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inspiring creativity

interesting......yea, i don't know.........I'm starting to tire myself over the fact that I've made my year's quota of mind-drivel for people to get stoned to in fruityloops. I want so badly to make something that has meaning other than for the purpose of someone rolling a joint to smoke to.
 
I find I don't usually get bored with musc as much as I get bored with my enviornment. Here's some things that have helped me.

1. Completely re-arrange the room you work in. Sometimes just creating a new looking space will affect your sense of being in a rut.

2. Try to rip off other songs. As you do them if your a creative person you'll often wind up going down a tangent path that wil unlock new ideas.

3. Take your bass and randomly tune it and then play. You can't rely on training or habits and will have to write completley by ear. Then tune back up and learn the ideas in standard.

4.Limit yourself in an idea. Give yourself one sound, 3 notes, etc. When you have less to work with your creativity will fight harder to get out of the box. Kinda like Haiku writing.

5. Watch a movie with the sound off and write a spontaneous soundtrack. It keeps your mind on reacting instinctively rather than conciously defeating ideas that could happen if you thought less about them in advance.

6. Try doing the same idea with a book. Reading tends to increase imagination. Read a few chapters of a book and then write music that would be the background to what you read.

7. Go to an unfamiliar place, a hike, etc. Take a mini cassette recorder of the like. Sing basslines and just let what's in you come out. You'll do what you really connect with rather than your habits or technique limitations. Take the recording home and learn the parts.

Some of these ideas are kinda esoteric and may not give an immediate hit song, but they tend to unlock areas that are block and get the flow moving again.

If you have a digital recording setup:

1. Listen to your weak songs, ideas, basslines, backwards. Whole new melodies and grooves can come out of it. If your totally out of ideas, listen to other peoples music backwards. I got a really swinging bassline by listening to Lemon from U2 backwards.

2. Create a rythm loop. Add your other ideas one at a time over top of it and nudge them a 16th at a time over it. New rythms can make a weak or boring idea suddenly have new life.
 
yea, I don't know, i must've stayed that way long enough to just be like, immune to being angry. And I'm sure rewatching movies like taxi driver and fight club nightly hasn't exactly helped the best emotional state.

Well, for me, creative activities are cathartic. Whether it's writing something, playing bass, or photography, I'm more apt to do these things when I feel pretty PO'd about something than anything else. When feeling terrible, gravitate towards something that makes you feel good... just works for me that way.