Inspiration

Sometimes I find myself searching for inspiration when creating music.  I want to make some music but I'm not sure what to do.  I think everyone has this problem from time to time, staring at a blank page.  In this article I'll describe some sources of inspiration that you might want to try.

Patch it

Synthesizer patches or presets can often be a source for inspiration.  I hate to use someone else's patch directly but they can often inspire me in a piece.  Often times a patch can suggest a certain mood or type of piece.  Or it may inspire me to create a similar patch.  One cool source of patch inspiration is the randomize feature.  My Waldorf Pulse analog synth has a random patch generator.  This is a really cool feature for patch inspiration without having to worry about copying someone else's work.  You can keep generating random patches until you find something that sound really cool, then tweak it a little bit to make it more usable.  I notice some software synthesizers have this randomize feature and I wish others would included it.  You can also get some inspiration from a new plug-in.

Got Rhythm

I'm not a drummer and I must confess I don't have great drum intuition which is probably OK for working with ambient sound but hurts quite a bit when I want to make some techno.  One technique I found is to find a piece of music with a similar style to what I want to make, then focus on just the kick.  I try to match the kick pattern, not necessarily the kick sound.  I don't have to match the pattern precisely because I really don't want to match the pattern precisely.  I just want to have a nice sounding unique kick pattern.  Sometimes once I have the kick pattern I can add the rest of the percussion sounds myself.  The second drum I usually add is the snare.  I may also base the snare pattern on another track if I need to.  The next pattern to add is the high hat pattern.  Then add other sounds.  I also like to mix acoustic and electronic drum sounds to provide more depth.

Sacred Chord

Stealing a kick pattern from another song is OK for inspiration, why not some chords.  Of course you probably wouldn't want to steal all of the chords for a song, then you would just have someone else's song, but there are some other ways to do this.  I have a large number of music books.  Sometimes times I like to browse through them and play certain chord progressions, ignoring the rest of the music, just jamming on the chord progressions to see if I can find a groove I like.  So even if the progression was originally from a country ballad or a classical piece it may end up in a bit of my electronic music.  Beethoven and Mozart were great at putting together chords.

Another variation on this is to take a certain artist and try to integrate their overall sound.  I'm a big fan of Pink Floyd and I like to make music with a bit of a Floyd vibe but I wouldn't want to copy their music directly.  So I studied how they bring their chords together, the types of chords they use.  Then use similar chord structures to make original songs.

Limit Your Palette

I have a lot of equipment but sometimes have too many options works against you.  I sometimes like to stick with just one instrument or a pair of instruments.  Once I tried to do a whole piece with just software synthesizers.  After you get a good sound going you can always fill it out with other sounds.

Beauty

A beautiful landscape, a beautiful person or feeling can also be the source of inspiration.  Don't forget those.

Hopefully you may find this information helpful when you are seeking to stimulate your muse.