Okay so i have been trying for weeks now to write a song..

Denis i havent givin up im just stuck.

How do i get unstuck? I mean i can write other music and other lyrics, its just this one song. I cant figure it out. Maybe im being to picky about it? idk..

i guess my ? is what do you do when your stuck like this?

frustrated as hell,
Sarah

You know, I get my best melodic and lyrical ideas when I've stayed up for 20 hours or more.  That might sound strangely like being high, but I'm serious.  And it's cheaper than being high

After staying up until 4am hard at work on something (usually programming, for me), then I try to go to bed, and all I can hear in my head are crazy melodies that I swear I've never heard before.  Words and phrases come to my mind, already put together with the music it belongs with.

It might also help if you've been listening to some band's music which you sort of want to mimic.  That influence seems to be enough to jumpstart my brain when I'm lying in my bed at 4:30am.

Give it shot if you want :P

In addition to TLS's advice may I suggest walking or jogging.Seriously don't laugh  some of my partner's best ideas musically sprang from getting away from the work space & walking , maybe it;s to do with motion , moving forward stimulation from more than a cold draining computer screen , we are lucky to live in a leafy natural environment , in the afternoon the golden light dappled dancing across the eyes , birds fragrance of trees and flowers ,  and of course the body's natural rhythm.
Of course as TLS san says  you can always pick a song you like or is close to the direction you want and rework in your mind.
I uses a pocket recorder to grab ideas too.
Also the bathroom has been a great dreaming up place.Running water has a music of it's own along with natural reverb.
Take a nice long hot bath indulge .

Relax and let the cosmos speak and sing to you then sing right back.

Play and enjoy , even if just for your own pleasure.
Good luck

Y

 

Hmm, I can only speak musically, as everyone knows I'm the worst to get inspiration for lyrics.

So perhaps it's the same for any artistic creation? Well with me I keep things very simple. If I'm stuck on creating a piece of music. I just leave it, then come back to it later until a time when things just seem to flow.

Also, I'll work on several pieces at the same time simply because there will be one particular song that I'll feel like working on, plus it keeps the music writing flowing, rather than get stuck on one project that could end up being frustrating and never ever finished, or never being happy with it.

So I would suggest to leave it, write something else, if you haven't done so already, then every now and then take a look at it, if it's not happening, then leave it again. In this way your not putting yourself under any pressure, you can simply take it or leave it.  It will happen when your good and ready.

Do you remember a few weeks ago I was going to try and write lyrics to one of your lyrics, same happened to me, I got stuck. I haven't forgotten about it, just left it pending and at the same time have written and produced two other pieces of music since, which I've enjoyed doing. So it keeps it fun, that's what it's all about, just enjoy it, take pleasure from it.

Well this is my way, it may or may not work for anyone else. If it doesn't work try something else, perhaps your instincts will guide you better than anything else.

No worries.

Denis

LOL TLS...thats like what happens to me all the time. whenever im super tired and "high" everything just makes sense and I get all these awesome ideas.
lol

Yep sleep deprivation surely does do miracles.... lol...

You could also try eating LOTS of chocolate and drinking quite a lot of coffee. Your creativity might be jumpstarted, maybe not for lyrics immediately but after the intake of chocolate and/or coffee, just start writing a story or a diary entry or whatever... the writing process may instigate lyric writing inspiration... just keep an extra tab open and pen down phrases when they come to you, while you're writing something else.. Basically it just helps to divert your attention from an empty sheet while still keeping busy with writing.... just some ideas...

good luck!

i really like  what PX just said, that sounds so good right now. As far as depriving myself of sleep goes..( that sounds so harsh lol) but seriously i have wrote a few things that came to mind at the wee hours of the morning, so maybe i should load up on chocolate and coffee, listen to my favorite c.d.s maybe read some poetry and see what happens...........that actually sounds like fun.

Denis, i just dont know what it is about that song, but i just cant be satisfied with what i write for it...i want to do it justice, because the music is beautiful, i shall succeed! lol it just may take some time. thanks for being so understanding.

well off to the market to buy some chocolate and coffee filters! thanks for the ideas!

keep em coming buy all means!

