Uninspired

Deijavoo

Meh,

how do you guys cope with a bad patch of lacking musical inspiration.? Tried real hard the last couple of nights and I just can't get my head into the game, my hands feel slow, all the riffs and songs I come up with are utter tripe. Dunno, not even enjoying the sound of my gear. Just leaving it and coming back to it a week or so seems to fix it, but I don't want to wait.

Meh.....

JAYJO

Listen to some new stuff and buy a pedal you dont need! works for me every time.

not_the_dj

Didn't you just buy a BIg Sky?....I'm finding that the most inspirational pedal I've ever bought.

guitarfishbay

It depends how bad it is for  you.

Forcing things, wasting a week and getting no further could be less productive than just leaving it alone and recharging for a week.  Maybe you need less than a week off - in that case is resting from playing and doing other things so bad?  Do you have any deadlines?  If not then don't worry about it.

For me if I'm getting nowhere I find going to the gym or playing some sport can help me clear my head a bit.  If you've got bandmates sometimes rather than trying to sit and write/arrange music a social occasion like going to the pub or just hanging out/getting some takeaway pizzas can lead to new ideas.

ChrisMusic

Music is not all about playing.  Chill a bit.

Take some time out and do a trawl through YouTube.

Listen to some new stuff on there, or chase through some technique stuff.

Stay away from rig rundowns, or gear demos, as they just start the diversionary GAS off, and gear doesn't make you a better player IMHO.  (although it can be inspirational)

Start the YouTube thing somewhere, anywhere, and then click on one of the side-bar links, then follow another, and another, and pretty soon that will randomise what you are listening to or trying out.

At worst you'll lose a few hours and may discover some new music or bands, or a new technique or style.

At best it may be life changing, who knows, give it a try...

LastMantra

I try to catch up with all the things I should have been doing while I was playing guitar.

Cirrus

I never play if I don't feel like playing, and I never write unless I feel like writing. There's nothing worse than trying to force it.

hugbot

Disagree entirely, force it.

Maybe nothing good will happen today. Ok, but writing is practice like anything else. Fact is even an hour of cranking out utter shite keeps your head in the game in an essential way.

Yeah take breaks and stuff, but ultimately its work, treat it as such. 

Is it really bad? Then take this time to expriment with something different. Record a cover or something, just keep moving forward even if its in weird ways.

I have this quote pinned up on my wall:

“What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat.’ And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.’” — Maya Angelou

ChrisMusic

A bit of a weird one this, but bind two fingers on one hand (i.e. index & middle) and just play with the other two (3rd & 4th); scales, riffs, chord fragments, slide into notes, whatever, it is a real challenge, but works that finger independence stuff.

Try the same on your right hand and just use the two remaining fingers (not thumb or plec) to pick notes (pick up, pick down).

Maybe try both things (hands) like this together.

Once you lift the frustration, and go back to normal, you may just be reinvigorated to play properly, and your dexterity will improve too.

Let me know what you think, if you are mad enough to try this.

viz

The main question to my mind is: Is it composition or playing that you're feeling uninspired with? This is very important to my mind. I thought I was in a ruck with my playing, but then I had a guitar lesson that focused solely on composition and it opened a whole new world of playing for me. It was weird.

If it's playing, go back to basics with an acoustic or listen to some new difficult music and try and conquer it (or both).

If it's composition, listen to some new music, try to play in different scales (eg persian, hungarian, enigmatic, the list is (almost) endless).

If you say composition and playing are inseparable, then try and divorce them by putting your instrument down and going and having some different experiences to write about.

And have a guitar lesson.

Deijavoo

I'm normally an absolute bag of riffs and learn everything going, even little soundbites on tv if it's on somewhere else in the house etc..

I'm pretty structured in warm up and/or exercises.

as @not_the_dj just said, bought some absolutely mint gear recently which all felt and sounded wonderful to begin with but now my whole musicality is just feeling drained.... so I'm getting no enjoyment out of these cool sounds.

I'm so pissed off as I'm in a real good place everywhere else, just got a 35% increase in wage/promotion last Friday, everything going great at home, just booked tickets to a wee festival with my wife (even getting my toddlers in on the gig one night!).

I suppose it always happens when my band has a break and other musicians I just fancy jamming with let me down constantly or can't commit to a night in a practise room for a jam...but this is awful. Absolutely no enjoyment from playing. Only been a few nights but it's been scary.

Sorry for the whinge guys and thanks for the sweet advice, I'll work through it all.

ThePrettyDamned

Deijavoo;11919" said:

Meh,

how do you guys cope with a bad patch of lacking musical inspiration.? Tried real hard the last couple of nights and I just can't get my head into the game, my hands feel slow, all the riffs and songs I come up with are utter tripe. Dunno, not even enjoying the sound of my gear. Just leaving it and coming back to it a week or so seems to fix it, but I don't want to wait.

Meh.....

I try challenges.

I've gone stale recently as all my riffs seem to be phrygian or blues derived. So I made myself a challenge - a riff that uses 5/4.

Then a riff that was entirely tapped - no picks, no pull offs.

Okay, so they both came out shit. But it did help me come up with several more 'boring' chord progression type riffs which can have a tapped melody on top, which I'll hopefully record at the weekend.

chrisj1602

Record a riff you don't think is very good, better ideas can sometimes spin off it.

PolarityMan

I agree to a certain extent with the "force it" sentimentality. In my experience you get better at writing with practce and while the best songs are usually the ones that flow out like magic within half an hour I find they seem to happen more often if I'm writing regularly.

My other piece of advice is to finish something, I tried doing the song a week challenge someone on the old MR forum posted, I managed about 8 weeks I think. Some of the pieces are awful but I really like some of them and during that time I ended up with a fair bit of new band material as well.

My other peice of advice is swap things up with repect to the instrument you start with. For me sometimes that helps me separate the act of writing from the act of playing if you see what I mean.

frankus

Biggest driver to being inspired is to be thankful - sounds trite.

but lots of studies show gratitude opens the creative mind.

get some random list of youtube, spotify or last.fm ...

sit down and be grateful for the time you've got and the room and all that shit and your ears will open.

octatonic

I work on technique during the uninspiring bits.

A bad day playing guitar is still a guitar playing day.

monquixote

I had a bit of that today. 

I was thinking only the other day that my rig was sounding pretty much the best ever and then today it sounded total balls. 

jazzlemming

Yeah, I get that. Sometimes only for a day, sometimes for a few weeks. It's definitely psychological, and that can be so difficult to analyse. 

I also find that having a break from the guitar, or sometimes music completely works really well, although my technique needs a little rebuilding! 

Usually the more I fiddle with my pedals the worse I feel, until I just give up and do something else entirely!

Like octatonic, I've also tried working through it, just practising technical stuff, scales, patterns blah blah blah... which sometimes helps.

Reading books sometimes...

Just try everything, I guess, and hope that something helps.

If it takes time, then so be it, there's no need not to have fun in the meantime!

Deijavoo

I haven't played since this thread started, missing it today so might have a go tomorrow. 

Deijavoo

Played tonight. Aimlessly, and utterly enjoyed myself!

sweepy

Stop listening to guitarists, try playing along to a vocal melody line with all the inflections and trills . Raid the kids playlists. listen to Skrillex and anything outside your comfort zone, Trio Bulharka etc etc