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Never had the Rockman. Did have the distortion and stereo echo Rock modules. Those things were great. Wish I still had them.

Never had the Rockman. Did have the distortion and stereo echo Rock modules. Those things were great. Wish I still had them.

had a Fender Bassman clip on pocket amp once...
It sucked as far as sound quality, but it let me learn the tunes without pissing off the neighbors & roomies; I always had a knack for pissing off the neighbors... just by being & looking like me...
five multi-colored 30" liberty spikes can have an adverse effect on some people. Especially when you try to live in the better neighborhoods!


www.myspace.com/blunderingeye
www.myspace.com/445175001
http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/6039/
http://bandmix.com/hayden-king/
hayden_king2000 on yahoo messenger

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Grab a piece of paper and a pencil and just start writing down things. They don't need to make sense or rhyme, don't worry about structure or topic, just write.

Grab your instrument, and sit in your favorite comfy chair (good luck if you play keys!) and just start noodling around, get a mono cassette deck and hit record and then forget about the tape...

If your a guitar player, get a keyboard or bass and noodle on that as it'll make you think differently and probably inspire you to come up with new ideas outside of your usually comfortable box...

Take an incident from your life and write words (as per above), then worry later about structure.

Come up with a short riff or chord progression (2 chords max) that you haven't tried yet and play it along with different drum machine patterns and tempos - get out of your usual habit.

Play any chords as long as they're not Maj or Min.... no power chords.
Play standard open chords all along the neck by barring the typical nut position w/your index finger, it's great excersize and you just might hear something different that'll wake up your muse...

Find some random poem online with enough lines to form verses/chorus and write some music to it.

Take the song "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain" and make it rock to a reggae beat with dropped D metal tuning/distortion at 125bpm ...;>)
Don't sing it any different from Willie tho'...

Plug your instrument into your home theatre system, get out of your usual 'musical setting', especially if it's comfortable, make yourself a bit un-comfortable for a change...

If you normally use an amp to practice/jam through, just use a pedal & headphones. headphones are really great to 'clarify' your own sound in your head, nuances and nit-picky stuff you may not have noticed before will now hit you in your face.

If you play slow, play fast (or try too) and vice versa. Play a musical style you hate and make it your own...

Take an old song you've written and re-record it in a completely different style & tempo of music.

Just my 2cents...

OMG Michael Jackson is dissing the universe. lol

(I could believe that)

Or you can do psychedelics like Phish and never actually write a song but instead simply play scales over and over again to a mediocre rhyhtm pattern. It helps if the audience is on mushrooms so that the "music" they hear will actually be created by themselves rather than the band.

Q: What did one Deadhead say to the other Deadhead after the acid wore off?
A: "Hey, this band sucks!"

Remember, all songs do not have to have words. Come up with a cool melody and build on that. Even incorporate a familiar folk tune...no need to worry about royaltie swith folk music. Remember the song, I come from the land down under ? They use a well known Australian folk song with that. You don't have to wait for your dog to die, or your girlfriend to leave you for your dad in order to get inspiration. You can write a melody today and not have words for it far 3 years.

I also like Hamsher's advice. Just write it!

I must make answer to the anti-Phish remarks. The lyrics & live vocals aside, they were quite a good musical act. They had too much filler on their CD's, it may be true, but for the most part I found their stuff quite listenable, even enjoyable. Much of it was also rather challenging for a band to pull off as they did. Remember that they were NOT a jam band. They played pieces of music. Check out their studio recording of "Stash" & compare it to the live version. As "jammy" as it sounds, it's a note for note piece, & not a collection of random scales, either. Try "Down With Disease" or "Theme From The Bottom" or "Bouncing Around The Room." Fun to play, too. Anyone making blanket statements about Trey using scales alone without melody obviously hasn't heard or learned much of his stuff. There was a lot more to that band than the guitar player. While he did play repetitive licks on occasion, everyone sang, & the keys were an integral part of the whole, & those repetitive licks were very often leading to the end of the song, to cue the band with odd numbers of repititions, which can also be challenging in live situations. You have to know where you are in the song to play their stuff, to keep aware. Perhaps that's what bothers Uncon about them.

from what I've seen and heard of Phish (being an upstate new yawker a stones throw away from where they broke) I'd say that their stuff gets old kinda quick, but its not just scales either, the keys totally are what make the band keep from bein bland, but if they just kept to the piano sound and did a lil more with it, and left the guitar as some sort of rhythmic lead breakin away from the main line for a brief (60 - 75 seconds max) it'd be ok, but the shameless wanking that I've seen in some songs bores me

I've been writting songs for over 15 years, and like you there are times when I sit down to write and nothing comes. It's in those times that I take a break, find something else to do. I get the best songs written when I'm not trying sooooooooo hard to make it happen. I find it easier though to write songs when around other musicians. Or if I write poetry which is often made into a song later, I find it easier to be around other poets. Anyway, don't go worry sick over yourself just because nothing to comes to mind right now. Hope that helps

Q: What did one Deadhead say to the other Deadhead after the acid wore off?
A: "Hey, this band sucks!"

ROFLMFAO

songwriting is the most sorrowful delight that I have!

www.myspace.com/blunderingeye
www.myspace.com/445175001
http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/6039/

"thems that knows me knows better, thems that dont, dont matter"

What always works for me is just sitting and thinking about things in my life. Family, friends, work, the good and the bad. And just write down or record what you are thinking. It's just a matter then of putting it to music, and editing the stream of consciousness. To me the best thing is just to sit alone for a while, I write a ton of stuff on the train. But everyone has their own "muse".

Good points Jen.
For me it's more a puddle of unconsiousness.

I have written in my sleep. Some just last night. I fear if I were to put last nights into words on paper to music, the guys in the white coats will drag me off.

put last nights into words on paper to music, the guys in the white coats will drag me off.

Nah. I've noticed that anybody can say (sing) just about anything in a song and it's OK, whereas if you said the same thing in a casual conversation yeh, they'd come and take you away. It's funny, isnt it?