Don't you just love it when...

[Brisbot]

You're 100% in the zone, makin' music? It isn't an everyday thing, but when it happens 12 can pass and your ears still feel fresh as when you began

You are able to map your mind at a near 1/1 ratio with your chosen sequencer, everything is coming so easily. Drums are somehow sliding into the right place. Melodies are buttery smooth.

You are in a near zen like state and It feels as if you've been meditating for the past few hours, but in addition to the meditation you've got like 5 minutes of new music.

The thought occurs to you that you could do this everyday, all day.

... but oh fuck you've got work in the morning, you could keep going at it until the morning and then some but life calls.

...

How often do you guys fall into this kind of state? It seems to happen to me on average once a week... twice if I'm lucky, and RARELY two days in a row. I find that when I'm in it is the best time to write new music, and when I am in a "normal" state is the best time to strengthen previous music.

I wonder if you can induce or trick yourself into this state somehow. Most of the time my mind is in a concentrated state, but things take more effort than the zen state, and after a few hours I have to take a break. Otherwise in the zen state, you don't need a break.

By the way, I find that when I'm in this 'state' I am also in the mood to listen to music, so basically I have to choose. If I'm not in the mood to listen to music at all then I'm not in the mood to make it. The more I'm into listening to music (like really into it) the more zen I get out of making it.

[mcbpete]

Over the last year or so I've been getting that *must make music, ooh I could do this, and it'll work with that* about 10am till about 1pm from Monday to Friday. Unfortunately it's when I'm at the office, by the time I get home it's more *mmm lets see if any plugins and stuff need updating, nope - OK lets faff around on the internet for a couple or four hours*

 

Rubbish. Wish I had the same drive that I had when I was in my late teens/early 20s - had limited resources but would tackle making music at every opportunity. Now I can't be arsed but want to be arsed, but can't be arsed.

[TubularCorporation]

Pretty much what I try to organize my life around. Comes and goes.

[flacid]

To be honest this pretty much happens every time I make something. Not because it's necessarily what other people would classify as good but that I like the sounds that I play with and normally work until I've found something I like. Basically I'm easily impressed by whatever I make :)

[Brisbot]

Rubbish. Wish I had the same drive that I had when I was in my late teens/early 20s - had limited resources but would tackle making music at every opportunity. Now I can't be arsed but want to be arsed, but can't be arsed.

Yeah I'm in that age bracket. I am a tiny bit worried about 'losing' it as I get older. When I first started I could spend pretty much everyday making music and it was rare when a day came by where I just didn't feel like it. Now it ebbs and flows.

 

That said, I find that it feels 'new' again whenever I try something new, or do something I haven't done in a while. If I just do something I've been successful with before it usually.. usually seems like pale imitation or just doesn't hit the sweet spot.

 

 

To be honest this pretty much happens every time I make something. Not because it's necessarily what other people would classify as good but that I like the sounds that I play with and normally work until I've found something I like. Basically I'm easily impressed by whatever I make :)

For me this thing happens everytime I begin what will end up being a good track that I still like down the road. If I look down my soundcloud most of the tracks I think are still good are the ones that started out with a super-charges session.

 

I am like never impressed with anything I make. If I am it's 6 months down the road and I'll go "not too bad"

 

 

Pretty much what I try to organize my life around. Comes and goes.

Oh yes same. Would be nice having a job where you can pick the hours eh?

[spunktronics]

I always wanna make music, I just watch netflix.

 

I probably reconfigure my studio more than finish tracks.

[Brisbot]

 

 

I always wanna make music, I just watch netflix.

 

I probably reconfigure my studio more than finish tracks.

Man you've got to get out of that habit ;) I fall into it occasionally. I come home after work and I'd rather veg out on netflix or youtube than do anything productive. Takes a few days to get out of the funk.

[delet...]

posts in thread, so i can read and respond to OP later.

[Brisbot]

Delet... I'm expecting your post to be really good. I'll make popcorn for the occasion

[delet...]

i wouldn't get your hopes up brisbot, i just needed the thread to show up in the 'my content' section so that i could get back to it.

 

If i had to give any response to this i don't think it's really what you were looking for, or very much in response to your particular circumstance. I am able to create music, but often find challenges being able to pursue that interest. This is mainly down to the noise generated, i play guitar and sing and this kind of thing tends to be loud by it's nature, even though it's an acoustic guitar. It's the day now, a time when i won't particularly bother neighbours with my banshee folkist nonsense, but unfortunately my brother is asleep, we don't live in a terribly large house and so there really is nowhere for me to escape to. Then when he is at work this evening and after i have woken up, i am also a night shift worker, it will then be too late to be making the kind of noise that does anything other than keeping the fingers trained and pads on the end of them.

