The Dreaded Creative Slump
We all have moments when our creativity just doesn’t seem to want to come out and play. Maybe your singer is having writer’s block. Or, perhaps your guitarist is finally starting to realize that there are only so many ways to rearrange the chords C, G, and D before they realize that all their songs sound too much alike. Whatever the problem is that sufficates your creative genius, it can potentially effect your bands ability to make progress overall. So, what does a musician do when they find themselves in a slump?
For some, the road to new creative discoveries is long and frustrating. I remember after playing guitar for many years that I hit a rut that kept me grounded for two years. I would play and play but nothing really new and exciting seemed to jump out and grab my attention. To make matters worse, I began to get board with practicing the same stuff over and over again. In all honesty, I became so board i put my guitar in its case and ignored it for nearly a year. Sometimes a person will put an instrument down and never pick it up again. Fortunately, I got to a point where I started missing the feel of my strat. So, one day I pulled it out of the closet, plugged it in, and cranked the amp. I noticed that it didn’t feel quite so stale to run the neck like it used to.
Now and then, I find myself being plagued by a creative rut. It isn’t uncommon for me to put my guitar down for a week or so to clear my head, but I no longer take these super long breaks from playing. Rather, I’ve developed other methods for handling creative defficiencies. One thing I find really works well is to intentionally pick up a style of music to listen to that I don’t normally listen to. To be a real musician, you have to be able to handle and appreciate music outside of your normal comfort zone. The ability to learn to appreciate types of music beyond what you normally work with is a means to new ideas and perspectives on music. Sometimes the mere attempt to fuse ideas from a style you aren’t so in love with with a style that you really like can lead to moments of pure creative genius. Once I rigged my harmonizer and an old distortion pedal up to give me as close to a violin sound as I could conjure up and from imagining what it would be like to play my guitar more like a violin, I learned a whole new approach to bending notes that I now slip in to my normal playing from time to time.
In its essence, creativity is the art of experimentation. You experiment because you are searching for something new to add to your unique playing style. Sometimes you just have to push the envelope before you will come across an idea or a technique that no one else has exploited. Those who spend time actively expirementing with new sounds and new approaches to playing or writing end up uncovering a lot of hidden treasure to add to their arsonal along the way. Nowadays, I am constantly thinking up new things to experiment with just to broaden my horizons. I mean, hooking picks to a drill bit? Who would have ever believed it would work?
Another great avenue to explore is to work with different artists. This can be a point of contention between a lot of musicians and their bands. Lots of times people feel somewhat betrayed if you go off and play with another band for a while. But, the reality is that musicians who get this kind of exposure to a variety of other people who approach music from different angles end up having far more to work with when it comes to expressing their creative talents. So, you should be clear about your intentions with the band you are with before working with other musicians if you believe this could become a potential problem. I constantly look for musicians who are just a bit better than I am to work with, because this gives me an opportunity to trade off ideas and still feel like I can keep up. Where if you try to work with someone who is too far ahead of your abilities, that can sometimes be an awkward collaboration for both parties involved. You simply need to decide if you are looking for a person to be your instructor or if you are looking for someone to learn along side because they are close to your playing level and their creative efforts are leaning in the same direction as yours. Sometimes this second type of person is better than hiring a person to be your teacher, because you learn by doing in a more intuitive manner rather than by being told what to do by someone more experienced. Both approaches have their advantages though.
In some situations, all it takes is a change of environment to inspire me to pump out new ideas. One time it got so bad I started taking my acoustic to the beach just to put myself in a new setting. So, there I am out on Clearwater beach in Florida and it’s like 1:30am. The sound of the waves, the nice breeze, and the darkness all played a role in pushing me to explore new chordal relationships and connections. In the first hour I kept having those aha moments that made me more and more intimately aware of ways to get from one point to another in a couple songs I was writing. Those insights probably wouldn’t have come so easily if I had continued to allow myself to stagnate in my old environment.
One method I use quite often that i find to be rather interesting and fun to play around with is expressive communication. Either I imagine that I am trying to use my guitar to speak to the audience or I imagine say the movement of an object such as an animal and try to describe it with music. At first this can seem like a strange way to approach new ground in the creative realm. But it pulls together a lot of your musical skill as you learn to paint your way around a song with musical phrasing in an attempt to convey what you feel when you think of a cat on the prowl or a forest filled with trees swaying in an intense wind. Or, maybe you are trying to convey a dancing flame flickering about on a candle. Whatever the object of your focus happens to be, it helps to set your mind in the mood to forge new ideas by giving yourself a theme of sorts to work with. Of course, these are simply a few of the techniques I use to help myself move through a creative slump. So, I hope this inspires you to pick up your talent where you last left off and use a new approach to get the creative juices flowing again.
