Really Bad Writer's Block

[Mistermac]

My writing seems to go in cycles. I get hot by writing several in a row, and then go flat. blank. I have heard it said, "write what you know about." I can't think of anything that i know anything about. I don't believe john

[brandondrury]

You can always write about what you don't know about. Just pretend. What does George Lucas REALLY know about extra-terrestrials.

Brandon

[Revolt]

Originally Posted by natenatenate

Hey everyone, I've had a Writer's Block for the last year and still do. I tried everything to break it. I studied Writer's Block, Music Theory, tried everything. I long to write sick mathcore like Between the Buried and Me, but I CANNOT write a single thing AT ALL!! If I do get a start, which is not very often, I only get like 5-7 seconds worth. I have no idea what it could be, could it be my OCD Personality Disorder? It's not cause I only listen to just one genre!! I listen to anything I like!! Any advice on this will be very much appreciated!! Thank You!!

You gotta write about stuff that is close to you, that you're passionate about, or that you think is cool or interesting obviously. If you've been having writers block a whole year, that's a pretty good indication to me that you might not have what it takes to be a songwriter. Sorry to burst your bubble and shit, but that's a hell of a long time. 5 - 7 streaks of creativity are not enough to merit good songwriting ability. Focus on other aspects of music production is my advice.

[Superstition]

Originally Posted by Twangler

You wrote: "I have really bad anxiety for some reason,dont no y".

Write about that! Anxiety is something that you have personal experience with because you are presently grappling with it. Explore anxiety in a song. Write about not knowing why you have it! Write about how it makes you feel - how it affects your life, your relationships and so on!

Yeah, that's exactly what Kurt Cobain wrote about, and Nirvana was awesome! Lithium is one song that just can't be ignored!

But seriously, if you write about it, you may be able to get it off your mind.

Also, don't worry about rhyming at first. Write a novel if you must, just know what you want to put in the song's story.

[Superstition]

in fact, I write songs, only to realize several months later that the content greatly applies to me. I get depressed a lot, so there are a lot of dark songs that I have not shown here.

[Superstition]

Originally Posted by Revolt

You gotta write about stuff that is close to you, that you're passionate about, or that you think is cool or interesting obviously. If you've been having writers block a whole year, that's a pretty good indication to me that you might not have what it takes to be a songwriter. Sorry to burst your bubble and shit, but that's a hell of a long time. 5 - 7 streaks of creativity are not enough to merit good songwriting ability. Focus on other aspects of music production is my advice.

I had a feeling someone would say that. You've got guts, being the one to say it.

Everyone has it in them, just not everyone pursues the proper training. Someone who never listened to a song in their life until they were 35 has the same potential as someone who grew up on it, it's just that it would take a lot less time for the latter of the two to get good.

My advice is simple. Brainstorm a topic, force some rhymes and get a song put together, just to get the ball rolling. I would not recommend ever recording that song, or even releasing the lyrics, but it helps to try it.

I was playing piano for 5 years before I wrote my first song. I grew up on music, and I knew I had it in me, but I couldn't write a good song until I just willed myself to force something together. I now use that song, even though it isn't the same now as it was then, but the concept is equal. Your first may not go as far, but it will still get things moving.

[brandondrury]

If you've been having writers block a whole year, that's a pretty good indication to me that you might not have what it takes to be a songwriter.

I had a feeling someone would say that. You've got guts, being the one to say it.

I think it's hard to debate it. If a person is so self conscious that the can't scrape together a couple verses, a couple choruses, and bridge in 365 days than something is wrong. I can come up with a chorus is 7 seconds. It may not be any good, but that's irrelevant.

Brandon

[On the Loose]

Put yourself in songwriting mode, stop listening to music it will cloud your own thoughts, carry a mini recorder with you and use the sounds of nature, go to the railway yards, a warehouse, a factory, an engineering shop, any where you may here machinery or a process in some form of rhythmic motion. repeat that beat in head and see where it takes you. If you have written songs in the past you will do it again, that is certain. relax and be confident.

[maestoso]

try tapping random drum beats on the table or your leg or something. hum melodies and listen for everything there's a story there! hope this helps.

[madcatproductions]

just a thought here....

I have been writing/singing/playing drums in my band for many years now.
I first spent 25 years learning to play drums. Then, not really by choice,
my singer left, so I decided to try. Singing and playing is VERY difficult, mostly
when half of our songs are super technical, double bass crazy,tempo laiden piles
of crap. It was really hard to practice and sing by myself, without the band.
thru all of that mess, i got proficient enough to want to go to the next level:

SONGWRITING!

when we wrote our new, original songs, it was much better having creativecontrol over the direction of the song. having to sing songs that are not your own is hard to relay those feelings. I learned to get the song polished first,
then go back and "see" with my ears. How a song feels gives you the mental
image in which to choose a topic. After you choose a topic, go and find some
source material on it. Whatever it is, it has some information you can use to
formulate lyrics. once you have a topic and some source material, listen to the song, part by part, and try and find a "vocal flow".listen to the riff first, then the beat. relying on the beat only tends to make it sound rappy, which ruins any song. To get a "rough idea" of vocal flow, sing along with some "na na na or da da da's" (i call ticking).Jot down the ticking to each part.Using the ticking as a syllable template, draw from your topic material and begin to put words in their place. do this a line at a time. if they dont make sense, don't worry yet.Having written over 80 songs now, this has worked very
well, and its easyonce you have the ticking down, to change words here
and there to fit.

There are 2 kinds of songs you can write; ones that make an overall statement about something, or ones that tell a story-and they don't have to
be linear.movies that use flashbacks is an example of non linear storytelling.
sometime i draw inspiration from current events. lotsa source material at your disposal! the more you know about something, the easier it is to fit it to your song.If you find a song invokes no true "image", try and rearrange the parts. maybe that pre chorus fill would sound better in another spot.

JUST DONT STOP!