Escaping Music

[AngelCityOutlaw]

I've often said that even if I could, I doubt I would be able to make music a full time job because I always find myself having to take breaks (often several days) from it to get my inspiration back or else I wind up hating music.

What do you do (aside from something like work) to escape from music for awhile? Do you lose the drive to compose/play/perform often? Where do you look for inspiration and motivation?

Or do you ever lose interest in it at all?

[Frederic Petitpas]

[Garpocalypse]

No that's the way it goes for alot of people. Heck even Sakuraba gets out and goes for a motorcycle ride.

Today I wanted to work on some stuff, but i lingered around the forums here instead.

Chances are you're new tasks are stressing you out a bit. Just think about why you love doing what you do. I got really really bummed when this month's DoD mixes were posted. If you check them out you'll see why. They are crazy good! After cooling off i decided to try to learn from them and started doing some covers to see what was going on and if i can imitate some of it to increase my own mix arsenal.

Set weekly/monthly goals for yourself and if you don't feel like doing something try to do something else. Some days i'm not feeling a remix i'm working on, so i play. anything. Always keep some motivation at hand when you need it. like this: right now someone who may not be your peer yet, is getting better than you.

And at times i've tricked myself into playing some games when i should have been working. for motivation! (which has helped with ideas in the past for the record)

[ad.mixx]

Yeah, that's not unusual at all. There has to be some way to get your creative juice running. Many good professional musicians have their ways to escape music and get that creativity back.

The simplest thing I can do is just hang out. I can go out, eat with some friends, go to the park, whatever. Sometimes I just get inspired by people.

I'm also a very visual person when it comes to music. From hiking in the mountains, to just simply looking at art helps a lot. I come with a lot of melodies, chord progressions, etc. just from being outside, though.