I mostly like to write about fantasy-type things, but always struggle for inspiration. Does anyone else have this problem?

Joel

Inspiration is a strange beast. I actually think it's something you can't approach directly. Instead you need to live as rich and varied a life as possible, preferably in the company of like-minded folks. The deeper you immerse yourself, the more inspiration will find you.

You can never force it.

Thanks Tone!

I was on Facebook one day and saw an ex had a new profile pic; her and a new fella. A new song pretty much fell into place there and then.

The moral of this story? Inspiration can come from anywhere. Being inspired means being open to the world around you and letting it wash over you. Living an exciting life helps, definately, but its no use if you can't here the world knocking on your door, wanting to come in.

I also find asking the "why" of things helps aswell. That guy just got angry about his burger. Why? Is he always angry? Is he going through something right now? What is that? etc

What did you mean by fantasy? Like Tolkien, HP Lovecraft, that sort of thing?

Peter

Thanks Peter, and near-enough anything really. Usually something dark, though.

Inspiration... I like John Prine's view.

He said once that some of the best songs come from some of the sadder situations in life, like divorce. He added, "I recently acquired my second divorce and about a month later the song truck pulled up and dumped a bunch of great songs on my lawn."

Thanks!

Emotion is what creates great music. I believe most great songs are written about or in the midst of an emotonal situation. However, after much persistence it becomes easier to write faster and more frequently without a specific idea or without a specific emotion in mind. I think if you are are an emotional person then you can eventually use this subconciously to write melody and build words around that melody to produce a finished song. Personally I have never written a song about anything specific. Only when words are added does the song take on any meaning. However, sometimes when writing and in an emotional creative zone, certain lyrics may come to mind which form the basis for the finished song, so subconciously you could be writing about something. Sometimes just the tone of a song at the start of the writing process can encourage and determine the song direction and theme.

Another great piece of advice, thanks!

I think of it much like tone suggested. I think inspiration is bred from experience and emotion. The more varied your emotional experience is and/or the greater the depth of  that emotional experience, the better chance there is for inspiration. There is probably more artistic expression bred from pain and sorrow than anything else I think too. Yet it also depends on your own musical relationship. I don't write happy songs or angry songs. I don't use music to express those emotions so experiencing them probably isn't going to be musically inspirational. Perhaps that will change but that's my relationship with writing music right now. It's an outlet from expressing some but not all experiences.

However, inspiration can also come from a technical perspective as well. Intellectualizing music and being inspired to create something because of the mechanical complexity or the intriguing quality of it also happens but I think is rarer. For example, constructing a song because you think trying to manipulate the cosign of a waveform is curious or thinking a kazoo band would be interesting. Wanting to write a song with irregular time signatures that sync up every 12th bar and exploring that interesting relationship is another example. Or maybe you want to try and write a melody by omission by playing all the notes except the actual notes of the melody so you hear the melody in the absence of tone rather in the presence of it.

Try collaborating, two heads better than one
Lennon/mcartney
Jagger/richards
Leiber/stoller
Winehouse/ronson

List is almost endless

I find working with singers quite inspirational, I'm not the greatest of lyricists and another point of view always works better. This is for songwriting anyway, if I were writing classical or something else, completely different process

Life experience?

wow, way too much gobble-de-gook within these replies...

inspiration is very quite simple.  say you play guitar or the piano - just strum around until you find a nice sounding chord, and then when you have that chord, hold on to it, and just talk (or sing) lyrics that feel appropriate to that chord.   Where do the lyrics come from?  anywhere!  your own experiences of life, a TV soap opera, a news item, an article in a magazine.  If the chord strikes the right emotion, the lyrics will naturally follow :-)