This weekend I got a chance to talk with a few people about writer's block and I think I have two new approaches for avoiding and/or overcoming it. They both involve focusing on the big picture of what you're doing rather than the details.
One suggestion stems from what artists learn in life-drawing class, where they have to draw a human model in whatever pose the model is in, within eleven minutes. The best way to accomplish this is to avoid getting bogged down by the details:
- Sketch the overall figure as quickly as possible
- Get the scale, perspective and weight of the figure down
- Worry about the details later
Some artists will nitpick early on about the hands, position of the fingers, the eyes, ears, etc., and those artists don't finish in time. Regarding music, this might translate into:
- Jot down a few themes or melodies you want to utilize. Maybe this means a few beats, ideas for grooves, or the start of a ram.
- Don't focus on how you're going to get from section A to section B
- Don't focus on whether section A actually comes before section B
Another approach involves pushing on with something despite the fact that you're not quite comfortable with it. The example used was a website design, where the designer used colors and typefaces that he didn't quite like, but he continued with them until the design was finished. The end result wasn't as bad as he initially felt it was going to be. He ran with it until it was finished, rather than getting stuck in the beginning with things that didn't really matter.
So these two approaches are related, but they're not exactly the same. I'm not 100% sure how they translate to cadence composition, but at least I've got a few more things to try. Hopefully they help me make some progress.
Have any thoughts or suggestions?
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