 

When i am able to play for any period of time though, i have found, over the years, that they key factor for getting into a creative state is time. Time spent over weeks and months pursuing music, which builds a strong framework within which the creative space can exist. Then on a particular day, i find for myself that it's down to hours put in. The inspirational state is generated after the ritual sacrifice of time is placed before the alter to the infinity tree. Of course, after a few weeks of a schedule that conforms to this design, i find that there are times i can just pick up the guitar for the first time that day, and in the space of time that it takes to play it, i can have created a novel piece of music, with accompanying vocal harmony. That is satisfying i must say. But it is entirely dependent on the earlier ...

 

nwae, whatever, you get the points, on a graph, that looks like a face, that is smiling but the eyes are tired and the mind behind them seems to be humming with a slight dissonance beyond the tonic..

[auxien]

How often do you guys fall into this kind of state? It seems to happen to me on average once a week... twice if I'm lucky, and RARELY two days in a row. I find that when I'm in it is the best time to write new music, and when I am in a "normal" state is the best time to strengthen previous music.

I wonder if you can induce or trick yourself into this state somehow. Most of the time my mind is in a concentrated state, but things take more effort than the zen state, and after a few hours I have to take a break. Otherwise in the zen state, you don't need a break.

 

By the way, I find that when I'm in this 'state' I am also in the mood to listen to music, so basically I have to choose. If I'm not in the mood to listen to music at all then I'm not in the mood to make it. The more I'm into listening to music (like really into it) the more zen I get out of making it.

 

That's a great state to be in, I can usually stay zoned in to it for a couple of hours whenever it does come around. I'm lucky if it happens once a week though, more often like once every two weeks.

 

I can definitely zone in on creating but it also works for me on refining/mixing/whatever. I've spent so many hours tweaking small things in tracks and mixing different bits to see how it plays with the listener's ear differently. But listening to others' tunes and writing my own music are separate mindsets for me, I'm not like you on that.

Would love to be able to turn that creative spark on and off, but I just don't know if that's possible. For some people perhaps, but I doubt it. I think it's more a just keep working hard and those creative zones are almost guaranteed to occur more frequently as a result.

[delet...]

i found when i was writing electronic music that the creative state could be tapped into the whole of the time that i was engaged in front of the computer. It was easy, the problem was that it takes so long to build the fucking songs, heh, so you spend a lot of time doing the uncreative dog work that goes with the inspiration, as they say. I spose you could call it 'creative' because you are creating something, but these are a lot of micro creative things going on at many levels as you push the track along. hrmm ,... yep ..

[spunktronics]

 

 

I always wanna make music, I just watch netflix.

 

I probably reconfigure my studio more than finish tracks.

Man you've got to get out of that habit ;) I fall into it occasionally. I come home after work and I'd rather veg out on netflix or youtube than do anything productive. Takes a few days to get out of the funk.

I'm just pooped after work and I'm sure my missus would be pissed if I dissappear into the noise cave every night.

She got pissed off with me sampling tapes on the sofa cause I kept going "ooof" everytime I found a beaut!

[flacid]

 

To be honest this pretty much happens every time I make something. Not because it's necessarily what other people would classify as good but that I like the sounds that I play with and normally work until I've found something I like. Basically I'm easily impressed by whatever I make :)

For me this thing happens everytime I begin what will end up being a good track that I still like down the road. If I look down my soundcloud most of the tracks I think are still good are the ones that started out with a super-charges session.

 

I am like never impressed with anything I make. If I am it's 6 months down the road and I'll go "not too bad"

 

 

It's not like I think what I make is amazing, I just enjoy listening to most of it. I guess I'm fortunate in that sense.

[TubularCorporation]

 

This is mainly down to the noise generated

 

 

 

 

This is pretty much how I found my way back to electronic music after quite a few years of not doing it.

[o00o]

I created 85 tracks during the last 2 years and production speed is even more increasing. yeah and I enjoy everything about it every time listing to the tracks in a loop during the whole day. its very rewarding

[delet...]

/thumbs up smilie

[Braintree]

I go into a flow state almost every time I make music.

[MadameChaos]

 

 

[ZoeB]

Being in the zone is great!

 

I haven't had much time to create things lately, which is a real shame. I usually find that getting into the zone takes a while, maybe a false start or two of trying to make a track before I've exercised my brain enough to start making one that's actually good. Then once you're there, you haven't noticed, kind of like falling asleep.

