We all have creative blocks from time to time. Creativity requires positive thinking! As a musician, its important to believe in yourself and create the right environment in order to feel more creative and be spontaneous. Of course, if you dont take yourself first, you cant be creative at all. To increase your creativity, make sure you get enough sleep, practice deep breathing, daydream, and find other ways to relax. Eat foods that nourish you and drink plenty of water. Once your basic needs are met, your body will allow your mind to explore new ideas. The environment is also an important factor in enhancing your creativity. For example, one who would like to read would like a quiet environment, and what perfect place than the seats at Terminal 2 of Londons Heathrow airport. If you like to play basketball, its better to be in a nice court where you can really get into your peak state, rather than on a net attached to the side of your semi-detached house where space is limited. Creativity comes easier with practice. Make it a habit to go into your music phase at a certain time each day. A ritual may get you into the mood. Perhaps lighting a candle or incense or putting on a certain type of music. These cues tune you into your purpose for being there; however, note that its important to pick the right kind of cues to create the right mood for your music. If youre going to be playing heavy metal, lighting candles may not be the most appropriate cue for creativity enhancement. Now that you have taken care of your basic needs and set up a good working environment, you are free to start creating something tremendously wonderful. To come up with new ideas, you can use free association with word phrases, images, music, and other props. One thing that I get some of my clients to do is to keep a journala place where you put sketches, fragments of word phrases, advertisements and images that inspire you. It doesnt have to be arranged pretty, just get the information down and use it as a workbook. Get into the habit of making notes no matter what you are doing. Keep a notebook by the TV, by your bed, or wherever you may need one when a new idea strikes. If you are working on a certain project make a file where you can put photos and ideas when you come across them. If you see me, Ive normally got a very small notebook in my back pocket and I take it out whenever Im thinking and just write down anything I want. Its my space, and inevitably my life thoughts. A good link on journalling is here: http://www.wakimbo.com/htdocs/tools/jrn/ If you have a piece of music in mind, visualize how you would like it to feel when played and then create a breakdown of the music, note down the feeling next to it and then practice each segment several times before patching it up together. Remember this important rule: Break your goals into baby steps until they feel manageable. If you feel stuck on the piece, make a deal with yourself to only work on it a certain amount of time each day. Alternating activities can help get your creativity moving. Get inspiration by looking at artists you wouldnt normally look at. Or reading books you wouldnt ordinarily read. Doing something different than your normal activities can be get you going again. After a long time out of reading fiction, I finally picked up the book Night-time is my time by Mark Higgins Clark. Its such a great book, and I cant let it go. It doesnt have any direct links at the moment, but one day, itll enhance some of my creativity whether its a current project or not. Im sure of that. There is always a way to do something different. Open yourself to the possibilities. When you see a music project you like, ask yourself what you could do to make it even better. There are really no right and wrong ways to do most things and we make progress when strive to keep finding different ways to do things. Give yourself permission to do something unconventional and give yourself permission for your experiments to work out different than you thought they would. Kavit Haria, The Musicians Coach |
