Hey guys, So with the recent passing of one of my favorite musicians Scott Weiland, it got me thinking about the harder things in life that make music so deep and meaningful to me. My best musical ideas happen when going through a break up or bouts of depression. However when putting that pen to paper or shaping sounds, I get lost in my own head. Consumed with thoughts that are difficult to express. I have a hard time putting myself in a level of comfort being alone making music. Maybe i need to find someone to collaborate with? I really dont know the purpose of this post but felt like i needed to vent. Going through a tough spot in life.
Itās important to remember that music is your therapy first. Its starts with you and whatās in your heart. Let the sound find you, not the other way around. Try to remove any pressure from yourself and focus on you, not whatās going on in the world around you, news is bad. This can greatly reduce noise in your head that may cause sticking points or frustration.
Just my humble opinion.
Sorry to hear youāre going through a tough patch. Remember that it will pass and crisis can be turned into opportunity to change/growth.
Iād agree with noisemaker that you shouldnāt put pressure on yourself.
Maybe just press record, forget about it and then explore/express yourself - maybe youāll end up with some good bits to polish into a āproper trackā or maybe itāll just be nice and cathartic to play with sounds and vent your emotions.
Yes, do agree.
Few days ago, no inspiration, not being able to achieve musical works, a little be stressed.
I went to just make a drone and play for around 1.5 hour with 2 oscillators and a filtre (active but low drone). Concentrate only on Sound, very subtle change of the few synthesis parameters.
When I get in my bed, I was really well relaxed.
Precision : Iām not found of relaxation/psychological/pseudobitnico philosophical attitudes. 
Try it ! But be aware about addiction 
Going through some similar stuff recently. Also, keep in mind, there are professionals that can help. I struggled with depression and anxiety for decades thinking they were things that I could handle when they really werenāt; I was not making anything better, just ignoring a problem that only got more severe. Recently, Iāve been trying out medication/therapyāitās a slow road, but it is helping. Basically, it sounds a little like youāre beating yourself up, like āthis should make me creative, but I just feel sort of numbā or āIām just overthinking this too muchā or whatever. And I would say that that is a bad cycle, in my experience; try to break it, try to remember some of this is just neuro-chemicals that you canāt control, and seek help if you have trouble getting out of that hole.
Best wishes.
Collaboration is good, to many electronic artists work alone.
And sports or physical exercise, wears you out and numbs the mind.
hey opā¦ read your threadā¦ would like to leave a comment, but not sure what to writeā¦ depression is real. ā¦ trying to handle these things all by onesself might not be the best ideaā¦also I would never laugh at anybody who opened up to me about his or her feelingsā¦ might comment more ā¦
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oh, did you see the other thread I started??? , here you could very well use it as a starter Little tutorial w/ rand rytm on t4 at 133 bpm ā¦ cheers mate
Thanks for the support. I feel like I have sounds in my head, beats, lyrics just being pushed against a door in my head. You guys have some great ideas. Love the idea of just taking a drone and building from there. I always run back to my moogs for these tasks. Might just need some slim phatty + delay time.
The other aspect of this is I am hard on myself over what is āgoodā or just good to me in the moment. I have a hard time finishing projects because Iām that guy that writes a poem and throws in trashā¦Begins again. I get stuck in a ārefiningā stage that kills the mood. I considered recording to tape and avoiding the want to save and organize every little thing for another day to complete.
Sorry to hear about the tough spot you are going through, you might like to try meditation or mindfulness techniques to zap the depression or anxiety, depression is mostly based on past things and anxiety is mostly based on the future, so zoning out and getting into the moment and taking your head out of the past or future can be very beneficial.
Music can be a great tool, and drones can be great for focusing the mind, also you can find plenty of guided meditations and mindfulness audio on places like soundcloud or youtube.
Sorry to hear you are going through some rough times. It can be very bleak.
I had a thought or two when you said that you encountered challenges when sitting down to create:
Finding more raw and immediate ways to express yourself is important, without judging the results and falling into over-cerebrality.
Itās very common to have a ācensoringā voice in our head which turns the act of self-expression into something too ācerebralā. I find that ideas are almost subconsciously vetted and judged before they even hit the page - by that censoring voice. Learning to listen past the critical voice, and tell it āthank you for sharingā and express your ideas anyway is a skill, a practice, and creating art gets better and better over time, and more original, fulfilling, and healing. A technique for practicing the art of listening past the critical voice is called āmorning pagesā by Julia Cameron. Check it out!
And just an observation on the connection between moods and creativity:
The impulses to create and express ideas and feelings often result from paying close attention to sensual detailsā¦details which we enjoy noticing or possibly even fixate upon. It is often times of sorrow, or full-on depression where we automatically pay attention to details of things, as a way of sidestepping the over-experiencing of the emotions, the cyclical, breeder-reactor nature of emotions. Itās like zen autopilot.
Give yourself time and self-care. 
Sorry to hear you are having a rough patch. Iām not even going to pretend to know how to help you. Butā¦ I can tell you what helped, or is helping, me.
Simplify
As relatively similar organisms to our forefathers who existed long before the distractions and complications of modern life, I think we try and do too much every day. We intake too much information, eat too much, buy too much, worry too much, think too much, sit still too much, etcā¦
Upon waking, maybe sit with a cup of coffee/tea and make short simple list of things you want to accomplish in this day. 2-3 simple things. Then do them. Repeat the next day.
Reduce
Music and creating sounds is one of my true joys in this life. But gradually cluttering up my home with gear to learn, sync, connect, maintain, etc. began to overwhelm me. Iām cutting back. Also, have at least one day per week to stay off computers, phones, etc.
