What could be worse than trying to work on your craft but getting no results? What could be more creatively stifling than not wanting to pick up the guitar for fear of having it reject your musical advances? What is more destructive to a musician’s total being than hating everything he writes?

Absolutely the most frustrating part of songwriting is writers block. Not being able to come up with new material, especially when you had been so productive, is a surefire way to kill your desire to pick up the guitar. In my article “Why I Quit Playing Guitar” I mentioned how there were days, weeks, and months where I would strum the guitar once, know right away that nothing was coming, and put it right down again.

So what can we do when writers block takes over to the point of crippling not only our ability to write music, but also our desire? I’ve assembled a list of eleven things you can do to break out of the slump.

Eleven Ways to Overcome Writers Block

1. Switch instruments – Try writing something on the bass or a piano. When I was starting my progressive rock project Din Within (shameless plug) I purposely put the guitar down and wrote most of my parts on the piano because I knew I was going to run out of ideas.
2. Listen to something completely different – Pick up a Brad Paisley CD and listen to some country music. How about some electronica from BT, alt rock from Panic! at the Disco, or perhaps even some cookie monster vocals from Opeth. The point is, get away from your comfort zone and give your ears and mind a chance to attack the problem from another angle.
3. Plug in some effects – Not applicable to those of you who have pedalboards the size of small countries, but for people like me who typically run a dry signal it might help to set up a ring modulator or a delay pedal and play around. Experiment and see if you come up with anything.
4. Alternate Tunings – I’m not only talking about the standard D A D G A D stuff. Bassist Michael Manring once told me that he would tune his bass to something completely new, write a quick riff or idea, then tune the bass back up to standard tuning and try to play what he wrote. This will get your fingers (and brain) to look at and interact with the guitar in different ways.
5. Learn someone else’s song – You need to be careful here, because you don’t want to start writing songs that sound like who you are listening to (or maybe you do?) but the idea is to analyze what they are doing and see why it works. Chord progressions, melodies, lyrics, solos… anything and everything you can take away from someone else’s material is a potential lift-off point for inspiration.
6. Exercise – Yes, that’s right, folks. Put the guitar down and go for a jog, do yoga, see if you can do more than one push-up without collapsing, or go for a bike ride. Getting your blood flowing and your muscles working increases oxygen and improves circulation, which helps facilitate extended concentration and energy. It also gives you some time to think about music without the guitar in your hand.
   

   Salvador Dali - Swans Reflecting Elephants (1937)

7. Be inspired elsewhere – Photography, literature, dance, movies. All can provide endless sources of inspiration for song ideas if you are open to looking. Not even just lyrics, but even being inspired to write an instrumental based on something you saw or read. In college I wrote a Contemporary Ensemble piece based on a painting by Salvador Dalí. I showed each musician in the ensemble the painting and assigned each of them a piece of the painting to try and play. One person was the clouds, another was the mountains, and another the central image. Not only did they have to play their interpretation of the part of the image I assigned them, but they also had to listen to the other musicians to try and fit all of the pieces together. I can’t say it was a total success, but it certainly was something new and creative!
8. Practice/Learn something new – Yes, that dreaded “P” word that most of you hate. Buy a book on something completely new to you and explore it. The books by Andrew Green have some incredible ideas to inspire new material, as do products like Pat Martino‘s Creative Force DVDs. If you’re feeling saucy, how about taking on Nicolas Slonimsky’s Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns – the book that John Coltrane worked through before writing his seminal work Giant Steps.
9. Don’t try to be original - Right now we’re working on breaking through whatever plateau you’re on. Write a three-chord song that you have no intention of ever releasing to the public, just to write something. It can be the cheesiest piece of crap ever; it doesn’t matter! Write it, finish it, and move on. It is rumored that Stevie Wonder writes a song every day just to keep motivated.
10. Back to basics – Every January in my martial arts class is basics month. We start from Day One and work through all of the basic techniques and exercises. We purposely clean our slates and empty our glasses so we can approach the new year’s training with a fresh perspective. Try doing the same with your guitar playing. Work on your technique and tone for a while. Maybe there was a scale or chord progression you always wanted to learn; now is the time. Maybe you aren’t happy with your alternate picking (I know I’m not a lot of the time). Turn on the metronome and get going!
11. Be Patient! I saved this one for last because it’s usually the one that people hate to hear and is the hardest to do for all of us. Writers block will pass; it may take a day, a week, or even a year, but it will pass. Your love for playing guitar and writing music far surpasses any mental block that you’ve inadvertently put up, so have faith in yourself and the confidence to know that “this, too, shall pass.” (Hey, I should copyright that!)

Most importantly, Keep Going!