Opening Creative Doors

Over the many years of playing, I have often found myself in creative ruts. If you have been playing for any length of time, you know what I mean: All your fills sound the same, the same physical actions are stuck in maintnenance and even the beats you are coming up with are dry and boring.

This is a common problem, with a pretty easy set of solutions. First, if you have the luxury of playing with multiple types of musicians, this can be real easy. Maybe you spend time making music with a violinist or a sax player. Second, if that is not a possibility, try playing on someone else's kit. The different tuning and feel of foreign drums almost always inspires new thoughts.

But one thing that all of us can do is change our set-up. Say that you are used to a double-kick, 3 tom, 3 cymbal set-up. Remove the double pedal. Then, take out the middle tom. Now, remove the cymbal on your left side. Grab those sticks and see what comes out.

Next, try to move your ride to the opposite side of normal and set up a tom on by your hi-hats. Play for an hour and see what comes out.

Changing the way I set up really made me stretch and really cool new ideas opened up to me, just because the physical motions required something new of me.

Then on the other hand, sometimes our ears need new stimulus. Exploring new sounds can lead to good creativity as well. Try tuning your snare down, or loosening the actual snares themselves. Just like computers, what is done can easily be undone! Tighten that first tom; take off the bottom heads. Play with different types of sticks: Brushes, Multi-Rods, mallets, empty coke bottles! Try playing with your hands!

Go back to having fun and watch that creativity begin to flow in a healthy way again.

Hope this helps.

Blessings,
Frank