Creative block

Look to the mysterious far east for inspiration.

ok

In seriousness, it might help to do something that broadens your horizons on your instrument, like learn to play a song that's in a style you don't usually play

Depends how long it's been going on.

If it's short term, then I generally wait it out. Letting the fields lie fallow for a few weeks or months is a pretty good idea.

But if it's long term, just force yourself, churn, like priming a pump, go for quantity not quality, which will come back with practise.

Also, it's a good idea to look at reasons *why* you feel like you're blocked.

If you feel stressed and tired, like you don't have the time to do anything any more, try to make time, schedule writing sessions and force yourself to play, even if you don't feel like it.

If you hate music and you just don't want to have anything to do with it any more, try to do something that recaptures your love of music - listen to your favourite albums, go see a band you really love.

I'm currently backing off, but in the back of my mind I'm afraid I won't come back to it.

At least I have a lot of gigs to play in the meantime, so I still feel like I'm doing music without having to be all that creative.

Sometimes I'll take a walk or do something else like play videogames or turn the tv on while having the instrument in my lap and the song playing. Sometimes not thinking about it is the best way. Or listening to something that inspires you that has nothing to do with the song's style or subject.

work with different people, or on a different instrument

OK, these are kinda ridiculous but two things that have helped me break through a lot of creative logjams.

1. Practice/write in the morning. In the morning, I don't have any songs stuck in my head, my ears aren't tired from listening to music and co-workers all day and I'm just sluggish enough to play something interesting that isn't the same box of routines I usually end up playing.

2. Play someone else's set-up or go to a music store and try out a different instrument. I was in Sam Ash a couple weeks ago just killing time and I tried out one of the new Gretsch reissues. Great guitar, but I really liked the chords I was playing, so I ended up phone-camming what I was doing and picked it up when I got home.

GARDENING! try it, it works. especially if you have some means of quickly writing/recording your ideas, just humming or whatever, then back to the gardening.

Had this epiphany when i was working on an allotment with my dad. Most creative I've been in ages. This seems to work in the same way as going to sit somewhere, or for a walk, except your not concious of the fact that you're going for a walk to be creative, you're kinda just.. gardening.

Altho not good if you need fingernails to play your guitar and you end up breaking one. Booooo

I got a new one. open garageband, browse through the loops and pretend you're Hans Zimmer.

got a lot of mileage out of some oblique strategies today. simplistic canonical arrangement that turned out to work really well was an example of "honor thy error as a hidden intention" - also a lot of the others relating to basically being lazy, faking it, stealing, etc.

the toughest thing sometimes is abandoning the urge to work harder and longer on a track. In my mind I have an approximate minimal time budget for musical stuff, when really it should be just like any other kind of writing; when it's done it's done, leave it alone and mix down the master already.

oh and also learning about the tiny little button in Live that just reverses the sample playback, when I'd been dropping into Audacity for it and making my life 5x harder up until the other day