If I'm writing something programmatic for a particular project, I find studying can be helpful. If the project is set in a particular time period, I try researching what life was like at the time. If the project has characters, I try to understand who they are, what they might feel and experience. For games, concept art, scripts, and developer creative resources (recommended books, films, art, etc) can be very helpful in this way.

I remember walking into a meeting at one composer's studio about a new game, and he had background art from the developer all over the walls and even on the ceiling! He had gone to Kinko's and had large-format prints made and they were plastered everywhere he looked. That was how he immersed himself in the game world to find inspiration. We immediately had a discussion about how we both liked to immerse our imaginations in a project and how it helped our creativity. When I arrange for him, we often have long meetings where we discuss the game and his thoughts for the soundtrack. It helps both of us to grasp the underlying inspiration for the music beyond just the mechanics.

I sometimes listen to other music that has been written for similar situations. This is important for understanding if there are certain conventions and styles that have evolved for particular genres. It's good to listen to these and think about what you like or find lacking about common cliches. This can be a real motivator to create something new.

I'll also second the advice of getting outdoors. I'm fortunate to live near mountains and the sea, so a short drive and I can get away. This really works for me, but not everybody. I have one composer for whom I work who lives right downtown in a major US city. He wouldn't have it any other way. He finds the energy and activity inspiring and often works with his windows open!

We all hit that wall of writer's block at times. The key is to find what drives you to create. For some people, stopping and walking away from the work clears the mind and generates new ideas. For others, just pressing through and forcing yourself to write something, anything, can cause the music to flow. I find that for me it can be either one. I love getting away and seeing things from a fresh perspective, but there's also nothing like a deadline to spur creativity!

Try different things out and find what motivates you. You'll eventually fall into a pattern of working.

Sometimes your body knows how to express your target thoughts better than your brain... similar to how your legs know how to run better than when you think about running.

If you can play keyboard (everyone should), fiddle around. I usually impress myself, though I'm not a very good pianist. You can, stylistically and melodically, come up with some quick ideas when playing with your fingers. Great things happen for me, at least.

It's also a plus to know how to write it all down.

This, of course, is the age-old question about how to be inspired to create great art. Writing, painting, composing, you name it; inspiration is always going to be different. You've gotten some great advice from the previous posters; allow me to share what works for me.

- Musically, I'm a very theme-based guy. I find that, once I come up with a theme, it's a simple matter to tweak it, add counterpoint / harmony, arrange it, etc to adapt it to the needed setting.
- I find that the best time to come up with themes is when I'm not actually trying. Themes pop into my head at the most random times: showering, walking down the street, etc.
- I like recorders. Now adays, a USB recorder is a very handy and cost-effective thing to have. Capturing random themes is essential to ensuring uniqueness (so you're not just basing your piece off of another piece you just heard in a video game, tv show, etc) and adaptability (abstract themes are easier to adapt to a desired setting when they aren't mentally tied to an original setting in media).
- Iterate, iterate, iterate. Having a few dozen recorded themes on hand ensures that you'll always have something to work on and tweak, which means you're more likely to have a refined theme ready to go when you need it. Now adays, quality is by far the most important property of your work to your clients, and the best way to ensure quality is through a lot of sweat, time, and effort. Don't be lazy. Having multiple themes on hand will free you from tight and short deadlines that limit the time you need to ensure you have a great product.
- Once you have a known setting for which you need to develop your themes (ie, a contract or project), you can work on developing a vision for your final product. A vision will inspire you, keep you on track with your goal, help you to refine and enrich your product, help you articular your project to others, and thereby get others enthusiastic about your product's potential. This makes it very, very valuable when you're working on a project with a team, especially when you need to sell your project to a client. As an artist, nothing is more important to your work than a vision.

I love music, and working on musical projects in games is one of the most exciting ways to creatively contribute to any game development project. Best of luck, and always remember to have fun!

There is still the aesthetic notion of 'inspiration' tied to artists and composers, perhaps there remain traces of the ideas from 19th century art and literature. You don't need inspiration to compose, or in exceptional cases where you do you need very little. What you need most is work-ethic and technique, particularly the latter which should help you develop any idea even the most implausible.

A composer is just a craftsman, and as you have master artisans who have relentlessly learnt by instruction and practice it similarly applies to music. For instance for Television, or composing to a scene you just need unobtrusive functional music; the fact that you have a deadline (usually) means that you NEED to write it regardless of being inspired or not.

I would suggest just putting down any idea at all, a series of random notes or a step-wise melody (something like that) and trying to move it forward in some way. Doing more of that usually helps in becoming proficient when writing to specific demands. Hope this helps.

Quote: Original post by Music Composer
There is still the aesthetic notion of 'inspiration' tied to artists and composers, perhaps there remain traces of the ideas from 19th century art and literature. You don't need inspiration to compose, or in exceptional cases where you do you need very little. What you need most is work-ethic and technique, particularly the latter which should help you develop any idea even the most implausible.

I think this is very true. I write a lot of music and a lot of individual motifs within that music, and out of the hundreds of motifs I've produced no more than two or three just "came to me" from any sort of inspiration. Generally I force myself to pick a starting point and build on that. Sometimes the original starting point is nowhere to be seen in the end product but that reinforces the notion that there's nothing necessarily intrinsic to any initial spark. It's about the skills and experience you bring to bear upon it.

Reminds me of the saying that creativity is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.