So I've written music as a hobby for a while now, but lately I've seemed to really hit a rough patch. I don't know if it's just me or what, but these days I always feel like anything I write is just a collection of riffs rather than a coherent song. I get the sense that I could replace any one section with another collection of chords and melodies in the same key and get the same result. I don't know if I'm really explaining myself properly... Maybe it's just me and I'm burnt out? Anyway, I just wanted to make this thread to see if any of you guys ever feel like you are writing the same song over and over again and if you have any tips you like to use to try to spice things up?

Usually I just power through and make a point to keep writing, even if I'm unhappy with the results, and hopefully something cool and interesting comes out eventually. I'd love to hear what some of you guys think.

Just a question about how you write: do you just mess around on your instrument until you hit something that sounds great and develop something from there, or do you get music and melodies in your head that you try to reproduce on your instrument?

All of my best compositions come about when they happen naturally. The number one thing I've learned about writing music is that you must NEVER forced it. If you force a song to work, then most likely it'll come out quite bland. Of course, there's nothing wrong with sitting down and crafting a song out of a cool idea, but jamming out to get the juices flowing has worked so well for me. More often than not, if I'm frustrated with myself for a lack of creativity, my work comes out rather mediocre if I try to force it.

Another thing that was very valuable is something I learned from Victor Wooten: breaks are very useful. It's super healthy to take breaks. When I get frustrated when learning a song or writing some music, I just put my bass or guitar down and relax or do something else. The mental game is just as important as the playing game; if you're mentally exhausted or frustrated, your ideas won't come out too well. It's always nice to do something else, and maybe wait until I have a good idea or a genuine yearning to pick up an instrument and write something rather than saying to myself, "Okay, today I shall write a song!". Of course, this is just me, and I'm sure some people write differently.

Also, listening to lots of different styles of music is very helpful. I've come up with some cool songs and ideas by drawing inspirations from other musical styles.

I used to have this sort of thing happen when I was the main 'writer' so to speak for the band I was in. It got to the point where there was a member of the band trying to force me to write like a machine. That was pretty un-cool & forced me to write two forced songs but it turned out that peolle liked them which I couldn't understand.

However I found that when I write during 'inspirational moments' so to speak that I can make a whole song in a matter of a day or two & it sounds amazing to me, and people seem to really like it.

It is tricky for sure to break out of that thought that any part could be swapped & it wouldn't matter, but that kind of helps me try to write a tougher or more different sounding part you know? Also working on writing transitions helped me break out of this.

An example of this would be going from a clean intro to a massively heavy part or vice versa, also listening to tons of other music helps me out a lot.

I find I write the stuff I like most when I haven't been listening to as much metal because I'm not going for a 'formula' so to speak. I hoped my ramblings helped, song writing is a tricky beast man.