Music and mental health

hollywoodrox · November 2019

Bod said:

@hollywoodrox I'm really sorry to hear of your struggle.

With regards to medication, have you considered speaking to your pharmacist about brand-sensitivity? I experienced unexpected and really bad withdrawal symptoms at one point, and then realised that I'd been given the same meds but from a different manufacturer than usual. I approached my pharmacist about it who confirmed that although the active ingredient was the same, the carrier can differ between manufacturers which can affect how the drug is absorbed. They now make sure they get the right brand in for me and I'm back on track.

Thanks for the book recommendation, I'll check it out as it does seem to address what I'm experiencing.

Thanks man, I didn’t realise that could affect it. Spot on

Freebird · November 2019

Following on from my post above, I would also like to add that variation helps too. My main method is jamming with a guitar to a beat while the tape is running, and then adding a melody on top. However, I do find the exploratory work on the keyboard invaluable, as you can really zoom into what is going on at the forensic level, and it's great for finding chord progressions and melody. Some of my other methods include writing from a predetermined:

Key
Scale
Mode
Vocal
Chord progression
Melody
Bassline
Beat
Genre
Time signiture
Tempo
Timbre
Arbitrary time limit
Sound loop
Midi file
After reading or watching something
Etc, etc..

The possibilities are only limited by your own imagination. I would also recommend some rudimentary music theory. Nothing hardcore, just so that you understand the language of I ii iii IV V vi vii, tonics + dominants & chord tones + non-chord tones, etc..

One of my favourite exercises is the Axis of Awesome 4-chord song challenge. I must have had a hundred goes at this, but there is a little incentive as this is known in the music business as the "money progression"

I find it's useful to rework the same chords or melody, as you get to experience how malleable music really is.

sev112 · November 2019

Play music loud with others as much as possible
hit some drums too
multiple mental health benefits
good luck

Funkfingers · November 2019

Bod said:
I’m afraid of anything I do turning out shit, as it often does

This is an ever-present risk with all attempts at creativity.

Create without prejudice. Ignore the result for a few days. Review in an objective frame of mind - as if somebody else had devised the work(s).

Some efforts will, self-evidently work. Some will, equally self-evidently, be shite. A few will have potential that is only realised when additional parts are added. e.g. Dull guitar chord progressions can be transformed with a clever contrapuntal melody or bass line.

Bod said:
The vast number of 8 bar pieces of music sitting on my hard-drive is sufficient evidence that I’m not a natural songwriter, so what do I do with myself and those ideas?

Are these MIDI Note data for synthesizer music or audio beginnings of guitar/bass/drums ideas?

Caffeine_Vampire · November 2019

The problem with inspiration is that it doesn't recognise 9 - 5. It thrives off sharp corners and the unexpected. When I worked steady hours I couldn't create anything. Crafting an idea can fit into an allotted time slot but not inspiration. If your working hours are fixed then do something to continually break your routine, stand when you'd normally sit, sit in a different place, if you're in a fixed working position then bring in random strange objects and leave them where your subconscious can work with them. Same deal at home, basically, shake it up a bit.

Freebird · November 2019

Funkfingers said:
Create without prejudice. Ignore the result for a few days. Review in an objective frame of mind - as if somebody else had devised the work(s).

Yep, never analyse the output immediately after laying down a track as the brain gets weirdly locked into whatever it is you are doing. That SIA video above distills the creative process into a few key steps. It's not my cup of tea, but she has a good track record with that sort of thing. Every song will have some kind of structure consisting of different sections with a few hooks and motifs pulling it all together. That's why I like the sketching approach, as you can map out the journey with plenty of room for improvisation. Basically you are dividing the creative process into two stages, and refining it as you go along.

TheOtherDennis · November 2019

I can't help with any ideas on how to improve your musical/creative output, but I can offer my own personal experiences of creativity, albeit in an entirely different field.

Some background. I went to college to do an advertising course, coming up with ideas for ads. I was then a copywriter in advertising, working first as an employee in ad agencies and then as a freelance, for over 30 years.

Every single day - literally, I frequently had to work weekends - I had to come up with ideas for ads for products, many of which I'd had to come up with ideas for before.

This wasn't easy. I was far from the best in the business, but I was quite good. I won awards. (Honestly. I know literally everyone in adland claims to be an award winner, but I have a certificate to prove one of them, and the agency I used to work at stole the others, but I still have one.)

So what does this have to do with your situation?

For every brief I was given, I would set myself a target of producing between ten and 30 ideas, depending on the amount of time I had to do it in and the importance of the job.

If I was lucky, one of those would be regarded as perfect, two or three as excellent and a couple were good enough fillers to pad out the presentation so the client thought we'd given the job long enough to justify what we were charging them for.

For every single brief.

Every.

Single.

Brief.

For big campaigns that meant a lot to the client, we could produce literally hundreds, because the first batch might get rejected wholesale and we'd have to start again, or the client would like this particular direction but think we hadn't quite nailed it and could we do some more, or suggest such and such a change that ruined it so we'd have to start again, and so on.

After all that, if I was to sit back now and go through all the copies of work that I still possess (and I collected as much as I could as I went along, so that I could show prospective new clients what I was capable of), I could find maybe a dozen really good ads from my entire career.

So, given that I would come up with between 10 and 30 ideas for every single brief, with sometimes two or three briefs a day, in 30 years of work, out of literally tens of thousands of scribbles and thumbnails and layouts and doodles and flashes of inspiration, I've probably got an absolute maximum of 20 ideas that I wouldn't be embarrassed to show on here.

I can't even be sure it's that many, in all honesty.

And I was good. Really good. Not world beating, not even good enough to represent my country, but good. (You don't get to last 30 years as a writer in this game if you're shit, trust me.)

My point is, don't be so hard on yourself. You have to produce bumf - literally, have to produce a ton of bumf - in order for something good to finally worm its way out.

And you'll probably go cool on that after a couple of days, too.

Why do you think it takes the top musicians literally years to come up with a new album that lasts maybe 40 minutes? Because they're going through the same process as you are right now. They just know what to weed out and what to keep, what will lead somewhere and what won't.

So keep at it. If all you produce today is 20 minutes of guff, so what? It means you're at least 20 minutes closer to producing something worth hearing tomorrow.

And tomorrow, who knows just how good it will be?

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

In this Discussion

Become a Subscriber!

Music and mental health

Comments