unstuck yourself

My Dearest Tortured Composer, 

The holidays are upon us. 

Music of Christmas cheer blasts from every public speaker. 

Somehow, the pop music consuming public agrees for one month to tolerate diminished chords in their music. 

It is truly a magical time. 

But I feel that this time for many is also a time of reflection. 

Many of the composers I speak to often are looking backwards and forwards. 

And when they look back, many find they did not quite accomplish what they were hoping to accomplish with their music over the last year. 

Maybe life got in the way. Maybe work took up more time than anticipated. Maybe the goals were too ambitious. 

Whatever it was, many composers lament that they feel “stuck.”

Like they aren’t finishing anywhere near as much music as they’d like. 

This may be the most common refrain I hear. 

And without question, I used to be like this. 

I’d never finish ANYTHING. 

And felt like I never would. 

I’d work on the same piece for months at a time only to give up in frustration. 

But then I discovered a life-changing process in a video by an EDM producer (dubstep to be precise). 

And this practice totally changed everything for me.

It was like turning on a massive fountain of musical ideas that came roaring out of me. 

And it wasn’t just music. Writing and creating of all sorts came much easier. 

All from a simple practice that took me around 20 minutes to do each day. 

If you’ve been around the “creativity industrial complex” for any amount of time you’ve probably heard of it and tried it. 

It is called “Morning Pages.” 

And it is quite simple. 

You get a decent journal, and every morning, you fill three pages with words. But when you start writing, you do not stop and pause to consider. You write whatever comes out. 

You would NEVER let anyone read your morning pages. And I wouldn’t even recommend reading them yourself. 

This may sound easy, but it can be quite tricky. 

It may seem pointless, but let me give an explanation for why I believe this works. 

When we’re writing music, we often pause to think. We listen or read what we’ve just created and assess it. We bring in the “editing” process early on. 

When you do morning pages, you’re training your brain to make rapid creative decisions without any concern for quality. 

They may not be great creative decisions, but it is almost like it is training your brain to “sprint.” 

Just like our muscles have fast twitch and slow twitch fibers, I think we can train our brain to work in “fast-twitch” mode. 

And this training can carry over into your composing. 

When you sit down to write music, you just write as quickly as you can. Write whatever comes out. Without any concern for quality. 

If you try these morning pages for 2 to 3 weeks, I almost guarantee you will see results that you did not expect. 

You get all the thoughts out that are constantly spinning around in your head after a week or two. 

Then stuff you weren’t expecting starts to appear. New ideas form as you keep the pen flowing across the page. 

You may even delve into some creative fields you never had intention of visiting before. 

It’s quite fun. And if you’re feeling stuck or uninspired, I HIGHLY recommend it. 

I did not develop this technique, and neither did the person that shared it with me. 

It originally came from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. 

I don’t love the full book, but the practice of morning pages has stuck with me. 

Here’s a video giving even more explanation 

There’s a man by the name of Mike Monday that also developed this process for music. He calls it splurging. Here is a brief explanation from his Music Machine Methodology that explains it:

“

Splurging is musical brainstorming.

When you Splurge, make an idea (Splurge) as quickly as possible with ZERO editing or second guessing.

Your Splurges make could be anything from a simple riff to (very occasionally) a complete arrangement.

A Splurge is done when you run out of time, or you notice you're no longer "Splurging" (i.e. when you're editing or improving the ideas.)

This is the Splurge mindset:

Carefree chaos, energy, momentum, excitement, nothing is bad!

“

I’ve done over 1,500 of these splurges over the past few years. There is nothing better for getting out of a funk. Coming up with new ideas. And generally just having an incredible time making music. 

I mean that’s what we’re all after right? That flow? Where the music just pour out. 

It is a buzz. 

If you want to check out Mike Monday’s full music machine system (It is free): 

Click here to check out the Music Machine

Try those out if you’re feeling stuck and watch as unlimited flows of music stream out of you. 

I hope you have a Merry Christmas! 

And don’t ever forget…

The world waits for your music…

Luke

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