Music can be a great tool to find inspiration.

I often get ‘visions’ of scenes or stories when I’m listening to music, and I’ve heard others say the same. Like I know what would go good with this music, visually speaking. It’s like music triggers your mind to pierce through the mist in the back of your head and offer you a glimpse of what could be.

In his book The War on Art, Steven Pressfield describes inspiration as something ever-present around us, inconspicuous to the untrained eye (or ear). Only those skilled in the craft can pluck it out of the air and shape it into something extraordinary. They’re not yet finished product by any means, just concepts and ideas that could become something more in the right hands.

I like that metaphor, mysticism aside. You could argue this is an almost religious approach to something as ‘simple’ as creativity, but it’s comforting in a way, looking at inspiration as something ethereal that is always there for the taking -under the right circumstances-

My relationship with music is not like most I don’t think. Like I described above, music can strongly influence my mindset. Perhaps that is why I can appreciate so many varieties of music; I value songs primarily for the mood they evoke. Lyrics play a big part in this. While I can appreciate pop music songs if they happen to be well-written or because the melody ‘goes well’ with a certain mindset or activity, it’s not like I can relate much to tales of ‘bitches’ and ‘bling’ that you hear on MTV a lot these days.

So I’ve been exploring the indie scene in search of a new sound. It’s a new generation of singer-songwriters who more often than not find fame via the Interwubs. I follow a few artists on YouTube, but the one who really turned me in this direction was Colbie Callait. She started out singing into her webcam on MySpace. I’m sure you’ve heard her song “Bubbly” many times on the radio or on some variation of MTV. It’s a very solid song, and the rest of her repetoire is pretty good. But two recent favourites are Jamie Scott & the Town, and A Fine Frenzy.

Jamie Scott is a British artist in the line of James Morisson, John Mayer, James Blunt, etc. It’s hard to describe, he writes very soulful, melancholical ballads that at times remind me strongly of Maroon 5.

And then there’s A Fine Frenzy, aka 22-year-old Seattle-born self-taught singer-songwriter Alison Sudol (that enough prefixes for ya?). I am absolutely in love with her music. If you watch music channels, you’ve probably been bombarded with her new video for Almost Lover.

Her music is often described as heartfelt and hypnotic, and I underwrite those connotations. She writes such profound, magical lyrics and evocative melodies. I was so enamored with this song I picked up her debut album, One Cell in the Sea, and I’ve been listening to it continuously the last few days. Just looking at the tracklisting is a treat. The songs are almost exactly what you’d imagine when you read their titles.

When I started listening to the first track, titled Come On, Come Out, the sun just started shining in through my window as she sang

Come on, come out
The weather is warm
A spot in the shade
Away from it all
Watching the sky
You’re watching a painting coming to life
Shifting and shaping
Stopping the time
Rushing, waiting
Leave it behind
It all goes passing by

And I felt just like it was summer.

Just wanted to put that out there.

What’s also nice about these types of artists is that they are much more approachable. Alison is even on Twitter! They just seem much more ‘friendly’ that way, more earnest perhaps. They ‘made’ themselves. And for that they have my respect.

I hope you enjoy these artists as much as I do and find some inspiration through their work.

Going to a design college is really fun, but it can also be hard on your ego.

In high school you learn things you often know nothing or very little about for subjects you’re not particularly interested in. If you’re not very good at them, too bad. You just try hard enough to pass. But if you go to an art college (or music or whatever), you must already be proficient at it.

It’s likely you only showed your work to family and friends so far, and they will never be objective in their opinions simply because they know you (unless you’re really, really bad I guess). So you go in feeling pretty confident, until you see what other people have produced. You start to wonder if you’re really as good as you thought. And then industry professionals start pointing out what you’re doing wrong. If you’re not confident in your own artistic abilities, this can be difficult to deal with. A large part of your identity is tied up in your work, so it being critisized can feel as a personal attack. The result?

Self-doubt.

You wonder why you’re really doing all this. You look at your work and you hate it, you say to yourself “I’ll never be as good as person X or Y”. All creative people go through this phase at one time or another. If they didn’t they wouldn’t be good artists. You need that self-doubt to become a better artist (or musician etc). Because if you think you crap gold, you’ll never improve. You always need something to strive for. You need people to come in and point out what you could be doing better. That doesn’t mean you are flawed. You’ve just got room for improvement, and I think that’s a great prospect. Think of all the things you’ll learn along the way!

So if you’re feeling down about your work, the best thing you can do is give it a rest. Take a little break, go do something else, relax, unwind, forget about it for a few days. Thats often when the best ideas pop up. They can come out of nowhere, during the most trivial of tasks. Taking time off can get you to think of your work in a way you never had before, and come up with fresh new ideas that will get you excited all over again. These are often the times you will produce your greatest work. You may never be perfect, and nobody is, but if you never start, you’ll never get anywhere either.