THE VICTIM OF INSPIRATION

Greetings Curious Composers

Pour yourself a cup of coffee , tea, or another favorite adult beverage. I personally love an iced latte or a nice whiskey on the rocks. 

Today we’re talking about inspiration.

INTENSE EMOTION INSPIRES YOU

Tell me if this story sounds familiar. 🎶👀🎶

You’re having an incredible day. Maybe it’s Friday and you’re leaving for Disney World tomorrow. Maybe you got a promotion. Or maybe the weather has finally dipped below 100 degrees and you’re not sweating a river every time you step outside. Whatever the case, you’re feeling like you’re on top of the world.

or not

Perhaps your day is god awful. Maybe you got fired! Maybe you got a $300 ticket for not stopping properly at a stop sign (literally me 2 weeks ago). Maybe your significant other broke up with you and you’re feeling it’s your fault because you’re a composer with too small an income (I promise it wouldn’t be the first time a composer has felt that way). 

Anyway, incredible day or god awful day, these are the moments when your emotions are at a zenith. And in the height of your emotional moment, inspiration strikes!

INSPIRATION STRIKES

It’s as if Zeus threw a zinger directly at you. You’re hit with a lightning bolt in the form of a melody, a lyric idea, or a short catchy musical motif (a short musical idea). 

Your mind is now buzzing on an inspirational high. Does inspiration strike at a convenient time, with your pen and pad raised and ready? Rarely! Typically the idea strikes while you are speeding 90mph in the fast lane down the freeway. Uncontrollable excitement and a strong dose of motivation urges you to get your idea down fast. Experience has taught you, you can’t rely on memory. Nothing slips the mind faster than a great idea. Luckily, Siri is always ready, so if it’s a lyric idea you tell her to scribble it down in your electronic notebook. If it’s a melody idea, you sing it loud, proud and out of tune into your smartphone.

Yesss!!! You did it, and you’re still alive driving 90 mph down the freeway. Your great idea won’t be forgotten. Now you speed even faster so that you can get to work in your studio on your next masterpiece.

Or … so you thought!!!

From Inspiration to Writers Block

Finally at home, with that favorite beverage poured, you are ready to take that idea and transform it into something spectacular. You sit down eager to get started. But shortly, or not so shortly, after sitting down to work, it’s not a thunder bolt that strikes, it’s DISASTER.

Every ounce of inspiration has disappeared. It’s as if a Dementor, straight out of from Harry Potter, slid into your studio only to suck all the music out of you.

Don’t know what a Dementor is? That’s ok, just know that if one were in your room, it’s game over on doing anything creative.

Within ten minutes you go from totally inspired to having a dreadful case of writers block. Nothing sounds as good as that initial idea. The brick wall called writers block makes you start questioning the brilliance of the original idea you were so stoked about 20 minutes earlier.

What do you do?

You do what any normal creative person would do in the 21st century.  You check your email, open facebook, watch youtube videos, rearrange your sock drawer again, anything, absolutely anything to pass time while you wait for inspiration to strike just one more time.

Oh god, How long is that going to take?

Hours?

Days?

Weeks? Months?

Never? 😩😩😩

GUILTY AS CHARGED

Does the above scenario sound familiar? You’re not alone, I’m guilty too. So let’s be honest with ourselves. Inspiration doesn’t do instant replays, at least not for that genius idea we just spent the better part of the afternoon writing. Even if the snippet of genius does reappear it’s likely to manifest as a completely different idea for an entirely different composition. In which case the all too familiar scenario will repeat itself. 

And we wonder why we have several half-finished projects on our computers.

THE VICTIM OF INSPIRATION

Ladies and Gentlemen, Curious Composers of all ages, if you can relate to the above torrid tale of misses and lost melodies, you are the Victim of Inspiration. 

THE MISSION OF THE CURIOUS COMPOSER BLOG

Listen, I love inspiration! I value, respect and I too am addicted to it pumping through my veins. When it strikes, I celebrate unapologetically and without fail, for fear of insulting the muses. I move hell and earth to always find a way to jot down the idea inspiration has bestowed. However, I gave up a long time ago trying to wait for it, and never ever, ever depend on the elusive inspiration making an appearance. 

Why?

Because I’ve learned that anyone who does, yes, including you and me, will spend all their energy waiting, hoping, praying, and procrastinating to get another dose of it. I swear it’s like a drug. When I was the victim of Inspiration I had dozens of half-finished compositions in my notebook. Eight measure ideas that inspiration gave me but I didn’t have the tools to develop. I didn’t have the discipline to sit down and work, let alone the grit to struggle for hours on end to craft together a finished work. Remember the phrase, “a writer doesn’t like writing, but likes having written.” It’s familiar because it’s true. Inspiration will always come and go as it pleases, leaving you to purely depend on craft and the ability to trust the creative process. 

Boom!! There it is. That is the very reason I have created Curious Composer. If you have dedicated your life to writing music like I have, either as a hobby or a career, you are going to have to accept the fact that you will spend hours upon hours writing. We all say we love it. So there has got to be a way to “Love Writing.” There will always be struggle, however, if we find a way to enjoy the creative process as much as we enjoy the idea of being creative, the chances of our success are going to be astronomically higher. 

Welcome to the Curious Composer Blog!!!!

Next I’m going to reveal my 4 secrets to creating Inspiration.