Musical Re-Visioning

As a musician, inspiration is often one of the hardest parts of the creative equation to come by. Often, we fall back into the rut of writing variations on what we have done before.

Listening to early Motley Crue or anything by The Ramones are perfect examples of getting in a rut. Song after song of the same half dozen or so power chords shuffled around in simple patterns. You can almost imagine them writing an entire album in one afternoon. (Yes, both of those bands had some good songs. But they all pretty much sound the same, don't they?)

A good exercise that can help lift you out of a rut is to take music written for a different instrument and play it on something totally foreign to the piece. Take a piano ballad and play it like a hair metal band on a distorted electric guitar. Take a folk song and play it like 80's synth-pop. Take a thrash metal song and play it as an acoustic ballad. When you take the music out of its original context, you might discover your own music in a different context, too.

One of the virtues of using virtual instruments is that you can do this re-visioning easily. Build the song in your DAW in a semi-faithful adaptation of the source material. Then swap out the virtual instrument for something completely different. Maybe add effects to either punch it up or mellow it out.

Years ago I worked out a instrumental metal version of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence". I think I ended up doubling the tempo, swapping folk guitar for wailing metal guitar, and put in enough drums and bass to qualify as being a complete wall of sound. By doing that, I was able to see my own music differently. Over the course of the weeks following that, I wrote and recorded 3 new songs that were in a completely different style than I had written before, and they were better than the dreck I had been working on prior to working on "The Sound of Silence".

So go for it! Rip apart and re-vision music that is outside of your normal fare. If you don't like the result, nobody has to hear it. Use it as a tool and then rediscover your own voice.

Inspiration has a way of striking more often when you are outside of your comfort zone.