Hi everyone!

It's been a long time since I've been here... Any who... I'm having the most ridiculous writer's block EVER. I wanted to know if there are any techniques you use to get around this. There is nothing more frustrating then starting a track and never finishing it.

Thanks in advance!

Write a chord progression. Develope a melody based on it. Build 2/3 main leads. Now make directly the breakdown/build-up.


After this, intro and outro should be much easier for you.

take a break.
listen to new music.

In Live 8:

Grab any sound that can be used to make a melody (e.g. bass, synth, dynamic perc, etc.), load it into Simpler, throw a Random plugin and Scale plugin on the channel, hit record and let Live create some melodies/patterns for you over the next few minutes. Then take a look at the recording, find something you like, and get started on a new track

Hint: Set the recording channel to receive MIDI so that the MIDI data get recorded too!

Speaking as both a guy who writes A LOT for my job and someone who has been composing for almost 3 decades, I can say that sometimes there's not much you can do to get around writer's block. My job (biologist) requires me to write primarily technical reports, so I don't have to worry too much about being creative (it does require some creative thinking/writing more often than you might think, though). But, I have to force it sometimes to meet deadlines, which can be difficult, even for analytical writing. A writer's block is a writer's block and forcing it usually means that you're not able to give it your best effort.

If you can't get around it, go with Senator Clay Davis' advice and do something else. That's a good time to either do something completely non-music-related, or do the mundane things that you don't want to bother with when the creativity is flowing (e.g., organize your sample libraries, learn a new piece of gear/software, etc.).

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I recently just got over writer's block, it's definitely a hard thing to deal with. Something I like to do when I'm feeling uninspired is to go and listen to sample packs on sample sites. Then usually I'll hear something catchy maybe a chord progression or a synth sound that I really like and I'll try to recreate it to an extent.

This doesn't always work but it might help. Senator Clay Davis' advice is another good solution, listening to new music can help you break out of the box (and the box is something I feel sometimes causes the writers block). Nick Cenik's idea for Live is yet another alternative method -- it may not sound promising at first but you can really get some good things out of doing that in Live.