Perhaps you’re an ardent songwriter, you’ll know how it feels to perceive you’re on the verge of a major hit song, and yet the lyrics don’t seem to flow. This doesn’t always have to be perceived as a bad thing though. If channeled correctly, it could pave the way for massive inspiration. We’ll be looking into five ways you could effectively take advantage of songwriters block.
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1. Identifying the causes
Most times, those moments of blank inspiration are usually caused by distractions; pressing matters that need to be attended to, either from family, friends, school, or just work. These troubles can be a heavyweight on one’s mind, the result of which leaves little or no space for fresh inspiration to flow. To tackle this challenge, take the hint and first identify what the bothers may be, and then seek to solve them first. Perhaps, as is often the case, it is in the course of meeting those needs that major inspiration may start to flow in. But it remains of necessity that your first endeavor to solve any pressing challenge clouding your thoughts before you proceed into songwriting, else the theme of the song will end up being affected by your current mood and state of mind.
2. Creating a routine
The brain functions by default patterns set up over time. What this means is that; your mental faculties already have registered what you tend to be doing at each specific time of the day, and tries to cooperate with you by giving you the mood for it. For instance, ever notice how once the exact time for your daily lunch reaches, your stomach starts to churn, signifying hunger? It is in this same vein that you can create a routine setting, so your brain can know when it’s time for work and can cooperate in helping you with the right emotional and cognitive state for effective songwriting. Routines also help avoid distractions, especially if you can efficiently keep to them, you’ll see how you’ll eventually end up making so much progress in your songwriting.
3. Power breaks
As earlier said, momentary obstructions to your inspirational flow don’t mean something is wrong with you, nor is it something you should get frustrated or depressed about. Most of the time, it just means your brain has been overworked and needs to rest. Going for a walk, or getting your motorized bicycle to take a stroll in the park might turn out to be very beneficial for your emotional state. And occasionally, these break times serve as windows for fresher inspiration. Even when you’re working for long hours, an average of 10-15 minutes rest is recommended for every 45 minutes to 1 hour of work.
4. Socialization
Perhaps the reason you’re stuck on a line could be because that line may not have been so great anyway, and you’ll discover how much better it could be if shared with friends or family for their opinions and suggestions. There are multiple online platforms you could send big files through so no matter how large, you could easily get people to give inputs from anywhere they are in the world. There are also collaborative writing apps that could help in joint songwriting. With these features, you don’t even need to have the full piece, you could just leave an idea and let others develop it.
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Many people wrongly believe creativity is just a special gift only possessed by specific people when contrarily, it’s just a product of the right planning, right setting, right moods, and right methods. In essence, we can say it’s a skill that can and should be developed. It’s in the failure to do this that songwriters (and all writers alike) experience the occasional writer’s block.