Extracting Creativity and Inspiration

Songwriting has always been an elusive activity for me. I'll go through a month without writing a single word or note, then I'll write two complete songs in a day. Everyone seems to have their own process for songwriting and most individual's process tends to vary indefinitely. As artists I think we're always trying new things to encourage our processes to be new and exciting week to week. Anything we can do to stir up the creative in ourselves.

Switching up the location!

I have a tendency to feed off of the unknown. Maybe I'm scared of getting comfortable. For whatever reason, my inner creative is always looking for something new to figure out or speculate about. My best songs have been written on road trips. My best ideas often come when I'm out exploring on a new trail or walking through a new town. Even just to write this blog, I find it necessary to get out of the house and go sit at a coffee shop.

Defining time into different methods of thinking.

I find it important to clearly define what kind of thinking I am partaking in at any given time. For example, when I am first trying to come up with an idea I lean towards divergent thinking. This basically suggests that I try every possible option that comes to mind. Once I have something to latch onto, I try to transition into more logical thinking to chronologically expand on that idea. If I were to continue thinking divergently, I may lose track of the intrinsic direction of an idea.

Steal!

A mentor of mine would always say good artists create, but great artists steal. That can sound lazy or be considered faking it, but how on earth would you know where to take a song if you didn't have influences? The theft of challenging lyrical topics, exciting chord changes or melodic concepts are how we push the art forward! If we are always trying to reinvent the wheel, that will completely stunt progress. It sure is romantic to think we come up with things entirely on our own, be even our subconscious could be accused of theft.

There is an entire ocean of topics to cover in the realm of songwriting, and these concepts are just off the top of my head. I find it useful to focus on one or two methods and try to write using some stricter guidelines. The limitlessness of creativity can be challenging to overcome. Just don't rule anything out and don't let yourself get in the way of the song. Thats all I've got for now!