It’s important to remember that music is your therapy first. Its starts with you and what’s in your heart. Let the sound find you, not the other way around. Try to remove any pressure from yourself and focus on you, not what’s going on in the world around you, news is bad. This can greatly reduce noise in your head that may cause sticking points or frustration.
Just my humble opinion.
Sorry to hear you’re going through a tough patch. Remember that it will pass and crisis can be turned into opportunity to change/growth.
I’d agree with noisemaker that you shouldn’t put pressure on yourself.
Maybe just press record, forget about it and then explore/express yourself - maybe you’ll end up with some good bits to polish into a ‘proper track’ or maybe it’ll just be nice and cathartic to play with sounds and vent your emotions.
Yes, do agree.
Few days ago, no inspiration, not being able to achieve musical works, a little be stressed.
I went to just make a drone and play for around 1.5 hour with 2 oscillators and a filtre (active but low drone). Concentrate only on Sound, very subtle change of the few synthesis parameters.
When I get in my bed, I was really well relaxed.
Precision : I’m not found of relaxation/psychological/pseudobitnico philosophical attitudes. 
Try it ! But be aware about addiction 
Going through some similar stuff recently. Also, keep in mind, there are professionals that can help. I struggled with depression and anxiety for decades thinking they were things that I could handle when they really weren’t; I was not making anything better, just ignoring a problem that only got more severe. Recently, I’ve been trying out medication/therapy–it’s a slow road, but it is helping. Basically, it sounds a little like you’re beating yourself up, like “this should make me creative, but I just feel sort of numb” or “I’m just overthinking this too much” or whatever. And I would say that that is a bad cycle, in my experience; try to break it, try to remember some of this is just neuro-chemicals that you can’t control, and seek help if you have trouble getting out of that hole.
Best wishes.
Collaboration is good, to many electronic artists work alone.
And sports or physical exercise, wears you out and numbs the mind.
hey op… read your thread… would like to leave a comment, but not sure what to write… depression is real. … trying to handle these things all by onesself might not be the best idea…also I would never laugh at anybody who opened up to me about his or her feelings… might comment more …
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oh, did you see the other thread I started??? , here you could very well use it as a starter Little tutorial w/ rand rytm on t4 at 133 bpm … cheers mate
Thanks for the support. I feel like I have sounds in my head, beats, lyrics just being pushed against a door in my head. You guys have some great ideas. Love the idea of just taking a drone and building from there. I always run back to my moogs for these tasks. Might just need some slim phatty + delay time.
The other aspect of this is I am hard on myself over what is “good” or just good to me in the moment. I have a hard time finishing projects because I’m that guy that writes a poem and throws in trash…Begins again. I get stuck in a “refining” stage that kills the mood. I considered recording to tape and avoiding the want to save and organize every little thing for another day to complete.
Sorry to hear about the tough spot you are going through, you might like to try meditation or mindfulness techniques to zap the depression or anxiety, depression is mostly based on past things and anxiety is mostly based on the future, so zoning out and getting into the moment and taking your head out of the past or future can be very beneficial.
Music can be a great tool, and drones can be great for focusing the mind, also you can find plenty of guided meditations and mindfulness audio on places like soundcloud or youtube.
Sorry to hear you are going through some rough times. It can be very bleak.
I had a thought or two when you said that you encountered challenges when sitting down to create:
Finding more raw and immediate ways to express yourself is important, without judging the results and falling into over-cerebrality.
It’s very common to have a “censoring” voice in our head which turns the act of self-expression into something too “cerebral”. I find that ideas are almost subconsciously vetted and judged before they even hit the page - by that censoring voice. Learning to listen past the critical voice, and tell it “thank you for sharing” and express your ideas anyway is a skill, a practice, and creating art gets better and better over time, and more original, fulfilling, and healing. A technique for practicing the art of listening past the critical voice is called “morning pages” by Julia Cameron. Check it out!
And just an observation on the connection between moods and creativity:
The impulses to create and express ideas and feelings often result from paying close attention to sensual details…details which we enjoy noticing or possibly even fixate upon. It is often times of sorrow, or full-on depression where we automatically pay attention to details of things, as a way of sidestepping the over-experiencing of the emotions, the cyclical, breeder-reactor nature of emotions. It’s like zen autopilot.
Give yourself time and self-care. 
Sorry to hear you are having a rough patch. I’m not even going to pretend to know how to help you. But… I can tell you what helped, or is helping, me.
