My lack of tutorial videos and some advice for writers block. (Patreon)

First off, I'm addressing all Patrons with this one, rather than just those who would receive tutorials, since I'll be providing some advice that I think all should benefit from.

So I want to address the lack of tutorial or similar videos that I've made, since I said I'd be doing them but not really followed up on that for a number of months.

Honestly, the main reason is that, perhaps for the last 6 months or so, I feel like I've not been anywhere close to the fluency I normally have with making music. I'm not exactly sure what the culprit is behind this feeling, but ultimately, the result is that I feel a little like I'm currently in a re-learning stage for things I've already done before. This is obviously a little bit of a problem because I'm trying to provide content for you so you can understand how I do things, but if I myself have mostly forgotten how to do those things it's going to not produce a good tutorial. It's going to produce a long video of me umming and hmming about why it's taking me an hour to not make something bland. Maybe that's exactly what you're looking for, but I don't know if I'd ever reach a resolve in that tutorial video, you know? Imagine going to a piano lesson and your teacher is like "damn hold on i've been a bit slow lately lemme just relearn how to play piano". That's basically where I feel I'm at right now.

What I can provide you, in text, right now, while not exactly a high quality tutorial, is some of the ways I plan to dig out of this trench, which have worked for me before:

1. Watch other people make music. I know this might have been exactly what you came here for, to watch *me* make music, but yeah, my advice here is to go watch someone stream music making, or search Youtube for videos of someone just doing what they do. Not necessarily teaching, but just creating. I've found myself super inspired after watching a stream in which someone is just making their music. It can set off little spark in your mind like "huh, that's a real neat way of doing x" or "what an interesting production quirk this person has", and you can try it for yourself, opening doors for you.

2. Make complete trash/go sample-searching. Okay so, this might seem counter-intuitive, and those two things might sound like not the same thing, but here's what I mean: Drop every intention of having a good end product, open up a blank project, and start making an abhorrent noise. Grab a synthesiser you've never played with before and just arbitrarily turn its dials. You're not trying to create a nice tune here, you're pushing the synth to it's limits to make a mess. What you'll want to be doing, however, is recording the whole process from start to finish. You'll end up with probably 90% distorted noise, but 10% of that playing around might have touched on a few really cool sounds you've never heard before. Extract those cool parts, and try to put them to a beat, or try to put a bassline behind them, etc. It's a very fluid and stumble-upon way of making music that will break you (me) away from the often uninspiring feeling of "okay here's blank project, maybe I'll make a drum loop first, or a melody, nah i got nothing i'll go play overwatch".

3. Limitation. Give yourself a strict limitation for your next project as a personal challenge. This, for me, often completely alleviates that feeling of not knowing where to start. An example that's worked well for me before: Pick a sample from your library, anything, and use *only that sample* as your source for all audio in a track. I did this with my track PrydaPrejudice on the album PWR ON. 2k15, in which I used only one snare drum sample for every part of the song, but was free to modify it in any way to achieve what I needed. The result is a slightly unusual soundscape, but it's still definitely a working, functioning song. You might surprise yourself with what you can do with just one sample. Maybe this isn't for everyone, as I'm personally just a big fan of problem solving and a big believer in the "where there's a will, there's a way" kind of resourcefulness. But giving yourself these types of limitations present you with a problem to solve while being creative. Having a problem to solve gives you a goal and a set of tools which you must use to reach that goal, ultimately giving you a driving force behind your creativity, rather than simply relying solely on your possibly-drained imagination and the feeling of "where do i start?".

4. Uninspired? Write a song about it. This one is probably the most difficult suggestion here, but it's certainly possible. I've done this before with a couple of tracks, "Saturate (In The Grey)" from Synesthesia being the first I can think of. That song was about how the dark and grey of winter can take it's toll on your imagination and drive, and sometimes even wellbeing, and make you not feel yourself - or at least that's what it does to me. The point I'm trying to get at here is that you can always write a song about your current feelings. Why are you happy? Write a song about it. Why are you sad? Write a song about it. Why are you bored? Write a song about it. Do you have writers block? Write a song about it... and so on. As I said, maybe not the easiest method out of writer's block, but maybe once you've done one of the other suggestions listed here, you can use this as a further boost once you get going.

I hope this is helpful. Writing it was pretty helpful to me, honestly, and I'm going to take a shower and come back and use some of these tips to get me going again. Happy creating!