My favourite tip for songwriter’s block

by Joel Falconer

I once invented a concept that has all but destroyed songwriter’s block in my life. At least, for the time being!

It’s called the tuneback. It wasn’t really created to combat creative block, but because all the members of Midnight.Haulkerton were itching for an excuse to put half-baked music out there while we worked on an album enshrined in top secrecy.

In order to ensure that minimum time was stolen from the endeavor of our precious album, we set a one hour, once a week time limit on the tuneback. It is central to the whole concept, actually. It taught us very quickly that the difference between a song that took an hour to write and record, and a song that took an hour and a half to write and record, is a very big one - and thus, that particular unit of time is very much important and influential on the sound of each final tuneback.

But what has this got to do with songwriter’s block?

I swear, it’s the pressure. I didn’t think it would work that way, but if I know I’ve got a song to write and if I don’t write it people are going to pissed, I write one. Seriously, I was a couple of hours late once, and I got a disgruntled email.

Pressure. It’s horrible for creative minds, but it works (kind of like how crack works for law students).

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