please help me before i kill myself...

[Precision]

learn an acoustic instrument, or just bang on things, make music in it's most primal form, then worry about translating it to a computer setting

Great advice. Seriously, having guitar lessons has changed my life!

Just jamming over the top of a few simple chords and drum patterns is just so satisfying

[brightonalex]

Can you recommend a guitar tutor, Precision, in London? I am going to start learning guitar this year. I want to play slide guitar like Seasick Steve, but everyone keeps saying I have to learn normal guitar first

[4.33]

the problem is that you think about yourself in a negative way.

"i make NO progress", "i can't express myself" - surrounded by such thoughts the chances of any progress are quite slim.

switch

switch your state of mind to 'beautiful'
watch a good movie
listen to your favorite music
read a book
talk to a kid

do whatever can move you emotionally to that 'beautiful' state of mind and remember it

anything is possible there, just wake up your imagination and think about what you really wanna play

and if you can't play what you want right now - realize that there are only technical obstacles. so work on them and the progress will follow


if you walk a dark road with a light in your hand - you'll only see the next 10 meters before you. but with every next step you'll see more and more of that road. the light is your imagination. just remeber to have it always on

luckies

[radib]

get more direct into it, not that lame chord stuff. its dead end street in the beginning when you just have to develop a feel for the production process. get experimental, and then get rock n roll. kick the anger on the fly.

[Precision]

Can you recommend a guitar tutor, Precision, in London? I am going to start learning guitar this year. I want to play slide guitar like Seasick Steve, but everyone keeps saying I have to learn normal guitar first

This is my guitar tutor:

http://www.rossmerrin.com/index.htm

Really nice guy, very inspiring and technically outstanding. Give him a call for a chat, I'm sure he'll be able to tell you whether he can help you out

Let me know how you get on!

Cheers,

P.

EDIT: Seasick Steve rocks!

[brightonalex]

Can you recommend a guitar tutor, Precision, in London? I am going to start learning guitar this year. I want to play slide guitar like Seasick Steve, but everyone keeps saying I have to learn normal guitar first

This is my guitar tutor:

http://www.rossmerrin.com/index.htm

Really nice guy, very inspiring and technically outstanding. Give him a call for a chat, I'm sure he'll be able to tell you whether he can help you out

Let me know how you get on!

Cheers,

P.

EDIT: Seasick Steve rocks!

Cheers, I might leave it for a bit as I am moving soon, but I'll keep that link. Thanks

[djgroovy]

Ever heard of Eno's Oblique Strategies?
It's a deck of cards with advice for when you're feeling 'blocked'.

You can order one from here:

http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/

But, since the website has the cards texts, no need to buy, and i guess i can just paste it here. Something might get you going:

Abandon normal instruments

Accept advice

Accretion

A line has two sides

Allow an easement (an easement is the abandonment of a stricture)

Always first steps

Are there sections? Consider transitions

Ask people to work against their better judgement

Ask your body

Assemble some of the elements in a group and treat the group

Balance the consistency principle with the inconsistency principle

Be dirty

Be extravagant

Be less critical more often

Breathe more deeply

Bridges -build -burn

Cascades

Change instrument roles

Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency

Children -speaking -singing

Cluster analysis

Consider different fading systems

Consult other sources -promising -unpromising

Courage!

Cut a vital connection

Decorate, decorate

Define an area as 'safe' and use it as an anchor

Destroy -nothing -the most important thing

Discard an axiom

Disciplined self-indulgence

Disconnect from desire

Discover the recipes you are using and abandon them

Distorting time

Do nothing for as long as possible

Don't be afraid of things because they're easy to do

Don't be frightened of cliches

Don't be frightened to display your talents

Don't break the silence

Don't stress one thing more than another

Do something boring

Do the words need changing?

Do we need holes?

Emphasise differences

Emphasise repetitions

Emphasise the flaws

Fill every beat with something

From nothing to more than nothing

Ghost echoes

Give the game away

Give way to your worst impulse

Go outside. Shut the door.

Go slowly all the way round the outside

Go to an extreme, move back to a more comfortable place

Honor thy error as a hidden intention

How would you have done it?

Humanise something free of error

Idiot glee (?)

Imagine the piece as a set of disconnected events

Infinitesimal gradations

Intentions -nobility of -humility of -credibility of

In total darkness, or in a very large room, very quietly

Into the impossible

Is it finished?

Is the intonation correct?

Is there something missing?