Sarah

Ohh i just love Cadbury's Fruit and nut Chocolate. I normally treat myself to some every Saturday yum yum delciuous, oh and Kenko Dark roast coffee.

Sounds like a fine method!!!

Hope it works for you Sarah, but no matter, all will be well in time, just you wait and see!!!!

also, some days i feel like im on the top of the world and i get all these great ideas, and some days i feel like crap and stuff like that....
today was a good day and ive been writing lyrics and stuff, so it really depends what mood your in and what you feel like doing

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Hope it works for you Sarah, but no matter, all will be well in time, just you wait and see!!!!
/quote
Denis you sound like a prophet.
Coffee late into the night is one thing, Chocolates is another !!!
Scoffing chocolates into the night will only make you lazy and fat, not inspired !
Coffee helps, but only when your working out the inspiration you have already had.
Inspiration comes, as we have been enlightened, from walks, movement, travel, the sea, rivers, water, showers, baths (baths are static but are a step in the right direction: a good frame of mind) and open spaces...to look into..!

The idea that 'it will come' bugs me a bit, because I know 'it will come' , but you have to participate, you have to make it real just the same, at the end of the day you can find the peace and inner tranquillity to 'bump into' your inspirational ideas anywhere you see fit, but working the ideas into a single entity always takes some midnight oil.

Friends can help sometimes as well, what ideas have you come up with so far and where do you want them to go?

I love how the sleep deprivation and chocolate thing has gotten so much mileage :P

I can't get over how "environment" is so important to inspiration.  I find it easy to drone along on paper, trying to write clever lines, but I think those things come really quickly once you've got an "atmosphere" that the song is supposed to be in.

A song has a theme, not a narration.

And you don't write about the theme, you write to illustrate the theme.  Then you sing it in such a way that the atmosphere and theme are simply understood from the song.

I think a leading cause of death of most song ideas is a failure to adhere to the above 2 paragraphs.  If you just talk your way through a theme, then it comes off as a load of crap, because you step back and realize that not even your (as the author) can get imagery from the words.

And make your lyrical topic interesting.  Heaven knows there are too many songs about the same old topics... love is almost too easy.  (It can of course be done very well, but usually not.)  But there are so many other song ideas that are far more intriguing.  Even within "love", you can expound on that a whole lot and make it very specific.  I don't mean "I love so-and-so", I mean "Does your husband know that I crave you"  -- I don't mean to encourage sexual affairs-- I'm simply illustrating that "love" is boring.

Don't write about your flaws unless you're confessing them.  If you're feeling sorry for yourself or your decisions, then I would write that off as "not specific enough".

Make some waves.

WOW! okay so i tried the coffee and chocolate last night. it worked! i  (do i dare say it?) i wrote a song!  Well most of one anyway. It was pouring rain last night so that is all i could hear, so i bundled up in blankets, opened the window a little, sipped my black coffee, nibbled on some dark chocolate and scribbled some words. IT WAS SOOO FUN!

honestly though, i did have to sort of set an atmosphere for it. and i was up til the wee hours but the rain does wonders. i love the rain. i dont know how else to discribe it other than i was put into a daze so to speak. i just sorta drifted away for a bit and found some creative things within myself to write about.

TLS-
You got the theme idea right. I use emotions as themes. I ask myself, "how is this song going to make the listener feel?" i think that it has alot to do with what emotion you want to show through the words, and later on the instrumentation. Of course you cant quite narrow down how its going to make the listener feel but i think that you get what i mean.

One more thing....

Looking through photos....
Mentally going through memories...
It conjures up forgotten feelings, emotions, situations that you were in...
its amazing. That and for me it seems that night time is when most of my memories, and emotions are the most sensitive. I think i can create more "waves" at night than during the day.

crazy how things are.

Thanks for your ideas, and your suggestions, you guys are great.

-Sarah

Happy to hear it!  Best of luck to you!