Describing a songwriter’s block has challenged linguists as much as it has beleaguered musicians who are struggling to get one song out of their system. At best it can be said that it feels like reaching a dead end in the middle of a journey when you’re far from the destination and the road ahead is not in sight. It impairs the route from a musician’s mind to their pen as inspirations fail to translate into lyrics.
For a songwriter, experiencing a writer’s block is the worst thing that can happen to them. It can mean a big blow to a budding career and greatly affect their position in the industry. You may have a half-written song which yearns to reach completion but can’t, or you may have been staring at a blank page for longer than you can remember with not a word you can think of.
As an artist, even you can’t force your work to come into being because art has a life of its own and chooses when to be born itself. All an artist does is become a channel for their intuition to take form and reveal to the world. A block is an interruption in those revelations which can seriously affect your career and your self-confidence.
Here are some suggestions for getting out of your songwriter’s block.
Begin With A Lyric List
As described above, songs come in the form of revelations which more often than not choose to come to you on the strangest of times. You may be driving, eating or doing laundry when a new song idea pops up in your head. You can’t risk delaying recording it in writing because next thing you know, the lyrics will vanish from your mind. In order to keep your flow going, you need a lyric list which means that you keep a journal or a digital note where you keep updating the list of words or phrases that come to you. This will remind you of what you were thinking of when the song came to mind and revive the inspiration to finish what you started.
Exercise your Body and Mind
For an artist, the simplest of nuances matter and can have a significant impact on their work. Sometimes nothing else may matter more than the pace at which you’re living your life. The monotony of a daily routine can often kill the urge to come up with new ideas. You need to unwind from routine stresses and tune your body to a new pace. For this, you need to exercise your body to get your creative motor running. Go for a run, do a few breathing exercises or try working out in a new environment to kick start your intuitive process. Running has been a tried and tested method for past songwriters to get their creative juices flowing.
Read Inspirational Material
A block may cause your thinking process to come to a standstill and for that, you need a mental switch. You need to alternate between being a producer of art to a consumer of art and give reading a try. Reading transforms your setting and changes it to the fictional world that the characters have inhabited. It’s like going on a drive to a new place which helps trigger a new thought process. A change of scenes is sometimes all it takes to dissolve your songwriter’s block and what better way to do it than grabbing a book to read.
Once you have the songwriter’s block out of the way, you’ll need a good music writing app and that’s where Music Jotter comes in. It’s music composition software that helps artists give form to their songs and make headway in their music career.