenings with a group of friends and engineered a whole life methodology for poncing off his mates although he thinks none of us have really noticed !

 Its not exactly 

Grunfeld

I really miss writing. 

There was this period of about three years when I really got into it and it consumed my life.  In that period I had lots of free time (I was only working about 3-12 hours a week but earning more than enough to live on), I had hit that point of alcohol consumption where it prompted creativity but hadn't yet closed down into habit, and I was riding the massive emotional storm in the aftermath of my wife leaving me and going off with the kids. 

I recorded about two dozen or more songs which still live on the web (I cleared my hard drives).  And I have the ideas recorded for three or four times that many.  Some of the ideas are okay.  And these live on a DVD storage disc.

As I sorted out the drinking, and had to work more I lost the urge and the space to write.  Then I got into a covers band and spent time on that. 

But if I get the time I'd like to write again.  There are still things to say.

PolarityMan

When writing lyrics I think emotion is an important factor but in my current band I don't have any involvement in the lyrics. When I'm writing music though I think that music is too course a tool to express feelings with any kind of clarity. For example a change in lyrics can turn a melancholy song into a romantic one.

So instead I guess I go on what I would term a combination of aesthetic* and structural movement. This means that I don't have to be particularly angstful to be able to write for example as from an artistic perspective you can always appreciate the aesthetic mood and feel of a piece.

*So for example I tend to think  in terms like, this next part should be really close and claustrophobic, or this part needs to sounds bright, sparse and anthemic, this pa[rt needs to be dense and mechanical or the next riff needs to be low energy and meandering. 

I normally find that the ease of writing is determined by the first part. A really strong initial idea tends to lead to a song which writes itself whereas less strong ideas tend to sit and gather dust for a while.

frankus

guys please reformat your early posts - I'd love to read them but at the moment I can't escapre reading them like my four year old was telling me something.

At present music is a form of meditation for me - so making it is about siezing whatever is in front of me and at present I don't plan that.. I might though.

randomhandclaps

frankus said:

guys please reformat your early posts - I'd love to read them but at the moment I can't escapre reading them like my four year old was telling me something.

It's actually directly your fault Frank as you told me to read the sire from and table and piss poor formatting is the net result.

AndyJP

Great discussion idea. Lots of different approaches here.  For me the tune has to me in my head before I sit with an instrument.

I'll get a melody in my head and go to the guitar to work it out. I'll figure out a key for it and work out the harmony.  Then I wait until I get the next part in my head and go back to the guitar and repeat.

If I sit with the guitar and try to write something it doesn't happen. I guess the guitar is just a tool for getting the tune out of my noggin. 

The thing I like about getting older is that I feel free to try different genres. When i was younger it had to be technical.  I'm not trying to impress anyone. I'm doing it for me, so age feels more liberating.

randomhandclaps

AndyJP said:

The thing I like about getting older is that I feel free to try different genres. When i was younger it had to be technical.  I'm not trying to impress anyone. I'm doing it for me, so age feels more liberating.

When you're young it's amazing how many times you read article by your idols and they come out with the cliches like "I write from myself" or "I write from the heart" or "I just do my your own thing.".  You read it and think you understand it but in truth you still spend a lot of time trying to sound like someone else or how you think you should sound to either impress others or strictly fit a genre.  I love the freedom of losing that baggage.