Songwriters get into trouble when they view the hard work of making music as something completely reliant on inspiration. Serious songwriters and producers who make music as a career can’t afford to wait for inspiration to come, and neither should you. The truth is that making great music takes work, sacrifice, and an uncompromising willingness to try and fail over and over again. If you’re tired of waiting on inspiration to make music, here are three exercises aimed at helping you increase your musical output:

We have all been there before.

We’ve opened up our DAW’s, ready to write the next big hit only to stare at a blank screen and save nothing. Writer’s block can be tough to deal with. You can begin to doubt yourself as an artist, become irritated, and lose motivation to work on music. Not being able to start a song or continue with a song that you have been working on is inevitable though. Even the most accomplished artists experience writer’s block from time to time. There are, however, a few tried and tested ways to help you break out of writer’s block quicker and get you back into the creative zone.

Below is a list of several ways to help combat the dreaded writer’s block.

Feeling creatively stuck, lost, or lacking, is an uncomfortable reality that all musicians inevitably face at some point during their careers. Whether it’s the nauseating sense that you’re writing the same song over and over again, or the inability to finish ideas, lacking creative potency can be frustrating. This especially goes for musicians who appear to be bursting with original ideas one day and none the next.

An unconventional way for musicians to address this problem is by thinking about their own unique musical taste. What you like isn’t exactly what you’ll make as a musician, but it’s connected in a big way. Challenging your music taste can get you thinking about music in a new way, and in turn, help to boost your own creativity.

Feeling lost and uninspired as a songwriter is a pretty awful feeling. When the flow of ideas narrows down to a trickle without warning or explanation, songwriters usually have to change up their process to get things moving again. If you’re feeling creatively stuck making music, we’ve got four exercises to promote inspiration and put you in a new musical mindset:

Writing music for the first time can be one of the most exciting things in the world, no matter your age and ambition. Whether you’re still in high school or have been a musician for decades, writing music is an experience different than anything else. But things like fear of failure and not knowing where to begin keeps a lot of musicians from writing music. If you’re someone interested in writing music for the first time, here are three things to remember during the process:

You might not think of it this way, but making music is risky. What if what you come up with is bad? Or, almost worse, what if you love what you write but it doesn’t click with anyone else? Self-doubt is a major hurdle that keeps musicians from meeting their potential, but there’s another culprit out there that’s just as dangerous for songwriters but far less talked about: disorganization. Creating a songwriting schedule is a solid way to ensure you reach your goals by getting big things done incrementally and consistently.

We all have this folder.

The folder on our hard drive that contains all the unfinished musical projects that we just can’t seem to finish. While not every song that we start is going to be finished and released, our goal should be to minimize the number of tracks that end up in this folder. Finishing your music is no simple task, but with a few changes to your workflow, improved time management, and getting rid of distractions, you can start to reduce the number of tracks that end up staying in the unfinished track folder.

Below I have compiled a list of the 5 tips to help you finish your tracks.

For many musicians, songwriting is a reliable way to escape their current circumstances. This especially applies to those living in places they don’t like. But whether you love or loathe where you currently live, where you’re located has a big impact on the music you’re making. Here are a couple of ways how.