Ask a Different Question

I’ve touched upon this in my audio pod­cast in the past, but this morn­ing I was com­pos­ing and reached a bit of a prob­lem. I won­dered whether the chord I had was har­mon­i­cally “cor­rect” or “the best chord” to use.

But I quickly changed the ques­tion to “what kind of tex­ture do I want here?” And that helped immensely.

Some­times, when you get stuck, try ask­ing a dif­fer­ent ques­tion. Do I want more rhythm? More color? Do I want a thicker tex­ture or a lighter one? Am I build­ing toward some­thing or am I com­ing back down?

Ask­ing a dif­fer­ent ques­tion gives you a fresh per­spec­tive on your piece. Try it now and then.