The Alternative rocker

Be ready for your muse to strike, says Therapy?’s Mike

Last year was a great one for me on a personal and playing level, so

I’m keen to continue that into 2019. First up I feel I’m in a good place regarding regular gigging and practice, so there’s a confidence in my playing which I intend to use in some new creative endeavours. Usually I like to hit the floor running at the start of any year to fine-tune and document any musical ideas or song concepts I’ve had previously floating around. This involves going through various notebooks, phone recordings and half finished demos to find the original ideas – and then trying to remember the actual parts. Once I have a batch of them together I work them up into passable demos with a drum program and some guitar parts, before popping them into my cunninglynamed ‘New Songs 2019’ folder. It feels good to have a bunch of stuff reasonably ready to go when the time comes to hit the studio or begin work on a new album.

In addition to this I have a project called the ‘30 Day Challenge’ where I try to come up with – and demo – a new musical idea every day for a whole month. Now, I know what you may be thinking – you can’t just force it out! True, but I feel that getting into this regular creative mindset works wonders. There’s no need to sit around for the muse to strike; it’s better to treat your creativity like a muscle and give it a regular workout. Even if only 10 percent of those ideas you come up with get used, you’ll still have some solid ideas as opposed to none. Keep your bass handy as well, because the aforementioned muse can pop up without warning. Stick it on a wall hanger near your desk/sofa/bed; that way you’ll be more likely to pick it up when you have an idea. Make sure you have your preferred recording device to hand, too; the voice memo app on my phone is a godsend. You’ll feel a lot better knowing that you’ve been keeping your chops up and banking some cool musical ideas.