 

Last week was a weird one for me. I tried sitting down and writing a song one evening, and it didn't work at all, everything was coming out bad. I thought about how jealous I was that my partner can just sit down and intuitively write great music, not even writing it, just playing it, making it up on the spot, letting it flow out of her, whereas I do it far too consciously and methodically (like everything else). So that was frustrating. But that night, I try to get to sleep, and this song pops into my head, whether I want it to or not. I guess I'd been composing in the back of my mind without realising it. So I try to transcribe it into my tablet but it's no use, revisions to the lyric are occurring to me already and I can't type them out fast enough on that screen. So I get up and go to my DAW, trying not to wake my partner. I then spend over an hour just transcribing the lead melody and bassline in my head, working out a basic chord progression, a second part, writing out lyrics that don't even make sense to me, but they feel right. I end up playing back this song that seems great to me, but so weird, because it really doesn't feel like I wrote it. I'm paranoid I accidentally subconsciously plagiarised it. Surely it's nothing more than a mashup of various songs I've forgotten. I know the flow always involves your subconscious, so you always get these feelings that it's not really your music, you're just channeling it, but it's so rare for a song to just plop out of me, almost fully formed. I don't understand the particulars of the lyric, but it's about suicide, something I haven't seriously thought about for well over a decade. It's such a dark song, and something that feels like I didn't write it, and feels like I couldn't have because I'm just not in that emotional state these days, and that's not how I write songs anyway. It's not even in a genre I write in. It's got a guitar solo. It just feels so weird. So that happened.

[ZoeB]

I wonder if you can induce or trick yourself into this state somehow. Most of the time my mind is in a concentrated state, but things take more effort than the zen state, and after a few hours I have to take a break. Otherwise in the zen state, you don't need a break.

 

There's a few things you can try. Let yourself write some bad music as a warmup before writing good music. Or steal various ideas from lots of different other songs as a starting point, before getting into the flow and using those as a springboard for something more original. Or try to compose when you're not at a computer or in the studio, just while having a shower or about to drift off to sleep, a quiet moment when you're not doing anything and you physically can't jot down your first idea, you have to refine it first.

[sweepstakes]

Being in the zone is great!

 

I haven't had much time to create things lately, which is a real shame. I usually find that getting into the zone takes a while, maybe a false start or two of trying to make a track before I've exercised my brain enough to start making one that's actually good. Then once you're there, you haven't noticed, kind of like falling asleep.

 

Last week was a weird one for me. I tried sitting down and writing a song one evening, and it didn't work at all, everything was coming out bad. I thought about how jealous I was that my partner can just sit down and intuitively write great music, not even writing it, just playing it, making it up on the spot, letting it flow out of her, whereas I do it far too consciously and methodically (like everything else). So that was frustrating. But that night, I try to get to sleep, and this song pops into my head, whether I want it to or not. I guess I'd been composing in the back of my mind without realising it. So I try to transcribe it into my tablet but it's no use, revisions to the lyric are occurring to me already and I can't type them out fast enough on that screen. So I get up and go to my DAW, trying not to wake my partner. I then spend over an hour just transcribing the lead melody and bassline in my head, working out a basic chord progression, a second part, writing out lyrics that don't even make sense to me, but they feel right. I end up playing back this song that seems great to me, but so weird, because it really doesn't feel like I wrote it. I'm paranoid I accidentally subconsciously plagiarised it. Surely it's nothing more than a mashup of various songs I've forgotten. I know the flow always involves your subconscious, so you always get these feelings that it's not really your music, you're just channeling it, but it's so rare for a song to just plop out of me, almost fully formed. I don't understand the particulars of the lyric, but it's about suicide, something I haven't seriously thought about for well over a decade. It's such a dark song, and something that feels like I didn't write it, and feels like I couldn't have because I'm just not in that emotional state these days, and that's not how I write songs anyway. It's not even in a genre I write in. It's got a guitar solo. It just feels so weird. So that happened.

It's been years since this happened to me, though I usually got it waking up instead of falling asleep. That's such a cool feeling.

 

I hope the dark aspect of the experience you just had isn't too overwhelming, though. It does seem healthy to occasionally walk through those territories, so to speak, as long as one doesn't stay too long.

[TubularCorporation]

I go into a flow state almost every time I make music.

 

I'm not sure how I'd make music otherwise.

[Braintree]

 

I go into a flow state almost every time I make music.

 

I'm not sure how I'd make music otherwise.

 

 

Daps

[fxbip]

When making music im usually in a trance like state,almost like dreaming.But most of the time there is an extreme tension going on at the same time.Basically its like feverish possession.Getting everything right,getting all the ideas that flow in there in the right place.And my computer is shitty and ive been making these 70 to 100 tracks project and it cant take it ,so it become frustrating as i have to render tracks and stuff.

I make music when im in extreme anxiety states usually.So its like a release from that also.

 

I get a tension similar to sex in a way to.Building a track is like until its finished is like wanting to reach orgasm.You are like in this tense state of mind looking for release.

Sometimes i feel like the music want to get out of me like a child of of its mother.So its like giving birth to.With all its pain and emotions.