Simplify
As relatively similar organisms to our forefathers who existed long before the distractions and complications of modern life, I think we try and do too much every day. We intake too much information, eat too much, buy too much, worry too much, think too much, sit still too much, etc…
Upon waking, maybe sit with a cup of coffee/tea and make short simple list of things you want to accomplish in this day. 2-3 simple things. Then do them. Repeat the next day.
Reduce
Music and creating sounds is one of my true joys in this life. But gradually cluttering up my home with gear to learn, sync, connect, maintain, etc. began to overwhelm me. I’m cutting back. Also, have at least one day per week to stay off computers, phones, etc.
Priorities
Start with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Food, water, shelter, etc. Take care of those. Healthy food, nice clean and decluttered physical space, and then exercise. Just move. Can be as simple as walking. Reconnect with the outdoors.
Again, these things are working for me, not miracle cures for all. Just putting them here for general tips. I hope you find something that works for you.
I’ve been reading every post and really appreciate you guys taking the time to give very positive advice 
Also do not forget about humor: it could help to put things in perspective and to not take everything too seriously. Even in music.
getting out of “depression” is like getting out of a mud pit, with slippyness all around… if feels to me so fucking hard every fucking time again and again…also i feel very alone in those moments … bought a pair of running shoes, 20 min run for the first time, oh boy was I proud… now I do regularly clock in 45 minutes… will help, not for the first few weeks though… I also find cooking VERY very VERY helpful… soup! gigantic pot of soup with vegetables and MEAT ,expensive meat… having a big big big pot of warm source of energy in the house, for several days, does help me a lot not to stay in the malnurished, lack of energy mood…where I am from you can get free professional help, with jumping through several hoops of their system, that also helps. I found a free vocoder and autotune software and had my voice altered whilst letting thoughts go and record. getting up with the sun, and trying not to go to bed at sunrise also helped I guess. no more than 3 cups of coffee a day, afterwards black tea only, or better no caffeine after 4pm. was on meidcation for a while, glad I tried it, glad I am not on it anymore. art of manlyness videos on youtube helped me also to find motivation. airing the room daily and vacuuming every suday helped. doing the shopping every monday, no matter what. still it keeps feeling like I am with led on my legs trying to crawl out of the mud pit, everybody else is dancing on the rim looking down on me, condescending and laughing in their white dresses with their white shoes and white teeth and white bandanas intheir hair, with their white porsches, driving to their white houses (I am white also by the way and do not mean this in a skin tone way), enough said., I am so fucking jealous of their lives man! wish I hadnt wasted so much of my 20ies … yolo n shit
Wow so many kind souls out there,
I can relate to a lot of these points, Iv’e struggled with depression most of my life, diagnosed with bipolar age 23 which in my case is predominantly depressive, sucks eh? don’t even get to enjoy the highs! , and then took me another 20 years to learn that smoking dope was not helping just suppressing and numbing da shit.
Tried lots of different things hot yoga running, diet, therapy, medication, meditation all of these things help.
The Key for me has been learning to accept myself for who i am warts and all
and to try to stop comparing myself to others. I know easier said than done, it requires constant vigilance and most of the time I fail.
Music has been an absolute godsend since I separated from my partner, been making it for only 2 years but pretty much doing it 6pm till late o’clock most days. It just gets me in the zone, everything else melts away, instead of thinking how shit it all is, i’m thinking how can i make that sound better, how can i improve my knowledge, watching endless tutorials honing my skills. Comparing my old work with newer work and feeling that i’m getting somewhere. As to where i’m going who knows, i’m just happy to be creating.
i was this guy for a long time. sometimes the way out for me is to do something not for a polished result, but for the goal of learning something about the process. at the end of a focused session or two, i write a page in my journal describing what i learned and how i intend to apply it in some future situation. the act of writing reminds me that i have in fact reached a goal, have in fact accomplished something worthwhile.
i find approaches like this can accumulate into a better strategy for dealing with a larger issue. good luck … as i like to say, we’re all on the path.
I can’t describe how grateful I am for all of your kind and helpful words. They really are helping me look at things from other angles. I just hope I can sustain. I put a lot of effort into my relationship and having it crumble around me has sunk me lower than I had imagined it could. I know the incredible joy I experience when I create something I am proud of, but lately I have felt paralyzed in my own mind. Right before this collapse I had purchased an octatrack I have yet to open. Maybe this weekend I will turn it on.
Having passed thesame problems as you do ( and ho knows in the future ? )- I would like to give U 1 Tip.