Priorities
Start with Maslowās hierarchy of needs. Food, water, shelter, etc. Take care of those. Healthy food, nice clean and decluttered physical space, and then exercise. Just move. Can be as simple as walking. Reconnect with the outdoors.
Again, these things are working for me, not miracle cures for all. Just putting them here for general tips. I hope you find something that works for you.
Iāve been reading every post and really appreciate you guys taking the time to give very positive advice 
Also do not forget about humor: it could help to put things in perspective and to not take everything too seriously. Even in music.
getting out of ādepressionā is like getting out of a mud pit, with slippyness all aroundā¦ if feels to me so fucking hard every fucking time again and againā¦also i feel very alone in those moments ā¦ bought a pair of running shoes, 20 min run for the first time, oh boy was I proudā¦ now I do regularly clock in 45 minutesā¦ will help, not for the first few weeks thoughā¦ I also find cooking VERY very VERY helpfulā¦ soup! gigantic pot of soup with vegetables and MEAT ,expensive meatā¦ having a big big big pot of warm source of energy in the house, for several days, does help me a lot not to stay in the malnurished, lack of energy moodā¦where I am from you can get free professional help, with jumping through several hoops of their system, that also helps. I found a free vocoder and autotune software and had my voice altered whilst letting thoughts go and record. getting up with the sun, and trying not to go to bed at sunrise also helped I guess. no more than 3 cups of coffee a day, afterwards black tea only, or better no caffeine after 4pm. was on meidcation for a while, glad I tried it, glad I am not on it anymore. art of manlyness videos on youtube helped me also to find motivation. airing the room daily and vacuuming every suday helped. doing the shopping every monday, no matter what. still it keeps feeling like I am with led on my legs trying to crawl out of the mud pit, everybody else is dancing on the rim looking down on me, condescending and laughing in their white dresses with their white shoes and white teeth and white bandanas intheir hair, with their white porsches, driving to their white houses (I am white also by the way and do not mean this in a skin tone way), enough said., I am so fucking jealous of their lives man! wish I hadnt wasted so much of my 20ies ā¦ yolo n shit
Wow so many kind souls out there,
I can relate to a lot of these points, Ivāe struggled with depression most of my life, diagnosed with bipolar age 23 which in my case is predominantly depressive, sucks eh? donāt even get to enjoy the highs! , and then took me another 20 years to learn that smoking dope was not helping just suppressing and numbing da shit.
Tried lots of different things hot yoga running, diet, therapy, medication, meditation all of these things help.
The Key for me has been learning to accept myself for who i am warts and all
and to try to stop comparing myself to others. I know easier said than done, it requires constant vigilance and most of the time I fail.
Music has been an absolute godsend since I separated from my partner, been making it for only 2 years but pretty much doing it 6pm till late oāclock most days. It just gets me in the zone, everything else melts away, instead of thinking how shit it all is, iām thinking how can i make that sound better, how can i improve my knowledge, watching endless tutorials honing my skills. Comparing my old work with newer work and feeling that iām getting somewhere. As to where iām going who knows, iām just happy to be creating.
i was this guy for a long time. sometimes the way out for me is to do something not for a polished result, but for the goal of learning something about the process. at the end of a focused session or two, i write a page in my journal describing what i learned and how i intend to apply it in some future situation. the act of writing reminds me that i have in fact reached a goal, have in fact accomplished something worthwhile.
i find approaches like this can accumulate into a better strategy for dealing with a larger issue. good luck ā¦ as i like to say, weāre all on the path.
I canāt describe how grateful I am for all of your kind and helpful words. They really are helping me look at things from other angles. I just hope I can sustain. I put a lot of effort into my relationship and having it crumble around me has sunk me lower than I had imagined it could. I know the incredible joy I experience when I create something I am proud of, but lately I have felt paralyzed in my own mind. Right before this collapse I had purchased an octatrack I have yet to open. Maybe this weekend I will turn it on.
Having passed thesame problems as you do ( and ho knows in the future ? )- I would like to give U 1 Tip.
Try to go back to ( or stay in ) your body ā¦
Because your body knows how to heal U,
the problem could be that U go into your head because thatās a way to escape from the fysical sensations in reaction to your problemsā¦ Whenever someting hurts or chocks us we will feel fysical sensations we donāt like. to escape from them we go into our mind. this is not allways negative but, to really digest the pain we need to feel it and give our body the time to heal. Going into the mind slows down or stops the Healing-process. If one finds the courage to stay in the body, wich can be very difficult, one feels ill and might become sick, the problem will be digested there, without one having to know what to do. The body is very intelligent but dousnāt think .- it only feels.
It took me years to realise this and I do forget it often - but it this insight is changing my life. So donāt be afraid to become sick or to have sensations u donāt like, these are important, what paralizes you is your mind - wich can only rechew the problem over and over, what eats all your energyā¦
You are a courages person are you wouldnāt be charing this here with usā¦ take this courage to be in your body-feelings and trust your body to find the solution and heal itself .
Personnally creativity has most of the time been a way to cope with all problems of life for me. This is the first reason I make music- heal my mind and FEEL. Thatās why I experience freedom in creativity - and why i need to paint and so on - it relaxes my mind
So whatever you think things that paralyse you - go into your body immediatly, and keep an eye on yourself, because you can return to your mind in no time, wich isnāt the solution. Give your body the time it needsā¦ itāll tell you when itās healed by giving you new energy. 
