Daily Habits for Musicians to
Increase Their Creativity
As a
Musician
You might have heard of “a track a day for seven days” or “a track a day for a month.” This is a challenge that musicians get into to stimulate their creativity. Basically, you are training your mind to work harder than normal in coming up with new music. Such a challenge doesn’t give you room to choose your creative direction and you put down ideas the way they come. Here, all you have to do is avoid trying to be creative and instead write and do what comes to your mind.
Once you have created the tracks, you can go back to them and make the necessary adjustments to make your music stellar. This is one of the things that musicians have done to improve their creativity. While it works most of the time, immersing yourself in the creative process may not work other times. Sometimes your mind yearns for something new to stimulate its creativity. When that time comes, you can try out the following:
Take a Break
Between the creation, production, releasing, performance, and so much more, the mind becomes overwhelmed. At such a time, your creativity is out and you may not come up with anything new. When you are always creating the same things, the mind might get stuck on a loop and you find yourself regurgitating ideas.
You need new experiences if you are to rejuvenate your ideas. The only way to do that is to take a break. After doing performances and creating music for many years, Justin Bieber finally took a break in 2017 and for almost three years, he traveled and had fun with his life. He created new experiences and after a year, in 2020, he released his album, Changes. The same happened with Ed Sheeran. Ed Sheeran also announced his break from music in late 2019 after being on tour almost the same year.
Take Another Art
A common saying goes; life is an imitation of art and art is an imitation of life. Granted, any other form of art is the same as taking a break. It gives you new experiences and stimulates your creativity.
Some musicians take on painting as a way of staying creative while others take writing. Christopher Maurice Brown, alias Chris Brown, takes to painting when he is not writing music or performing. The award-winning star says that painting inspires his music the same way music inspires his painting. He associates his music and performances with lots of abstract illustrations. To him, painting is an outlet and also a source of inspiration.
There are so many other forms of art you can take to stimulate your creativity. Do something you love and it will love you back. You can, for instance, get a table tennis table designed for both indoor use and outdoors to stay active when you are not working on your music.
Learn From Others
Sometimes when your creative juices are low, you can analyze the music of people who inspire you. You can take a song and focus on every aspect to see why they used the elements they did and the effect that created. You can look at how they have mixed the drums and how everything comes in together to create harmony.
You can also visit the studios of other artists and from that, you can learn a thing or two. Learning from other artists is like having new experiences. You learn how to mix different sounds to create a unique effect and so much more. Focusing on the work of someone who inspires you helps get you in the flow and also teaches you new techniques to up your creativity.
Play Instruments and Scribble the Lyrics on a Book
Sometimes your creativity goes down because you think of the music technically and not creatively. Staring at a computer the whole day might do nothing besides giving you sore eyes at the end of the days. You can stimulate your creativity by playing an instrument such as a guitar, a piano, or any other and see how it goes. From there, you might have an idea on what to improve to make the music better.
Instead of typing your lyrics, carry your notebook and walk around. Enjoy the fresh air as you write your lyrics. Anything that gets you off the screen will make you more creative. If you need to record anything, do so on your phone voice recorder instead of going back to the studio.
Conclusion
Everyone feels low sometimes. It is best not to beat yourself over it and instead find a way to get your creativity back. Try the tips above and see how it goes.