Try to go back to ( or stay in ) your body …
Because your body knows how to heal U,
the problem could be that U go into your head because that’s a way to escape from the fysical sensations in reaction to your problems… Whenever someting hurts or chocks us we will feel fysical sensations we don’t like. to escape from them we go into our mind. this is not allways negative but, to really digest the pain we need to feel it and give our body the time to heal. Going into the mind slows down or stops the Healing-process. If one finds the courage to stay in the body, wich can be very difficult, one feels ill and might become sick, the problem will be digested there, without one having to know what to do. The body is very intelligent but dousn’t think .- it only feels.
It took me years to realise this and I do forget it often - but it this insight is changing my life. So don’t be afraid to become sick or to have sensations u don’t like, these are important, what paralizes you is your mind - wich can only rechew the problem over and over, what eats all your energy…
You are a courages person are you wouldn’t be charing this here with us… take this courage to be in your body-feelings and trust your body to find the solution and heal itself .
Personnally creativity has most of the time been a way to cope with all problems of life for me. This is the first reason I make music- heal my mind and FEEL. That’s why I experience freedom in creativity - and why i need to paint and so on - it relaxes my mind
So whatever you think things that paralyse you - go into your body immediatly, and keep an eye on yourself, because you can return to your mind in no time, wich isn’t the solution. Give your body the time it needs… it’ll tell you when it’s healed by giving you new energy.
Sometimes we´ll/you´ll have up and downs. I´ve heard it´s called: life. And it is dangerous to live, you could even die of it. Somewhat a joke as well as being true.
I happen to play guitar since age of 10-12. And are now, at age 36, at a level where I´m comfortable playing anything that´s from me and ‘my heart’. But that´s also all that I can, and have unconsciously practiced in those 20+ years.
My woman at home thinks it´s a bit strange that I can´t play any traditional songs, not even really famous christmas songs. I mean, technically I am most probably able to take the cords and whatever. I can´t read and play by notation, but are able to figure out which note is which if someone would put a paper in front of me. But it would take time and doesn´t interest me at all. All I´m interested in is ‘expressing’ myself. That I won´t find in any paper in front of me. Ever.
Do I know what I am doing all the time when I´m playing? No. I just play something.
Do I need to know it? No. I just play something.
Do I know if it´s good? No. Because I´ve just played something. Or are about to.
Do I know that it was me? Well, if something came when I was there. I guess it was me.
So, how do I know anything at all of above and how can I use it?
Well, I certainly am better and worse than anyone else in playing. It depends on which viewpoint I take. There will always be someone better as well as someone worse in the skill of guitar playing.
But what THEY don´t have that I still have is: me.
I am the best one in being me. Have been all my life.
And so are you. No one else than each of you have been so good in being just you. So whatever you choose to do or not to do, is: you. Whatever you choose to play or not to play, is: you. It´s your expression of yourself at that very time. And that is your strenght.
Now, what´s left to be needed?
Answer: taste. Yours that is. The very taste that you´ve grown your entire life. You certainly like and dislike some stuff. Because if you are not, I guess you are… dead?
So if you don´t know what to play/do. Just do something. Did it come effortlessly and is inspiring, in short: did you like it? Continue in following taste, your taste. Did it come with much struggle and uninspiring, in short: you dislike it? Continue in following your taste to somewhere else, and play/do something else. Your taste is your guide, it always have been… so let it be that. It´s there for you. It sort of is you, it defines you (at least for yourself). And when you hit onto something that suddenly is inspiring: I am betting that it is your taste recognizing it.
Many of the inspiring things that have happened to me when I´m playing guitar, have been when I´ve asked myself: “what happens if I do this?” and then just play/do it ‘fearlessly’… (and what´s the worst thing that could happen? that someone else doesn´t like it? isn´t that a opinion at second place, after your own?)
It´s starts with an idea and ends with the taste. My idea? = my taste!. So far, I haven´t hit onto anything that killed me. No need of drugs, my ideas and my taste is addictive enough (for me). Especially the good ones. One of the very best ideas is to continue with life to see the even better ideas coming. They certainly won´t come if I am not trying, right?
In playing with others, you may notice that above still applies. It´s just that when you hit onto those around that actually inspires you, they levitates you. All you can hope and try to is to do the same and levitate them. And that takes some practice too.
Depressions and/or other issues aren´t something to ignore. It´s there in your body/mind for a reason. Sometimes, professional help is needed. Sometimes not. I guess it´s a bit similar as to learning to play an instrument. Sometimes, professional help is needed. Sometimes not. In both cases I guess it is your taste telling you something…