Staying Motivated To Write Music When You Have A Job: A blog about writing electronic or chance music and how to stay motivated.
We are all busy people. It’s very easy to get caught up in the day-to-day grind of your job, or the other obligations you have in life. I’m going to talk about ways to motivate yourself to keep writing music, even when you feel like you don’t have any time for yourself.
As a composer with a full-time job, I know what it feels like to be unmotivated and not be able to find the time for creative pursuits. That’s why I started this blog about writing electronic/chance music and staying motivated. This blog is dedicated to all those who want to write but don’t know where to start or how they can do it while working full-time.
I hope these tips will help you find your inspiration again and get back into composing!
If you are an electronic or chance music composer, you probably have a day job. You probably also have a family and a life outside of your 9 to 5 job. Even though writing music is your passion, it is still difficult to stay motivated to write music when you have so many other things going on in your life.
Here are some tips to keep yourself focused and make sure that you stay motivated:
1. Always have some sort of project going on. It doesn’t matter if its a large project or small, as long as it is something you can work on for a little bit at a time.
2. Set aside time each day to work on your music. Even if it is only 15 -30 minutes per day, it will add up over time and help you stay motivated by knowing that you are working towards your goals.
3. Find other people who want to compose and start a group with them where everyone can share ideas and projects with each other. This will help keep everyone motivated since they will be able to see what the other people in the group are working on and how far along they are with their project.
4. Find an online community of people who have similar interests as you do and post regularly about what you’re working on
1. You have a job.
2. You have a family.
3. You have friends.
4. You like to write electronic or chance music, but it’s not a priority for you and you don’t feel like you have time for it (maybe because it’s low on the hierarchy of needs).
So you have a job. If you’re lucky, it’s something you enjoy doing, and your main source of income. How do you find time to write music? How do you stay motivated to write music when you’re tired from work?
I had a full-time job for a few years while I was writing music, and this is what worked for me.
Just keep playing. You don’t need to be in the mood to practice or write music. You just need to be in the mood not to be doing something else, at the moment when you would otherwise be doing that other thing.
Set aside an hour after work and/or before work. Keep a separate calendar for your writing time, or schedule it on your regular calendar as if it were an important meeting of some sort – because it is! Make sure everyone knows this is your writing time, and doesn’t ask you to do anything else during that hour (or however much time you can manage).
Keep your tools ready at hand so that there are no barriers between you and making music. This means having your instruments set up, cables ready to go, batteries charged, software installed and configured, etc., so that all you have to do is sit down and start playing.
I’ve been doing this for a long time now, and I’m starting to learn what works and what doesn’t. The best thing I have done is keep a schedule. My day job is an office job, and my studio is there just down the hall. So it’s easy for me to walk in at lunchtime, or after work, or to take a break on a Saturday afternoon.
I also treat writing music like a job. I try not to do any other work while I am in the studio. When I go in there, I turn off my phone, shut down my email client, and log off of all social media sites. When I am done for the day, I close the door behind me and don’t think about it until the next time I go in there.
I also have tried to stay away from distractions that may prevent me from writing music when I plan on it. For example, if you know that you can’t resist the urge to get on Facebook or Twitter every five minutes when you are trying to write music, then make sure those sites are blocked while you are working. If necessary, use an app like Freedom (freedom.to) to block them so you
You have a job. You have a family. You have friends. You have TV shows on your DVR and there are so many songs on your iPod that you’ll never get to listen to them all before you die, etc.
And yet, for some reason, you feel compelled to write music. You don’t really know why; maybe it’s because of some deep-seated need for artistic self-expression. Maybe it’s just an idle hobby, like bowling or cooking (although since when are hobbies ever idle?); it’s something that you do because it gives you a sense of fulfillment and/or pleasure (and is not actually a waste of time).
Whatever the reason may be, you feel drawn to write music, even if no one else will ever hear it besides yourself. The problem is that with everything else going on in your life – paying bills, watching movies, listening to the new Kanye West album – finding time to write music can be difficult.
I’m a composer and I’ve been writing music for over 30 years. I’m working on my first CD release and want to write more often. I have a full time job and some other responsibilities, so my initial idea was to write one song per week. I tried that for the past two months, but it didn’t work out.
Now that I’m back to balancing my time with my other responsibilities, here are some things that have helped me be consistent with composing:
1) Write as much as you can as often as you can. The goal is to write something every day if possible. If you’re like me and have a job, try writing at least 3-4 times a week.
2) Determine how much time you want to spend composing each day/week and keep track of it. If you know you can only spend 5 minutes composing each day, try to do that instead of feeling guilty about not being able to spend more time composing than you’d like. It’s better than nothing!
3) Write early in the morning or late at night when there are fewer distractions. This works especially well if you’re an “early bird” or “night owl”.
4) Create a routine and stick with it. Don’t