If you're too lazy to read the whole post just read the last sentence.
Hey Guys, this is not a big blog post - just a quick tip/inspiration if you are stuck in a rut as a musician.
I will always link some music in my posts that you should listen to while reading. It helps a lot getting the right vibe, and you will remember much (MUCH!) better.
Most music newbies that are fresh in the game have a big problem finding themselves as a creative. Actually, I think "keeping themselves creative for a longer period" is much more appropriate in this context.
Newbies are so obsessed with one genre, that they lose their obsession in the obsession.
Let me explain:
If you only listen to one particular genre, you will not get better as a musician. Here's the line you probably heard a lot of people say before me, but it's true: LISTEN TO AS MANY GENRES AS YOU CAN
Consider thinking like this:
Having a root genre, so your style that you like and feel the most is standard for millions of musicians. But let me say something... it's useless if you don't listen to other ones. Truth hurts I know.
Let's just think a bit musical in this topic: The tonic of a scale also makes no sense without the subdominant/dominant..or whatever. And it is the same with your music.
The tonic is your root genre(let's take jazz as an example). If you only listen to jazz, you have nowhere to go/to develop - you are not moving. So there are no other functions you can go to, like RnB as your subdominant or hip-hop as your leading tone for example. You get what I want to say... Basically, life is music - and music is life. You have the opportunity to listen to everything so use it and take the best of both worlds!
Finding yourself and creating the music you aspire to create is not possible to do without listening to multiple genres because you're just copying everything people have already done before you - you don't have any creative grip.
As long as you keep this in mind, you will always be musically free. If you're stuck, just remind yourself to listen to another genre, and you will be free again.
Here's my picture to verify, that I am a real person.
Listen to as many different genres as you can!