i have health problems and staying motivated to be creative in any way is really challenging some times. i like making tracks and i know at some point i will not be able to make them anymore so i try to keep making them while i’m able. force of habit is good motivator for me because i generally feel better when i have something to focus on.
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Very well said.
Share everything.
I think pretty much all my tracks are shit, mainly because I’m always going to be able to hear the things I did wrong. No-one else knows I got those bits wrong and some people like some of my tracks.
I mean, I’ve floated a lot of turds, but I don’t think it really matters as long as you’re learning from them.
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Alejandro Jodorowsky once said in an interview that making art is not difficult, but wanting to make art can be difficult sometimes.
Only recently I´ve had some break throughs with being able to finish tracks.
Learning to accept that not every track will be your best and being able to move on makes the whole process more rewarding and fun.
That’s not to say doing stuff hastily is a good thing but that to keep moving forward is important.
Its easy to waste time making a track sterile and dead.
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as a fellow cyclist/racer, I respectfully disagree. rest days are a thing for a reason 
even if you’re not actively riding/training, there are days that you need to just give your body a rest. or just do core work or something. not necessarily ride (or if you do, easily). same with music, I think. your point is 100% valid: you get better just by DOING anything a lot. but I think there’s also something to be said for giving your mind/body a break every now and then. same with music.
in other words: it’s important to work and put the time in. but you also have to walk away and do something else sometimes. forget about music (or bikes) and get inspired/motivated by living your life. maybe the OP is burned out/frustrated with music creation, and needs some time off while he figures out a more defined path.
as a side note: I went through this a lot when I got deep into cycling and racing. I had no energy left for music and everything I did, I hated. couldn’t write more than a basic loop before shutting everything off in disgust, and walking away. it took five years to get through it and start to enjoy music making again. I approached my machines, writing and my sound differently. and now I love it again.
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Speed is king. Start something, finish it. Do not hesitate or try to make a masterpiece, these cannot be planned, they happen along the way.
Feel free to join this thread:
And, the most important thing: Make finishing it a habit. If you cannot handle it big, leave it small. But finish it.
Even if it is small crumbs it is way more rewarding to look back on crumbs than on a lot of nothing/void/sketches.
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I like to derive inspiration from various things, be it music from an old psone game, a doodle I made or a funny looking rock I saw. Having inspiration most often leads to motivation. Making music to match the mood of an object can be a great way to drive creativity I think.
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Yeah this is good advice. The tracks I have finished tend to be long, multiple parts… probably overworked. Maybe make smaller goals. 1 minute compositions or something.
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Makes total sense. I’m going to try working out some live sets, since I’m much better at coming up with patterns rather than finished tracks due to obsessive perfectionism!
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I keep starting these projects - I think I have the wandering brain as I tend to move on to the next thing!
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I’ll touch on this because this was the part that struck a chord with me the most - I can actually relate to your post on many levels.
For me the answer to your question is pretty simple: I let the music guide me. Sometimes it’s a bit frustrating when, say, I make set of five tracks (more like skeletons of tracks) in a period of a month or so - and there’s usually two tracks MAX that I could imagine being on the same album. I actually consider myself fairly liberal when it comes to how streamlined an album should be. However, my main point is to have fun. So at the end of the day I don’t really mind if one of my tracks sounds a bit like Olafur Arnalds and the next one is a boneheaded noise techno track. Hell, in the past couple of years I’ve also done some black metal and prog/psych rock… I’ve always kinda been a jack of all trades and enjoyed writing music across many different genres. Genres are arbitrary anyway.
What @igtheflig said is a 100% true in my case as well. I have to “show up for work” in order for the motivation and the music to come.
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Force yourself to finish it. Even if you just record it in stereo.
Name it. Done.
Instant satisfaction. Very rewarding 2 minutes, or even less if you want 
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I just feel like it would be so much easier if I was like “ok I’m a breakcore person. Or an ambient person. Or Idm. Or alternative metal. Or hip hop Etc etc ”. I see these people just committed to techno and make 1000 variations on the same track and feel pretty jealous! I’d sit down and at least I’d have a starting point.
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You make a good point. And I did think after posting that maybe the OP just needs a break, and to not be so hard on himself, and worried that maybe my post just makes things worse. Sometimes what you need is a break and some self kindness, for sure/
Well said.
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A wise man once said ‘Kill you darlings!’, so I do.
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Yeah, we do. Sorry.
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I stick shit on SC for this reason. I say “there, it’s done”. And then a week later I listen to it. Cringe, and make notes about what I hope to learn from the flaws. I mean, I pick the most glaring flaw and try not to commit that sin next time.
That goes together well with not being so hard to oneself. Could also work for the OP, maybe.
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For real music, release records and play shows is my motivation. No reason to practise an instrument if you can’t show it off. For making experimental stuff, I just make whatever sounds I can get out of the machines or field recordings and arrange them so that they please me. I then send the recordings to different tape labels and see if anyone wants to release it. If I didn’t make full compositions or experimentations that were, to me, release worthy I would stop and concentrate on something else. Play video games or something. Synths are a lot like video games, you have a system you need to understand and to understand it, you need to keep playing. The difference is, the possibilities to create with them are truly endless.
There’s always a crowd for any type of music, provided you actually care enough to get gud and make something people want to hear. I always aim for something I can play for other people, show around. I guess that’s half of the motivation, the other half just being that I love playing with sound, be it a synth or a contact mic or a no-input effects chain.
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I used to fret about this regularly. At least partially drove me to selling most of my hardware (“if I’m not productive with it then why have £££s sitting there doing nothing “). It’s taken me a long time to realise that feeling like this is just a part of the process for me so I’ll go off and do other things like gaming or movies until I feel “well shit, I’m wasting time here “ and the music bug bites.
I accepted long ago that what I write will not be all that pleasing or impressive to 99.9% of people so figured fuck it, and just doodle until an idea turns into something interesting (or not as is often the case). Every now and again I’ll strike gold and run with it. I suppose one day I’ll collect the best of these ideas into an albums worth of content that I’ll be proud of.
It’ll sound corny but even all of these half Unfinished ideas are part of a journey and you’re constantly learning. So maybe it’s time just to pivot your expectations and to try and strike at what you enjoy musically. I’ve been in your spot, it can be frustrating, but chill and persevere. It’ll come. The Dude abides.
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