The Search for Inspirato

I read hundreds of industry blog posts each week, I can talk in depth on subjects like: social media for musicians, the rise of the new music industry, which web tools are the most effective for an indie musician that is trying to be a business. Yet, today I find myself without inspiration to write about anything.

It happens to all of us, no matter what industry you happen to be in or what job you happen to be doing, we all get in ruts and we all find ourselves without inspiration. So what do you do about it?

As I sat here going over the scraps of other topics that you almost ended up reading today, I asked myself that very question and it got me thinking about playing the bass. You see I play the bass and although it is not always the best instrument to write a song on, many a great riff has started life as a bass line. Whenever I find myself in a rut on the bass I always manage to find my way out of it. I never thought about how I managed this until today but the solution to every rut is always the same... get creative. Now that might seem an overly simple solution (getting creative to get out of a creative rut...duh!) but let me explain.

If I found myself in a writing rut, I would stop trying to write music and start trying to make my bass make new sounds. I would tweak all of the dials on my amp, put effects in the signal chain and tweak them, lace things in between the strings and try to get a different tone. Whatever, it didn't matter, I was bored and trying to entertain myself but somehow, something would always come through. I would always come across a sound that was interesting and then I would screw around with it for a while. All of a sudden a bass line that I would have thrown away 5 minutes earlier was now the most exciting thing I had heard in weeks!

So how does this apply to you? Why the heck am I writing this?

If you find your self in a rut with promoting your band or developing your online presence or maintaining your fanbase... get creative. Do something you've never done before, even if it is stupid or not practical. If you keep doing what you are dong, you will stay in that rut. The deal with your instrument is that the feedback is instantaneous, tweak it and it makes a sound. Promoting your band, or developing your online presence is not instantaneous but you can still get creative while you do it. Have you tried a flash mob or asking fans to donate money for a producer credit? I didn't think so.

Don't make it "do what it do", make it do what it don't.