Motivation

[Juggz]

Does anyone else ever stuggle with sitting down and getting through some work, like practising, writing or recording? I'm in a rut right now, just can't seem to get it together in the evening after work and spend some time actually doing something. I don't know what it is, I have ideas I want to work on but, when I actually sit down to do something with them, I just can't focus. I can't be arsed.

Does anyone have any tips or techniques for finding and honing a work ethic?

[Pentagrimes]

I've been like this for literally years now.

[ochoill]

I've suffered with similar to this lately but most of it was from moving and not having the set up I wanted when doing so.  Currently setting up a new corner of the house to jam in and it's motivating me to get back to it.

Generally that's one of the few things that helps me with any sort of block, especially if I have something that should actually be worked on - constructive procrastination.  Have some tunes demo'd you know you should be writing and finishing?  No motivation?  Organise and streamline them all in folders and your DAW if they're scruffy.  Name your files, put them in the right place, delete the scruff.  Group your wavs.  Organise your default session to be even more streamlined.  Tidy and rewire the bad part of your rig that you keep putting off.  Let some old stuff you're working on play away while you're doing this.  Leave your guitar ready beside you and if something starts to catch you while you're doing this, pick it up and go to work.  If it doesn't?  You've still been productive on what you've already written.  Grand.

The trick is less to jump out of the rut, but to stop beating yourself up for feeling like you should be doing more or something more 'creative' than the work side of it.  Set aside actual times to go do these things, if you don't normally - I mean actually say you'll do an hour a day, or two every second etc. Obviously you can't schedule an idea or inspiration but it helps combat feeling down about not getting something done, all that does is compound to the point where you'll never finish something.

This all helps for workflow and working mostly written ideas, and can sometimes spur some new ones on.  I struggle cruel with writer's block in spells too but lately found doing anything half-related - even organising a bag of cables while listening to old demos - helped.  Sorry if this all seems obvious or is something you already do, I was useless at organising and sorting what I was working on for years and all it did was make me feel like I was accomplishing nothing or finishing nothing, even though I was practicing and recording nearly daily.

[Pentagrimes]

In terms of band stuff, I've moved 4 times in 3 years and haven't really settled anywhere long enough or had enough space to properly set up a guitar and amp for practice really - and when I have it's just kinda sat there. Also I pretty much sold off everything but my guitar over the last while and don't have a lot of stuff to work with anyway which is both a blessing and a curse. I don't even have an amp right now, and if I did, I don't think my neighbors would last long without complaining.

I stopped writing stuff during the last year of getting the Vircolac lp ready, most of the stuff I contributed was stuff I'd had in the backlog for a couple of years, and I'd literally run out of ideas and focus. Had a bit of a spurt of ideas after it was all written but they've been shelved, obviously.

The only real thing that motivates me, and I'm not sure motivates is the write word, is the Otterans stuff I do - I basically just force myself every few weeks to plug the guitar into the laptop and improvise for an hour or two, and then listen back and rework bits. That's a very different thing to trying to write songs or riffs though as it's all ambient/instrumental and spur of the moment anyway.

I'm in a band now where I think for the first time in my life we go in and write everything in the room. Nothing is worked out in advance. It's a very different way of working for me and I'm still getting my head around it but so far so good, and I feel less bad about being utterly unproductive at home.

Trying to force myself to do a few collaborations and other recording projects in the new year to kick my own arse into gear.

[Emphyrio]

All joking aside, I found alcohol to help a lot. I used drink a bottle of wine every Thursday night at home. I can't watch TV or other stuff when I'm drinking but that's when I enjoy listening to and writing music the most. Since I eventually found it nigh impossible to function the next day, I'd to call a halt to that, and I now find it very hard to motivate myself.  It's now a case of arsing about on guitar on the couch and if a riff comes out of that I might get inspired to record it and maybe expand on it.

It's usually a famine or a feast, mostly famine, but if I get in the zone I'd generally get a fairly full outline of a song, with 2 layers of guitars, bass, synths and programmed drums done in an evening or two..

[ochoill]

I'm in a band now where I think for the first time in my life we go in and write everything in the room. Nothing is worked out in advance. It's a very different way of working for me and I'm still getting my head around it but so far so good, and I feel less bad about being utterly unproductive at home.

We try to do this as much as possible in the band too, love that approach.  We break it a bit though where if someone has a riff they can fire it out but we aim not to bring in already written songs and rather let a part change and write itself in the space.  You have to fire in something to start it off sometimes or it goes nowhere.  Handy part for this is the room is always rigged to record reasonable live demos for later listening, so we can just leave a laptop set up and go back over the jams later when working on them.

All joking aside, I found alcohol to help a lot. I used drink a bottle of wine every Thursday night at home. I can't watch TV or other stuff when I'm drinking but that's when I enjoy listening to and writing music the most. Since I eventually found it nigh impossible to function the next day, I'd to call a halt to that, and I now find it very hard to motivate myself.  It's now a case of arsing about on guitar on the couch and if a riff comes out of that I might get inspired to record it and maybe expand on it.

