Yeah I know, the obvious answer is, just WRITE - whatever's in your head, whatever's topical, whatever....
I'm going through a really rough patch at the moment. I've written exactly ONE song this year - by March, I've usually written at least a dozen or so. Some good, some not so good, and a couple that go straight in the bin....
This year, though, seems like my songwriting mojo's just disappeared. Completely. It's even a struggle to find something new to set as a topic in the SSG...let alone actually write a song!
I dunno, I suppose sooner or later the clouds'll lift and I'll see blue skies again - it just seems at the moment, everything I try and write a song about turns out so cheesy you could use it in a ploughman's lunch. Corny, cliched, been done before, just plain god-awful writing.....
This question's been posed before - what DO you do when you've lost the will to write? - and I've always come up with a few answers.....
1 - keep writing. sooner or later, you'll come up with a word or phrase that'll inspire a good song.
2 - go back over old songs you've written. Which are the good ones, and which are the not-so-good ones? Try and work out the differences....
3 - try and write "outside the box." Try and change your normal songwriting style - try and write something DIFFERENT. That's the whole point of the SSG assignments.
4 - keep a notepad handy at all times. You get an idea for a song, write it down....you may not finish it today, tomorrow, next week, or next month - but someday, you may just get a song from that idea.
5 - if all else fails, try "stream-of-consciousness" writing - just write down whatever comes into your head. Words, phrases, ideas - then try and link them together.
6 - if all else fails, try not even thinking about songwriting - if you set out to deliberately not write a song, you can guarantee you'll have at least six good ideas in the next hour!
So far, rules 1-6 have failed......miserably.....
And I really don't know where to go next....
:D :D :D
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
Write a bad song. Really bad. Embarrassingly bad.
Wait a day. Do it again.
Rhyme fire and desire, hold my hand, understand and man, miss you and kiss you, dance, chance and romance. Revel in the badness.
Try that.
A lot of times it's not writer's block as much as it is overzealous self-editing. Nick's right that the first task is to write anything and then see what happens.
Something that's worked for me is to do a collaboration, usually write music for someone else's lyrics. That's how one song we frequently perform came about , The Lobster Quadrille, which I wrote with Lewis Carroll (yes that Lewis Carroll of Alice in Wonderland fame) back in the day. I've also written music for Thomas Pynchon's The Displaced Person's Song (from Gravity's Rainbow) and a short paragraph taken from James Joyces' The Dead.
But writing with someone else you can actually communicate with, like other SSG members or friends who also songwrite, can be great. One of my favorite songs of Kathy Reichert's (and there are so many favorites now it's not funny), Dancing with the Stars, is the result of her collaborating with another guitarist, who came up with just the chord progression.
Another thing to try (and we did this as a fairly successful assignment a few years back) is to write a song for someone else to sing. I song you would never sing in a million years. It's amazing how not being worried about being seen as the writer can free you up to write things. Write a song that you'd like Status Quo to play and for people to think they wrote it themselves. Better yet, right a song for a group you don't like.
So write a bad song. Get something out on a piece of paper. Or just write part of a song and work with someone on making it whole.
And whatever you do, don't start editing before you have a whole page written in front of you. You may not get a song out of it - that's not the point. The point is to get writing.
Hang in there, Vic. There are many times when all the songs you've been working on all seem to come together at once and you think that you're on fire, when the reality is that it's all the work you've been doing for years is finally all getting finished at the same time.
Peace
Thanks, as always, for the advice David & Nick. Seems like I've had a total mental block for the past couple of months or so - normally, I'll have at least a couple of ideas a DAY!
Write a bad song. Really bad. Embarrassingly bad.
I think I just did - and posted it under this week's SSG topic. Don't think I'll do it again tomorrow, though!
A lot of times it's not writer's block as much as it is overzealous self-editing.
I think I understand what you mean - I'm used to writing fairly decent songs these days, so when I start writing something, and realise it's total rubbish, I tend to start from scratch and totally lose sight of the original spark....I've had spells before, when I haven't had a decent idea for a couple of weeks - and I've found, the more I try to force it, the more I struggle to put words together coherently....
Anyways, I've got the "BAD SONG!" out of my system - hopefully, and it's happened before, now's I've actually got to write a song, the floodgates'll open. Fingers crossed......
Thanks again!
(Oh, and one other thing I've just thought of - I really haven't been reading much lately. Normally, I'll read 2-3 novels a week - don't think I've actually read anything new this year. I find reading a good book now and then, even if it's one I've read before, sort of refreshes the vocabulary ("Input, INPUT!" - Johnny Five).....so maybe I need to catch up on some good books?)
:D :D :D
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
Or even a bad book. But good books are usually better at inspiring the muses. And, yes, one should always have more than one muse. They can be so picky and unpredictable... :wink:
Peace
I'll have to muse over that one - but my particular muse seems to have disappeared. Without leaving a forwarding address.
I just got SO fed up of rehashing the same old "I don't want to be here anymore" songs - but it seemed I couldn't write about anything else apart from not wanting to be here anymore. The odd good songs I wrote were all wishful thinking...along the lines of "What if I wasn't here anymore?" Seems I was stuck in a rut, with no way out - apart from actually changing my life completely. Seems I can only write about what I know, what I'm familiar with - even when I DO write "outside the box," so to speak, it's STILL about me and wanting to get away....
