How To BREAK Writer's Block For GOOD: The Grounding Aesthetic

Writers Block, and Finding Your Sound. Two of the biggest struggles an artist (especially one just starting out) can face.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were a way to fix both at once, with no special extra effort?

Well...

There's one simple trick you can use to never run out of ideas for music, and come into your own musically. It's free and you're already doing it.

It's called the Grounding Aesthetic.

To put it simply, the Grounding Aesthetic is the defining motif/ theme that runs through your life. That informs your decisions. That motivates and inspires you. That makes you you.

It's a product of your upbringing, your current lifestyle, where you grew up, and where you are now as a person.

That right there can be the basis for all the content for your music, and how you portray yourself as an artist, and since you'll (presumably) never stop being yourself, your creative well will never run dry.

And it goes beyond lyrical content or genres. The individual sounds and effects you use in your songs can be inspired by those things that make up the core of your being.

Far be it from me to tell you what's what when it comes to sound selection. But I know that choosing sounds not just for how cool they sound when flipping through presets, but for how they relate to the overall thematic elements your song is trying to convey will bind the song together better. And you'll find songs just flow from there.

And that is the Grounding Aesthetic.

Dawnchaser is a Pacific Northwest-based electronic music producer, mountaineer, documenter of all things adventure, mountain, and travel-related, and manager of Kulshan Recordings. If he’s not in the studio writing music about adventures, he’s out on one.