Young Musician's Guide: Creative Burn Out

Creative Burn Out.

It's where I am right now musically. Creative Burn Out will happen to every artist multiple times and the duration can last from a few days to over a year in my experience. I'm a writer, a novelist, poet, lyricist, guitarist, and vocalist and I've suffered the burn out in every one of those art forms.

Creative Burn Out May Manifest Itself as:

-A loss of interest to play at all...

-A loss of interest in what you've been playing...

-A loss of confidence in oneself and the ability to play/write

-A loss of interest in playing with certain musicians

-A lack of poignant material/emotion to create

It isn't necessary to force yourself to be a musician if you truly don't want to be. If you're burnt out because you're trying to be someone you're not, then pack up the gear and do something you love. Sometimes scrapping material is perfectly acceptable; starting anew may feel very refreshing and end the burn out. Starting anew with a new band might be what you need, but that's a very tough decision. If you dissolve or leave a band each time you burn out you're never going to accomplish anything. Even though it can be difficult to continually believe in yourself, you have to trust me, just keep pushing on. You'll get through this!

A Quick List of Tips to Reverse Burn Out

-Go live life and have experiences and translate them to music

My best piece of advice for a musician suffering a case of burn out is to try and push through it by playing as much as possible without any expectation. When that fails, force it more and when that fails, just put the instruments down and go live life outside of the studio. Clear your head and go have some experiences because experiences are the most important ingredient to good writing.

-Turn your brain off and play

I recently identified three stages of writing when I was playing guitar the other day.

1. What the Fuck?

The stage where the brain refuses to identify what this foreign object you're trying to manipulate is. No matter what you do, it'll be wrong.

2. Experience

The stage where you're playing things that you already know, riffs already written, running on auto-pilot, playing the typical time signatures, tempos, intervals, etc. that you're used to. Nothing much comes out of this most of the time.

3. Transcendental Playing

The stage where the brain is on a different plane of being, drinking from a well of higher knowledge and the fingers perfectly translate this holy language of creativity into sweet sound Stage three has no prompt that I've found, instead occurring without warning whenever it feels like it. It normally happens to me when I'm watching television with the guitar in my hand, paying absolutely no attention to what I'm doing and then bam! My ears tune into the guitar and I'm playing something that I've never intended to write. Turn your brain off and play!

-Check out some new bands and types of music

It's a guarantee, someone has already come before you and said it better than you. Learn from those people.

-Jam with many different musicians

Variety in your playing will stem from influence. Jamming with musicians you aren't used to hearing or playing with will force you to rethink your approaches and open up new hallways to explore. Being Uni-faceted in art will not only cause the artist to burn out, but it will burn out a fan base as well. Think of all the fad bands that have come and gone in a matter of 2-5 years at a time. Seriously, how many Limp Bizkit CDs could fans take? It was the same garbage again and again, nothing new to hear, no surprises, no challenges, no staying power.

-Learn some covers

I've found that learning how to play songs in different genres has continually taught me aspects of those genres and afforded me a glimpse into the creative mind of another musician. Remember that "Writers are first and foremost Readers."

-Give it time

Don't get too frustrated, it'll just create pressure and make things worse. It is a natural pattern like stop-and-go traffic. Eventually you'll get moving again and just like traffic, when you do get moving again you'll feel like your flying forward! I always comfort myself during these down periods by knowing that when it ends I'm going to be able to produce a torrent of new and much better riffs than I've ever written before.

Believe in yourself people. The hardest struggle is against yourself.