I suppose I'l get round it eventually - goes back to my earlier point (umm, did I actually mention that? Or was that somewhere else? I know I THOUGHT about it - even visualised it, in my head) about visualisation. You have to SEE youself through another's eyes, then write about yourself from that POV. Does that actually make sense?
If it does - well, it might make an interesting subject for the SSG.
If it doesn't -well, I'm no worse off.
:D :D :D
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
Maybe take some time away from trying to write and take some of the pressure off. I'm not much of a writer, well I haven't tried much but when things start to stagnate it's time to give your brain a rest.
The more you stress over the lack of writing skills at the moment the more difficult it will be to get out of that rut.
I think personally you need to look at trying new things, new experiences to get a different perspective on things.
Just my opinion which ain't worth much.
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
Just my opinion which ain't worth much.
Your opinion's as valid as anyone else's opinion, and it's a commonsense approach, so thanks for that, Chris.
It doesn't just apply to songwriting, but to guitar playing in general, and anything else, I suppose - there seem to be two distinct approaches to getting oneself out of a rut. One is head-down, muddle through, carry on regardless and work your way through it - the other is take some time off, take a step back and do something else...working on the theory that after a break, you'll come back refreshed.
I think my way's always been the first way - when it comes to problem-solving, I've always taken the bull-in-a-china-shop approach....work your way through it.
On the infrequent occasions when I've had to put the guitar away for a while, though - broken fingers, broken arm, severed tendon etc etc - it seems as though the rest HAS done me good. I know on each of those occasions I've been desperate to pick up a guitar again, and my playing's moved forward again.
I think this time, I'll try the laid-back approach - stop worrying (although I did manage to cobble something together for the SSG last week) about writing, and concentrate on something else. Sooner or later, a word or a phrase'll fire my imagination and away we go. And - it's not like I haven't got a huge back catalogue of my own songs that don't need working on......
:D :D :D
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
I'm only speaking from my experience here, but I find I write best when I have something specific, urgent/important, and clear to say. Or I'm trying to get specificity, or clarity on something vague but important to me. I find the SSG a challenge at times, simply because it goes against this tendency I have to only write when moved to do so. That said, when I contemplate the assignments enough to be moved by them, I've written some of my favourite stuff....
Anyway, my point is that I frequently find moments where the writing is fluid and overflowing (as is my bath, when I'm running it and one line comes, then the whole darn song pours out while I'm noting that one line...), and time when I don't write anything at all. I haven't written any lyrics for months. I'm not too bothered about it, though - I feel I'm in a, um, transition stage right now. I mean, I've been working on a wholly new style of music, seriously notching up the professionalism of my practice routine (starting with "developing one"), meeting a bunch of new people, trying new things (gonna be starting yoga this week, and been asked to go try kung fu stuff with a friend who's done that for years), and the new music has required me to start sight reading practice, learn a bunch of new tunes with way more chords and longer, more complex melodies compared to repeated 4-bar chord progressions and riffs, and I'm having to learn more of them in a shorter space of time than almost any time previously, and I'm "in charge" of organising my quartet and keeping it on track with rehearsals, finding a new bassist, and developing a solid setlist. Is it any wonder I've not written any lyrics for ages? My head is currently way more in "absorption mode" than "output mode" and any "output mode" I do have, I'm trying to devote to improvising over new material to me.
So, I'm gonna relax and not worry about not having written anything for ages, knowing that when I do come to write all the experiences I'm having now will feed into what I do write.
Trying different methods of breaking writer's block can be useful and great (particularly if there is a project you have a deadline for), but I think it's also good sometimes to just let the block happen, and instead of looking at it as writer's block, just look at it as "being busy with other things for a bit". To take it to the extremes - if you did nothing but write, all day long, for ages, your writing would suck because you'd have nothing to write about. The best writers tend to balance the writing with the living they do in order to fuel that writing, imvho. Do some living, and think of it as "preparatory exercises for your writing" rather than as time away from writing.
Vic,
As you know I haven't been writing as much this year as in the past also.
I found that I had lost direction and wasn't sure where I wanted to head musically.
I even tried a short stint in a Classic Rock band which I found out wasn't for me
so I went back to my basics which is The Blues. So totally immerse yourself in
your favorite style which for you I believe is Rock & Roll. Listen to and play nothing
else maybe even rediscover some favorite artist from the past. Johnny Winter really
reinspired me to get off my butt and start writing again.Learn some new/old songs and study
the structure. Well that's what worked for me anyways.
:note1: :note1: :note1:
John
Thanks for that advice, John. It's a funny thing, but my default setting for playing music is a blues shuffle played fairly uptempo, a la Stones (Start me Up, She's So Hot, etc.) - my default setting for writing seems to be the same shuffle but played a lot slower. I find it far easier to write a blues song than any other genre.
Maybe I should listen to a little more Country - Country and Blues do share a few similarities. The wife's gone, the kids are sick, the dog's died, the burglars came, you can't afford to get your guitar out of the pawn shop, etc, etc, etc....
Anyway, I think I'm getting back into the swing of things, slowly but surely. One problem is, David and Nick advised something along the lines of, "just write any old rubbish...." I just can't do that. Well I can, but not on purpose!
Oh well - where did I put that drawing board?
:D :D :D
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
One problem is, David and Nick advised something along the lines of, "just write any old rubbish...." I just can't do that. Well I can, but not on purpose!
Tell me about it! :lol:
