How to grab inspiration by the ears and hold on
We get a lot of threads on TalkBass concerning how to stay inspired. A lack of inspiration can lead to a plateau in your learning, and can even drive some players to put their instrument down altogether. Bands can stagnate or break up, so we can’t always rely on them to keep us motivated. Luckily, inspiration can come from a million different sources. Trying to gather a collection of the ones that inspire you most into one place can be a helpful way to keep yourself motivated and excited about playing.
A playlist on your phone is a great place to start. Bass-lines you love, songs that move you... anything that gets your blood pumping is good. Use a voice recorder app to save any musical bits that may develop into lines or songs later: we’ve all experienced what it’s like to have a great song idea and then completely forget it when we didn’t record it. Don’t forget to listen back to them later, either! Create your own YouTube playlist of live music that you dig and lessons that you’re working on. Even if a particular lesson is beyond your current skill level, if it’s something that you can see as achievable in the future, keep it at the ready.
Don’t limit yourself to musical sources alone, either. Having a folder of photos of artwork or bassists you love – even basses you find beautiful – can energise you. Keeping links to inspirational stories or speeches on hand can move you to keep creating. Michael Hedges took E E Cummings’ poem ‘I Carry Your Heart’ and wrote music to it, creating a beautiful new piece of art that was spawned from another. Michael Manring played a powerful fretless bass-line on that track, that also inspired me many years ago to get my first fretless. Inspiration is contagious, it would seem.
There’s no avoiding the routine practice that’s required for us to improve, but stoking your creative flame is also important, and more easily overlooked. Music should never be a chore; the urge that inspired you to pick up your instrument to begin with is always accessible. www.talkbass.com