It is quite possible (after all)

Just carry on

Listen to the quiet voice

Look at the order in which you do things

Look closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify them

Lost in useless territory

Lowest common denominator

Make a blank valuable by putting it in an exquisite frame

Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do and do the last thing on the list

Make a sudden, destructive unpredictable action; incorporate

Mechanicalise something idiosyncratic

Mute and continue

Not building a wall but making a brick

Once the search is in progress, something will be found

Only a part, not the whole

Only one element of each kind

(Organic) machinery

Overtly resist change

Question the heroic approach

Remember .those quiet evenings

Remove ambiguities and convert to specifics

Remove specifics and convert to ambiguities

Repetition is a form of change

Retrace your steps

Revaluation (a warm feeling)

Reverse

Short circuit (example; a man eating peas with the idea that they will improve his virility shovels them straight into his lap)

Simple subtraction

Simply a matter of work

State the problem in words as clearly as possible

Take a break

Take away the elements in order of apparent non-importance

The inconsistency principle

The most important thing is the thing most easily forgotten

The tape is now the music

Think of the radio

Tidy up

Towards the insignificant

Trust in the you of now

Turn it upside down

Use an old idea

Use an unacceptable colour

Use fewer notes

Use filters

Use 'unqualified' people

Water

What are the sections sections of? Imagine a caterpillar moving

What are you really thinking about just now?

What is the reality of the situation?

What mistakes did you make last time?

What wouldn't you do?

What would your closest friend do?

Work at a different speed

Would anybody want it?

You are an engineer

You can only make one dot at a time

You don't have to be ashamed of using your own ideas

[koneko]

just take it easy. its all playing, and playing should be fun. 99.99% of us here will never strike a tripple platinium.. so thats all left -- enjoy it, make bad tracks, make ugly tracks, make noise.. make the most wrong stuff, just have fun.

[darkcatt]

well you are taking it too serisouly.

you can't expect every song to be a masterpiece. I was a fiction major in college and they gave this analogy of the old hand pump well. See your creativity is like an old hand pump well. when you first pump it nothing comes out, then comes this crusty nasty water, then it gets clearer and clearer.

Eventually you have drinking water, or the music that you are looking for.

Even still just write to write. I heard Bon Jovi (*ducks infear of flying insults) said the hardest part of his last album was not writing the songs but weeding through the 80 plus that he wrote and pick 10 keepers.

just do it all, write write write. Then go back and canibalize 5 of them.

If you are angry at the music, intentionally go out at right a bad piece, something that you would normally never do. Who knows lightning may strike

[dm_hawk]

learn an acoustic instrument, or just bang on things, make music in it's most primal form, then worry about translating it to a computer setting

+1

also, try making a few minutes of interesting music/sounds using a single tool: one instrument plugin/manipulating one sample/using one rhythm/etc. make it sound as interesting as you can, call it "experimental" or something.

[ciw]

dont just sit and noodle away, you need a goal to work towards. such as 1) i'm going to make a song out of toilet sounds 2) i'm going to write a song for my love 3) i want to dance around to this piece

+1

Messing around with synth sounds doesn't usually work for me unless it has a purpose.

Such as, 'i'm going to make a song out of this foreign language vocal sample I recorded' or 'I'm going to write a song that describes a long boat journey through the jungle' or 'I'm going to write a song from the point of view of telegraph poles, which (though you didn't know it) are ancient tribal beings that actually created mankind rather than vice versa'.

Yes before you call in the men in white coats the last one is tongue in cheek, but all of these have worked for me!

Alternatively go and have a really good night out clubbing. You'll hear some good new music, and likely fail to remember exactly what it sounded like, but will remember a few aspects that made it good. Now try and recreate those aspects.

[djgroovy]

This is a great thread!

[dcease]

still with us, silverlulu?

[ciw]

More thoughts.

A friend of mine once told me "you are more productive than you think you are". What he meant was that good ideas strike at all sorts of random times. His method was to carry a notebook and pencil with him everywhere to note them down. With the idea recorded (whether a concept, a breakdown, a synth line, whatever...) you can return to the studio later to make it happen.

The notebook doesn't really work for me but my phone can record voice memos, and that does. I tend to sing or hum lines and rhythms into it.

I do keep a notebook by my bed for the creative ideas that strike just before going to sleep. This happens pretty often in my experience - it's an altered consciousness thing. Sometimes I'll get up there and then to work on the idea.

Finally, talking of altered consciousness, I'm surprised nobody has yet mentioned that there are (so I'm told) certain substances that can help with generating creative ideas. It goes without saying that it would be very very bad to become dependent on anything unhealthy in order to create music But seeing as some people do these things anyway - bear in mind that said substances aren't recommended for studio work, but voice recording devices are pretty cool for getting an idea noted down as fast as you can speak or sing it and before you forget what it was...

Edit: I would in no way recommend or condone this course of action but those people who do it might as well do it right.

[silverlulu]

still with us, silverlulu?

haha yes i am still with you!

wow thank you everybody so much for what you have written. i have just seen that this has spanned 3 pages so i am going to go back over and read what you have written. i am so grateful for your help, sometimes i feel so trapped because i can't express my feelings through music like i would like to.

i appreciate these replies a lot!!!