I do love a few cans to take the edge off when i'm writing.  Or recording, or practicing.  Something we haven't done in a while is had the whole band get a few in and just write for the evening under the influence.  Usually I just end up 8 cans deep and they all have to drive home.  The perks of living near the space.

[Pentagrimes]

I'm in a band now where I think for the first time in my life we go in and write everything in the room. Nothing is worked out in advance. It's a very different way of working for me and I'm still getting my head around it but so far so good, and I feel less bad about being utterly unproductive at home.

We try to do this as much as possible in the band too, love that approach.  We break it a bit though where if someone has a riff they can fire it out but we aim not to bring in already written songs and rather let a part change and write itself in the space.  You have to fire in something to start it off sometimes or it goes nowhere.  Handy part for this is the room is always rigged to record reasonable live demos for later listening, so we can just leave a laptop set up and go back over the jams later when working on them.

Oh yeah, like someone will always have a riff to start with but that's pretty much it. Songs get written from scratch on the spot by the four of us. As bizarre as it'll sound to people, I don't recall ever doing this in a band before, I'd always have written the basics of a song before I'd bring it to practice - I've been doing that since I was 16!

[Emphyrio]

We wrote our first song in the rehearsal room maybe back in October. Gigged it and all the rest. Then when it came to recording scratch tracks we found a number of things that could be improved.

At the rate we work that's not ideal. I 100% prefer going in with at least half the song written, preferably more.

I think that suits our writing process way more, despite liking the romantic element of writing as a group from scratch.

I'd probably be more in favour of it if I didn't have to drive to practice and was able to have a few cans!

[blessed1]

i wouldnt say i have moments of no motivation but i do get writers block and i could be sitting there belting away at the guitar for hours and not come up with anything. i usually just stop playing for a week or two then go back to it and that usually does the trick. i do all the instruments myself so i always have something to be messing about with during those times even if its just tweaking the drums or a piano part.
its not something that can be forced.

[Juggz]

For me, it's not writer's block, it's the ability/motivation to sit down and get things done, to persist at getting the ideas out of my head and recorded. I always have ideas. I have about 40 songs in various stages of completion from the last 10 years, I have ideas for all of them and a fairly finalised idea of what the end results needs to sound like but, when I sit down to do something with them, the energy disappears out of me. It's so fucking depressing.

It's interesting to read others take on similar situations, glad it's not just me 

[blessed1]

that sounds depressing lol

[Eoin McLove]

I actually plugged the guitar in this evening and had a nice little burst of inspiration resulting in four new riffs that might lead to something.  I'm generally productive once I bother my hole to actually plug the guitar in.

[Wiseblood]

Maybe it's just the crap dark weather or something. Not in any bands now but motivation to do anything of purpose is well down during the winter months. It is indeed frustrating.

[ochoill]

Trying out new pedals led us to write the bones of a song from a riff that came out of thin air in practice the other night.  Outside of that I've been procrastinating firing some stuff together at home, but used the otherwise wasted time to tidy and rewire the corner, set up reaper templates, download a new drum machine, build a new patch on my digital pedal (used for home demos) - so not wasted.  It does help feel like you're progressing with something by decluttering and organising, helps clear the mind for when you do get the bust of inspiration.

[if6was9]

I've been in quite the rut the last few months in terms of playing and writing. I got super busy with work, and since my work is doing live sound and recording bands I found I was totally burnt out on music every day without even picking up an instrument. I've still been gigging away a good bit in that period but once the year ended I made sure I was playing for a few hours every day to try get the chops back up and to get the creative juices flowing. My bands are all writing so I was finding I would turn up to jam and I'd end up writing a half baked idea on the spot instead of having something decent worked out. We come in with riff ideas and compile the songs together so i wasn't happy coming in empty!

I'm gonna try make an effort to make time for my own playing and I've started turning down some projects that I would have just been doing for the money or that I would have had to work crazy hours to make work. I'd rather be able to play for an hour or 2 every day than to bust my balls for a few extra quid and not enjoy music any more. It's working pretty well so far, ideas have been flowing and I'm feeling like I'm enjoying it again! 

In terms of getting out of a more general rut a few things that always work well for me are;
Learning a new song and then trying to make your own idea from it- especially if it's something unfamiliar to you already like making a metal riff out of a steely dan song etc...
Getting a new piece of gear/reworking what you already have to make new sounds. new sounds always bring out something different in my playing.
Using a looper, make a loop and improvise over it until you've totally exhausted yourself. Once you've used all your usual tricks and force yourself to keep trying new ideas. after a while you'll force yourself to write something different over it and you'll break through that wall. 
Trying a different instrument helps too. Again it's more about taking you out of your comfort zone and breaking your usual habits. You aren't gonna default to chugging, sweeps and tapping if you're on a keyboard or drum kit or whatever!
Another one is to limit yourself. Play exclusively in a weird key, or write a riff using only your left hand or just on one string. Exhaust yourself in that one limited thing and you'll end up with a riff or lick or idea you'd never have written otherwise.