There are some times in life, you will find it hard to create and perform music, even for musicians who do that job for their living.
If you’ve ever been in this situation, it should not feel bad about it. Sometimes, it’s normal to be disconnected from creative work and motivation.
Make music long enough and you’re bound to wander through creative deserts now and then.
Some musicians feel frustrated to find audiences for their music.
For whatever reason, some people can’t feel the same inspirational passion that used to fuel their music.
If you believe that inspiration is something that magically appears out of nowhere, feeling creatively stuck can be especially frustrating.
Luckily, this mindset only tells one part of the story.
Here are three great strategies that help you to take meaningful musical motivation back into your life.
1. Focus on where creativity comes from
Meaningful musical motivation can indeed hit once you least expect it.
However, there’s one thing most of us miss about how musicians and different artists discover and wield inspiration.
In case you can’t acknowledge the inspiration, you may not use it to form your music.
Doing that is a part of being engaged with the world and yourself. Inspiration is in all places around us, however, it’s up to us to pay attention.
Inspiration is in all places around us, however, it’s up to us to pay attention.
For those who are too busy thinking about how your brand needs to be getting better local shows or that your music isn’t “good enough” since you don’t have as many streams as you’d like, it might be right in front of you and you’ll probably miss it.
However, it’s not just about success. Plenty of musicians who are not obsessed with their careers get uninspired for no clear reason.
You may find it difficult to pay attention to life throughout these times. However, working at it is particularly essential.
What provides you with happiness or sorrow? What specific things about other artist’s music that move you? When you first became keen on music, exactly what about it drew you in?
Regardless of how far you come as a musician, getting back to your original meaningful musical motivation is necessary for creating in a free and rewarding way.
2. Keep in mind that meaningful creative motivation takes work
Some fortunate musicians effortlessly feel a continuing sense of inspiration in all the things they do. The rest of us have to put in the work.
Bringing awareness to our lives is a huge piece of that work, however, it shouldn’t stop there.
You want a strong daily music practice to associate with it.
The physical and emotional space where you create music has a main influence too.
You might experience a sudden wave of creative euphoria or a devastating sense of despair, however, it won’t translate into nice music in case you are not ready to quickly act on it.
The emotional spaces where you make music need to be able to handle the inspiration you deliver into them, similar to the physical ones.
Whether you write music in your dorm room or a fancy recording studio doesn’t matter as long as you have easy access to the tools you need to create.
Your music space needs to keep you away from distractions, whether it’s the temptation to see what’s occurring on social media or a talkative roommate wanting to hang out.
You have to give yourself as much time as you need to discover concepts and try things out.
You have to give yourself as much time as you need to discover concepts and try things out.
The spaces you carve out in your life to discover music in demand targeted energy, and great concepts take time to unfold.
This means that writing only once you feel like it or not prioritizing enough time in your daily schedule for music will end up hurting your writing process.
True creative inspiration is priceless, however, it only gets you halfway there.
Giving yourself enough time to fully pursue concepts is the only method to deliver creative motivation to fruition.
3. Keep trying no matter what
You might feel usually inspired in case you already give yourself the right amount of time and space to create. However, that’s not a guarantee for musical success. You should stay away from it.
Doing the hard work of recognizing and receiving inspiration is tough. However, there’s not much else you can do to guarantee all the things you make will be successful.
It takes most of us years of practice and failing again and again before we create truly interesting and moving work.
However, that’s not meant to be discouraging. Choose to tackle the challenge and let inspiration power you through every season of your music career.