How to demolish a 3 year mental block... - ACAPELLAS4u - Your #1 Resource for FREE Acapella Downloads

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April 4, 2006 at 3:11 pm #533588

Juggernaut
Participant

…anyone have any pointers??
the last time i managed to sit down for a good few hours and have a basic track down then spend the next week (or 4) tweeking it and the like was when i was doing a-levels and learning all sorts of stuff. I now have a similar setup and i can never get past like 32bars of something then just get this HUGE mental block, leave it…come back to it..do something completely different but never have progressed at all.

the um, track i did for the 1st round house comp isn’t anything to go by as all my vst’s decided to go AWOL so did something just to see how it would do. But seriously do you ever get a mental block? other than leaving it for a while, what else is there?

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April 4, 2006 at 3:11 pm #587835

Juggernaut
Participant

…anyone have any pointers??
the last time i managed to sit down for a good few hours and have a basic track down then spend the next week (or 4) tweeking it and the like was when i was doing a-levels and learning all sorts of stuff. I now have a similar setup and i can never get past like 32bars of something then just get this HUGE mental block, leave it…come back to it..do something completely different but never have progressed at all.

the um, track i did for the 1st round house comp isn’t anything to go by as all my vst’s decided to go AWOL so did something just to see how it would do. But seriously do you ever get a mental block? other than leaving it for a while, what else is there?

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April 4, 2006 at 9:26 pm #587853

anisina
Participant

I have had a block for quite a while now, due to health factors, but somedays I can’t be bothered to attempt music, and other days when I do, it all goes so slowly and nothing seems to feel right.

It has been said that there are many things that ‘block’ the creative thinking, but thinking creative even when you are not writing exercises the brain and eventually you begin to instinctively think creative again. As they say, the brain should be treated like a muscle, and should be exercised.

I have found to be of some help when I can’t decide what to do or get cheesed off.

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April 4, 2006 at 9:53 pm #587856

DJ Val
Participant

Hi there juaggernaut, it seems thier are a number of us in the same boat. I’ve had a mental block for nearly three months now. I’ve been working on a remix Hypnotic Erotic Gasmes – Soul Shaker. It was getting on nicely although very slowly, then bang, I, for the life of me am stuck on ideas for the bridge and outro.
As Anisina mentioned, you need to keep your brain exercised, so instead of not doing anything music related, I decided to go back to my djing stuff and am coming up with tons of mixes. Mt other major downfall is these days, I just don’t seem to have enought time to do much with my music, there is always something else that needs doing (no not my neighbours son!!!). One just tries to get a happy medium going, it is hard though.
I do recommend the link that anisina has given, it is very interesting.
I hope you get rid of the mental block soon, nothing more frustrating than that.
Take care

Val

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April 5, 2006 at 12:52 am #587866

Juggernaut
Participant

Cheers for that link…i remember in my first year of music tech that one of the lecturers was ranting and raving about oblique strategies but as that course was so disappointing i guess i forgot everything.
Funny you should mention DJing…i do it on a weekly basis at uni, but i can’t do a mix at home!! just doesn’t feel right…so i guess i’ll concentrate on that and see how it goes…hopefully something will be posted up in the music section soon 😀

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April 5, 2006 at 5:18 pm #587888

Procleus
Participant

Happens to me off an on. Basically don’t know where to take a track. I just save it, and start a new one. Best ways to complete a track is to figure out how it’s going to blend with another one. For me if I’m solving a problem rather than re-inventing the wheel I get through the block. Most creative ideas come from accident, for me anyhow, and that’s usually when I’m trying make no mistakes at all.

Repeated listening of a track that I’m blocking on doesn’t help. Just frustrates me. But if I come back to it a month later it sounds fresh, and ideas will come to mind…

Anyhow, hope that helps. Keep trackin’!

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April 7, 2006 at 12:38 pm #587979

Juggernaut
Participant

Beef wrote:

Do a collab…or engineer for someone else….or go and get some to engineer for you. You’ll get fresh ideas and may learn something new by working with someone else……always works for me

you know…i never thought of that…i’ve always been a one woman army. so will give that a go too in a while

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April 7, 2006 at 1:48 pm #587982

DJ_Brady
Participant

[quote quote="anisina":35acddmt]
It has been said that there are many things that ‘block’ the creative thinking[/quote:35acddmt]
As the guy from Arctic Monkeys say in their new song
" The two for ones undone the writers block "
Meaning alchohol..
Im not saying that that can boost your creativity.. but it seems you could have all these great lyrics, melodies in your head but just can´t get them out.. but somehow when you drink alchohol with some people it tends to boost creativity.
You might think Im talking crap but I think many of the great writers have taken alchohol or drugs at some point?
Im not saying get smashed but maybe with some people they have a few drinks and suddenly get a rush of brilliant lyrics because you normally get more open-minded with alchohol in you.

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April 7, 2006 at 3:11 pm #587995

vim
Participant

[quote quote="Procleus":yqaezshf]Happens to me off an on. Basically don’t know where to take a track. I just save it, and start a new one. Best ways to complete a track is to figure out how it’s going to blend with another one. For me if I’m solving a problem rather than re-inventing the wheel I get through the block. Most creative ideas come from accident, for me anyhow, and that’s usually when I’m trying make no mistakes at all.

Repeated listening of a track that I’m blocking on doesn’t help. Just frustrates me. But if I come back to it a month later it sounds fresh, and ideas will come to mind…

Anyhow, hope that helps. Keep trackin’![/quote:yqaezshf]

Yes, I’m feeling that. I have hundreds of unfinished tunes here, I work on music ever day, but rarely finish stuff these days. Is it an age thing? When I was in my early 20s I could easily spend hours on end totally concentrating on tunes, and I wasn’t too concerned about them being the best thing ever, whereas now I get too anal about EQ, the mix, that sound, this beat, thinking too hard.

I have found that my best tracks, and the ones people seem to like best, are the ones I just do almost by accident, where I’m a bit bored and just throw down stuff. Of course you can’t really engineer an accident to happen, just leave yourself open to it, it’s the best you can do.

For me though I find the internet a culprit. I spend too much time on it and it takes away from music-making. I did try and have a separate music computer (until it died) but kept going back to check my email etc – grrrrr.

Lastly there’s nothing like that feeling of a completed track you’re proud of to keep you going. It’s such a rush

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April 18, 2006 at 2:15 am #588499

reagansmistress
Participant

I found that if I mess around with music outside of my style or outside of my musical ability I can come back to my core music with new ideas for, if nothing else, arangment… I also keep my music machine in a room with no LAN outlet.

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How to demolish a 3 year mental block…