can you force creativity?

yes, you can! all it takes is a little trick.

here’s a little exercise to show you how to force being creative. it can be really helpful if you’re somewhat stuck with something somewhere. first i’ll give you a word and you just make some associations from the top of your head. the word is ‘music’ (now that’s unbelievably creative, isn’t it? but wait, it gets even better…). ok, just come up with some words that come to your mind when i mention ‘music’ ……………dumdeedum………………..dumdeedum…………………ready?……………. cool.

now we do the same thing again. just come up with some words that are (for you) related to music BUT this time the words have to start with an ‘m’ – go!

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it’s not as easy right? of course not. but now you are forced to be creative because most of the things coming to your mind aren’t allowed. you have to come up with something different that meets the criteria. if you come up with ‘musical’ it’s not really a winner, so keep going. try other words and other first letters. try last letters or the number of syllables as criteria. anything that keeps you from coming up with the ‘usual stuff’. restrain yourself, that’s the main point here – and it works.

if you’re playing an instrument or writing songs, you could for example lay a towel over your drums or detune them. you could set up your kit in a completely different way, so your standard stuff doesn’t work anymore. detuning your guitar/bass works as well, maybe start with one string and detune it a semitone. build up from there. go through the songs you’ve written so far and write down the chords you used. then write a song without the chords you used the most – and don’t fool yourself with just going one fret up or down. as a singer, sing with an album you know really well but don’t allow yourself to land on the same note at the same time as the guy on the record. experiment, it’s great fun and one of the best ways to teach yourself to be creative.

this is just one approach, but it helped (and still does) me a lot as well as my students.

check it out…