So, I've had a lotta good fortune of late. A song of mine made it on the All-Time Top Scoring -- a personal triumph -- and a few other of my DnB songs have stayed relatively toward the top of the rankings. I have all of this sudden underlying "prestige" (if you could even call it that; I consider it more like a good amount of luck), but now I need to follow up with that.
If any of y'all have heard the beginnings of my Peril series, I give you good news: I'm trying to add a third song to its ranks. However, I'm finding this to be exceptionally difficult because of one thing: Writer's block! Since July, I've been trying to follow up Distant Star, but everything I've made since then just can't seem to match it in design and amount. I know writer's block is extremely common and that all the good artists -- ESPECIALLY the good artists -- undergo it frequently, but at the same time, my mind is infected with thousands of different sounds just waiting to come to fruition. It's extremely frustrating to make something, but see that it's going nowhere. I'm tired of this; I would love more than anything in the world to get my inspiration back.
I do everything I should, too: I listen to other producers out there on NG, I listen to music, I hear things in my head when I hear someone else's stuff. I play my guitar to hear new harmony in my songs. In the end, all of it is for nought, because I can never get to the end of a project.
Right now, I have no clue what I should do. Over the past month, I was finally fortunate enough to come to the end of a piece of music I made; I have a completed version of "Peril 3," but honestly, I can't see it making a ripple anywhere...influencing anything...MEANING anything. I want my music to have meaning and to be antiparallel to everything mainstream -- I want my music to INSPIRE somebody else out there, so that they can make music too, and I want them to read into the emotions of my music -- but how can I do that with writer's block?
I'm making this post not to complain, but to ask for some advice. What do y'all do when you can't complete something? How do you cope with it? Do you force yourself to finish something even if you think it sounds like junk in the middle of the song, or your drums or mastering are off?
And another thing I'm wondering: How do y'all go about producing? Do you inch-worm your way along and get it all to sound perfect from the get-go, or do you map it all out and flesh it out as you go? How do y'all derive the patience to make something extraordinary when you know at the present it's nothing but a sketch? How do you gain the faith to make that leap from sketch to final product?
Breed
It's really strange how relevant this is to my current problem. I find that when I'm not inspired to make an original piece the best way to get over it is to just have fun with some stuff: Remixes, collabs, contests, or a new one I started doing last year where I let forums come up with themes for songs for me to do(or in other words challenges). In fact I am always looking to do more collaborations because I think it's the best way to learn(hint hint). What software do you use? oh and as for making a song I do it piece by piece and make it sound perfect as I go, but I also commonly never finish pieces so maybe it's not the best way. The patience is rarely there with us musicians, as shown because we upload work in progresses. I think if you make music for yourself you tend to like it enough to just always keep going at it too. Anyways there's my input on that whole thing. Good luck and as always, Cheers!
mr-jazzman
Hey man, thanks a bunch for being one of the few to put a meaningful post out here! =) It's good to know that there's other artists out there to connect with and relate to. I always figured my way of producing was unique, doing it part by part, but I guess it isn't! Anyways, I totally dig what you're saying about getting "involved" with the music scene here. I think it would really be a good test to see just how up to par my skills are, and also just have fun producing music in general =) And the "work-in-progress" thing seems to kinda be a big issue for most people; it's like you start something and then hear something else in your head later for a totally different song, and you wanna finish what you started but you can't because you're too excited about something else lol. But anyway, thanks again for the input, and I look forward to your future stuff! =)