Source Audio Blog

Music that Inspires us

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Posted in: Tips and Tricks

What inspires you as a musician?  Of course, we are inspired by listening to and watching great musicians (especially evident after the Namm show where great players are all over the place), as well as great events that happen in our life. But what about your equipment and guitar sounds? Do they inspire and challenge you to make your best music?  That is something that can be answered by the productivity and quality of the recent music we have been creating. Regardless of how we "verbally" answer that question, if we don't have any great new music, which truly speaks about ourselves as a musician, then we are not currently inspired. The proof is in the pudding, as "they" say.  If we are not getting musical results, we have to change our inspirations. New sounds and music making tools are a huge influence for our musical inspiration. I remember recording in a professional studio, and the "producer" dialed in what I thought was a totally lackluster guitar tone. We seemed to be taking an excessive amount of time to get a tone that I could live with (even though I was being charged by the hour for this), which seemed to be bothering the studio owner/producer. He then replied something to the order of "just improvise a part with the tone you have now, even though you don't like it". Now, that struck me as the antithesis of good musical advice - for how could any of us be inspired to play our best if we are not inspired by our tone???????? That was 20 years ago, yet I remember it almost everyday.  Try a new guitar, amp or effect. Try a new tuning. Learn a new chord progression. Buy a new theory book. Watch a movie that you would not usually be interested in. Plant seeds for new ideas, and harvest them.

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