Innovation & Inspiration for Musicians

I love music and it will always be my first love, but I also draw inspiration from other areas of my life. Believe it or not, I draw inspiration from food, from painters, and pondering the differences between bottles of wine. I also enjoy baseball, travel, spirits and cigars. Sources for inspiration are endless. Religion and poetry have inspired thousands of songs but what about rock climbing, philosophy, pathology, art, landscape, or cooking? Maybe it’s time to think outside the box. Just because you are a musician or composer doesn’t mean all your inspiration needs to be from music. Why not be the first to draw inspiration from a new place? I would venture to guess that Franklin drew some political and poetic inspiration from music, and Cage drew musical inspiration from Schoenberg as well as “non conventional instruments.” Be sure to familiarize yourself with Cage’s 4’33” and the Prepared Piano.

Try adapting some of their techniques. Try thinking in a new direction and open your mind to be inspired. Think about the rhythm or sound cars make when they drive over a particular manhole cover. Think about the frequency or sound the air makes when you drive down the freeway and open your window a little or a lot. Think about waves crashing over rocks and the tempo at which the water retreats. Sounds can become music, but it’s up to you to organize the sounds and then create the music. Inspiration will lead to innovation.

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