MOTIVATION!!!

[Sustain]

What are your ways, tricks, habits, rituals, etc, to boost your motivation on making music? sometimes in life there are times when your motivation goes down? what do you do? take a break? or try to boost it? and how?

[rsntr]

First of all - if you're not motivated to do something that should be fun in the first place why do it at all?

Anyway, for me discipline helps. Set a minimum viable commitment per day to work on music even if you don't feel inspired. The muse shows up when you sit down to work. I also set a 30 mins alarm clock and turn the internet off to be free of distractions. After 30 mins I take a break and go for another 30 mins and so on.

[Sustain]

yeah right I mean more inspiration than motivation, if there is no motivation you can't force your self.

[juodas]

try to get out of the comfort zone, that's really helps a lot, trying to do something different, exercise, cooking food or what ever

[SixOfOne]

Motivation/inspiration comes and goes. It's discipline you should focus on. Sitting down and doing the work. Sounds so easy...

[Mattias]

It's not really about motivation, believe me. It's more about the distractions.

Rule #1 for being effective and finding something that triggers your lust for creating;

T U R N O F F Y O U R F U C K I N G P H O N E (Or by the very least have it offline)

Rule #1 for being effective and finding something that triggers your lust for creating;

D O N T S U R F T H E W E B A N D F A C E B O O K I N G W H I L E C R E A T I N G

[Huck Farper]

meh, maybe shutting off devices or the web works for you.. I don't have a problem creating while chatting, surfing, watching videos.

[RWise]

Listen to good music that inspires you...

That always gets me going. i just listen to an artist i admire and then it drives me to want to make great music.

[rsntr]

Listen to good music that inspires you...

That always gets me going. i just listen to an artist i admire and then it drives me to want to make great music.

This can work. But I often get an existential crisis because I feel I will never make anything this good
OR I figure out how to copy a particular element of a track really well and then I'm like: so now what? No one needs a copy of an already existing track

[Amøbe]

There is an interview somewhere, with Lars von Trier (the director, who is known by a lot of people, who like to tell you, how much they know about coffee), where he explains his entire career, as someone who sets out to investigate an unknown island in the east direction. He believes that he has never walked away from this direction... The way I read it is that there is so much to explore in everything that if you just keep investigating the same element, you will keep coming up with a more and more complex understanding of it. It might not always be good, but it will still bring you something. It sounds a little rambling right now - If you keep doing something it will be interesting! At times it might be dull, but it will be interesting again, it is important to keep going.

[Lost to the Void]

Listen to good music that inspires you...

That always gets me going. i just listen to an artist i admire and then it drives me to want to make great music.

This can work. But I often get an existential crisis because I feel I will never make anything this good
OR I figure out how to copy a particular element of a track really well and then I'm like: so now what? No one needs a copy of an already existing track

I'm with you there, though I go further.
I try to listen to as little techno as possible to avoid influence.
Techno already suffers from way too much "sounds like" syndrome.
If I do listen to music it's not techno, keep my influential gene pool happy. But generally I try not to use music to get my inspiration bubbling.
You can always tell a producer who listens to techno all the time, because their stuff generally sounds like a fairly generic version of the zeitgeist.

Coming back from a gig with distant memories is generally better as the inspiration tends to get more vague by the process of chinese-whispers-of-memory

[rsntr]

Listen to good music that inspires you...

That always gets me going. i just listen to an artist i admire and then it drives me to want to make great music.

This can work. But I often get an existential crisis because I feel I will never make anything this good
OR I figure out how to copy a particular element of a track really well and then I'm like: so now what? No one needs a copy of an already existing track

I'm with you there, though I go further.
I try to listen to as little techno as possible to avoid influence.
Techno already suffers from way too much "sounds like" syndrome.
If I do listen to music it's not techno, keep my influential gene pool happy. But generally I try not to use music to get my inspiration bubbling.
You can always tell a producer who listens to techno all the time, because their stuff generally sounds like a fairly generic version of the zeitgeist.

Coming back from a gig with distant memories is generally better as the inspiration tends to get more vague by the process of chinese-whispers-of-memory

Yeah, that's an interesting point about non-techno inspiration. Recently I figured that I would like my music to have the feel, mood and groove of certain non-techno and non-electronic music. Kind of trying to translate the essence (at least how I perceive it) of this music with my electronic means of production.

[Mattias]

meh, maybe shutting off devices or the web works for you.. I don't have a problem creating while chatting, surfing, watching videos.

It's only what you think. Try it first. It's scientifically proven that multitasking only makes you decent at doing several things but never a master at anything. Fuck distractions.

[rsntr]

meh, maybe shutting off devices or the web works for you.. I don't have a problem creating while chatting, surfing, watching videos.

It's only what you think. Try it first. It's scientifically proven that multitasking only makes you decent at doing several things but never a master at anything. Fuck distractions.

+1
I remember studying for my exams at the library. There was always a clanging noise from a flagpole in the wind that I didn't even really notice. After I started using earplugs I realized how much that clanging actually distracted me all the time without me even realizing it.

[Lost to the Void]

meh, maybe shutting off devices or the web works for you.. I don't have a problem creating while chatting, surfing, watching videos.

It's only what you think. Try it first. It's scientifically proven that multitasking only makes you decent at doing several things but never a master at anything. Fuck distractions.

Dude you're a mastering engineer no?
What else do you do with your dead time?
If I'm running tape or rendering out big projects, or just tracking out through gear, I pop on here an rant at you cuntz.

But yeah, other than that I agree.
If I'm.making.music, I don't have anything else on.
Maybe I love it so much I just don't get distracted, if you are feeling the need to distract yourself when making music, I would say you (not you, colloquial innit) probably shouldn't be making music at that time.

[Mattias]

What else do you do with your dead time?

When I render / take ear-pauses I often read video game news or prepare for dinner

[Lost to the Void]

I'm a big fan of io9 whilst rendering out.
Game comic and manga news.

[Mattias]

Yes io9 is getting visits for sure. All sorts of good amusements to do during capture & rendering.

But music creating mode = only the inner mind space for maximum feeling / concentration. My phone is offline, Facebook down, everything else dead.

[1nfinitezer0]

What are your ways, tricks, habits, rituals, etc, to boost your motivation on making music? sometimes in life there are times when your motivation goes down? what do you do? take a break? or try to boost it? and how?

Record something everyday.
It is called producing only if you do.

when it sucks, keep going.
when it crashes, try again.
if it's not working, leave it.

[kingrad]

Listen to non techno for good samples