I love making music I feel it in my blood I always want to make it so bad and I feel so passionate and inspired almost all the time but when I go to sit down and try to create something like i used to I cant seem to get anything worthwhile to come out. How can I practice and create something that sounds amazing without burning myself out. Help!
How Should I Practice?
- Thread starter Georog
- Start date
aslaton1
New member
ROBICHEAUX
New member
Thanks that's a really good starting out resource!
bandcoach
Zukatoku - Mod Scientist
Yes the Mugglin site is very good for starting out.
Now to practice
Practice has within it the word act: it has the sense of action with purpose, which may include repetitive acts such as playing through scales and chords and arpeggios.
To that end, a practice session should be about building skills and reinforcing new knowledge first and creating great stuff second.
A typical skills/knowledge building practice session consists of
Advising you on what to practice, though, is a little difficult as your description of your problem is somewhat vague "I can't make stuff like I used to".
This could mean that you are stuck in a rut or it could mean that you are trying too hard to not duplicate what you have done before. The solution to each of these issues is different.
Being stuck in a rut happens to all of us (and we are lying if we say it hasn't/won't happen to me) - any creative artist will achieve points of plateau, points where they seem to be stuck at a creative cross-roads or stuck at performance level. This comes about for many different reasons, but the most common is simply that of needing time to assimilate all that you have learnt so far; in other words these points of plateau are really points of consolidation, not of atrophy.
Perhaps, then, the issue is one of having acquired too much information and not having enough time to digest it and apply it. A remedy for this is to apply these new ideas and use them in pieces that demonstrate your mastery of the concepts even if they are less than inspired creative pieces. Not every piece we write should be considered as being for release; otherwise we never give ourselves the opportunity to add new techniques and ideas to our creative arsenal.
Trying not to duplicate your previous work is an admirable decision; however, it is foolhardy at many levels, not least because your unique artistic voice should be identifiable by how you write your material and the things that you use constantly as opposed to those things that you avoid or use rarely. If you are trying to be creative in entirely new ways each time you write, you will find eventually that you can't write the bangers you used to, mainly because you are avoiding your core skills, seeking new, untested skills in each new piece.
For this problem, the solution is simple and obvious: use your creative voice, don't be afraid of using ideas that identify this piece as having been made by you.
Now to practice
Practice has within it the word act: it has the sense of action with purpose, which may include repetitive acts such as playing through scales and chords and arpeggios.
To that end, a practice session should be about building skills and reinforcing new knowledge first and creating great stuff second.
A typical skills/knowledge building practice session consists of
- warmups - scales, arpeggios, chords, etc gradually getting faster
- playing known pieces, perhaps a little faster than last time
- learning new pieces
- learning new ideas
- playing known pieces, perhaps a little faster than last time
- warmdowns - the opposite of the warmup, same material but gradually getting slower
Advising you on what to practice, though, is a little difficult as your description of your problem is somewhat vague "I can't make stuff like I used to".
This could mean that you are stuck in a rut or it could mean that you are trying too hard to not duplicate what you have done before. The solution to each of these issues is different.
Being stuck in a rut happens to all of us (and we are lying if we say it hasn't/won't happen to me) - any creative artist will achieve points of plateau, points where they seem to be stuck at a creative cross-roads or stuck at performance level. This comes about for many different reasons, but the most common is simply that of needing time to assimilate all that you have learnt so far; in other words these points of plateau are really points of consolidation, not of atrophy.
Perhaps, then, the issue is one of having acquired too much information and not having enough time to digest it and apply it. A remedy for this is to apply these new ideas and use them in pieces that demonstrate your mastery of the concepts even if they are less than inspired creative pieces. Not every piece we write should be considered as being for release; otherwise we never give ourselves the opportunity to add new techniques and ideas to our creative arsenal.
Trying not to duplicate your previous work is an admirable decision; however, it is foolhardy at many levels, not least because your unique artistic voice should be identifiable by how you write your material and the things that you use constantly as opposed to those things that you avoid or use rarely. If you are trying to be creative in entirely new ways each time you write, you will find eventually that you can't write the bangers you used to, mainly because you are avoiding your core skills, seeking new, untested skills in each new piece.
For this problem, the solution is simple and obvious: use your creative voice, don't be afraid of using ideas that identify this piece as having been made by you.