The art of forgetting about music for a bit
Here's a piece of advice I've heard thrown around to composers a lot. You've probably heard it too.
"You should try to write at least a little bit of music every day."
This is bad advice.
For a multitude of reasons that I won't get into here, I've had a terrible few months. Just awful. My creative output has suffered as a result. I've still been making music, but it's been a slow, painstaking process. Lots of staring at empty Cubase sessions, wondering why I can't come up with any ideas. And while I have been happy with what I have managed to make, I haven't had that feeling that happens when you make something you really, really love, like you've figured out how to transform a part of yourself into a track and release it to the world.
I didn't fully realize it, but what I needed was a break. And I got that in the form of a weeklong trip my husband and I took to the Pacific Northwest at the end of September. It was a lot of exploring city neighborhoods and parks, meeting up with loved ones, eating great food, and staring at the ocean, and a whole lot of not thinking about chord voicings or Ozone 10. I listened to a lot of music, but not as a way to seek inspiration for my own composing. I listened to it for its own sake, as an accompaniment to looking out the airplane or train window.
It felt so nice, like such a weight off my shoulders, that when I got back, I decided to continue avoiding making music for a bit. I finished projects around the house, met up with friends, and read a lot. Then one night I suddenly had an idea for a song. I don't even normally write lyrics, but there I was, 1:00AM, huddled under the covers, frantically typing lyrics in the notes app on my phone before I could forget them. And they were good. I finally felt like I was writing something that I was truly connecting with, experiencing that feeling of releasing a part of myself.
Over the next 24 hours I wrote 2 more songs I felt equally excited about. Honestly, I don't know if these will ever exist as anything more than notes on my phone. I don't love my singing voice, and putting lyrics I wrote out into the world feels strangely vulnerable in a way that instrumental music doesn't. But regardless of what happens, the spark is back. I'm excited to make music again.
I think we creative types, especially those of us whose art is how we make a living, absolutely need time away from creating. The time for rest and rejuvenation is so crucial.
I know for awhile I knew this intellectually, but always had a very intense fear attached to it: what if I enjoy the time away too much? What if I never want to come back to making music? And it turns out that the solution to that was being okay with that possibility. I was able to truly let go of thinking about composing because I went into this break thinking, "well, if I end up enjoying this time off so much that I find myself never wanting to make music again, then that's a pretty clear sign that I should do something else with my life, even if only temporarily."
But of course that didn't happen. It only took two weeks for my innate desire to make music to come back so strongly that I wrote 3 entire songs in a 24 hour period.
Lesson learned.