Topic: Just no inspiration

Hey guys! Last few days have been a terrible dry spell for me. I pick up my axe or sit at the piano and nothing comes. Absolutly nothing, not even something embarassingly bad. I know everyone hits dry spells but it really sucks when it's me. Anyway, I hope to have some new material soon. I know it will come but I just felt like complaining a bit.

"Nobody paints by ear so why would I play guitar by sight?" hmm

Re: Just no inspiration

Mike, I feel your pain . . . it happens and it can be worrisome.  For me, dry spells seem to coincide with too much work (or something) looming over my head.  I think it's a guilt thing - if I don't get enough done at work, then my conscience won't let me recreate.

I write and play and sing everyday so when the creative juices aren't bubbling I just play through some favorite stuff, or maybe just practice stuff that needs polishing.  I've got some partial songs in my notebooks that I try to chip away at - these 'songs' may never get finished but they are good diversions when nothing else is churning creatively.

Hey - try this . . . Mother's Day is coming up - write something for (or about) Mom.  Maybe that will rattle the cobwebs out . . . James

"That darn Pythagorean Comma thing keeps messing me up!"
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_comma[/url]

Re: Just no inspiration

I think that songwriting on command is not "that" easy. They always tell that you need 10% inspiration and 90% transpiration.
The strangest story I've heard concerning songwriting is that on a "bright sunny day" Andrew Loog Oldham, at that time manager and more, of the ROLLING STONES, closed up JAGGER ANDF RICHARDS in a room, and they were only allowed to leave that room if they had enough songs.
My theory is that if everyone starts writing, which is still VERY POSSIBLE, you will discover "PEARLS" between a mot of rabbish. Second phase is, try to REMEMBER the tune. It is easier now, because of all songrecording devices, from small to big. A good one is for me BOSS MR BR 4 tracks and very small. Maybe somebody has a idea to fabricate a kind of device, size of a watch (without the material to put it around your wrist, and you can put it on every instrument. It absorbs the vibrations made by your instrument, you can let's say 5GB record on it, and with USB, present in your device, you are able to put the recordings on a PC, for extra working on it. Using a small kind of record device, you just stick it on an instrument of your choice, you play, it records. So the chance of, when playing alone and you have just found a superriff, a riff you are not able to recall, even 5 minutes later, the small device has the riff. FINISHED to get angry because you forgot the way you played it.
Rolling Stones again: BRIAN JONES, the REAL FOUNDER of the Rolling Stones, at that moment I wouldn't like to stand in his shoes. There are probably a lot of "personal reasons", he was the cute one, seeing how his group, neglected him, and being very talented as player, took all the credits.
Same with Harrisson, who was always aside, but wrote UNFORGETABLE songs, like "here comes the sun, while my guitar gently weeps and one of the best songs ever written, and covered SOMETHING. It has to be a nightmare: "georgieboy, you write bullshit". Last thing, in the 70thies, you had an unbreakable team: CHIN and CHAPMAN, writing songs for Suzy Quattro, The Sweet, Mud. They wrote a lot of songs. THE TROGGS, under Reg Presley, wrote "love is all around" and I remember me him telling: thanks to WET WET WET, who played this song for the movie 4 weddings and a funeral, he said that he didn't need no longer to count his money, because those guys just made my day, for having a good pension.

[color=blue]- GITAARDOCPHIL SAIS: TO CONQUER DEAD, YOU HAVE TO DIE[/color]   AND [color=blue] we are born to die[/color]
- MY GUITAR PLAYS EVERY STYLE = BLUES, ROCK, METAL, so I NEED TO LEARN HOW TO PLAY IT.
[color=blue]Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.[/color]