Ok, the truth is nothing can maximise creativity...you are born with it.  And this is someone who has taken enough supposed creativity enhancers to kill Keith Moon, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison all at once and on the same night.
 
Honestly creativity is this...looking up, and looking around or hearing not listening or feeling...just plain feeling.  For example, this morning I hadn't even woken properly but I saw how the sun shone through the window and how the light was interacting with some of the buildings where I lived, it was beautiful.  I whipped out the DSLR and snapped away.  I did this the other day too, when the grey created some beautiful blue hues.  Very impressionist, finding light in the mundane.
 
I'm at the moment playing a F Dorian scale on the guitar, with a flattened 2nd apparently...maybe not, it just came to me in my improvisational practice, this can be built into a piece...I'm trying to figure out fugue form at the moment.  But I wont push it, it will come.
 
I wrote a technical sonata a couple of weeks ago, built again from my guitar improvisation, I was practicing A major, then I worked out I could combine my e minor scale I was also practicing, creating the main exposition.  I was also gathering found sounds and video from my window and all of a sudden I was painting the scene from my window...very meta.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmNv25FxdBk
 
If a line of poetry pops into my head, I post it on facebook and write it down latter.
 
In the twilight-
You smile a question,
Flash foresight.
Like a child,
Running, running bright.
 
If I ever saw you cry,
I would lift a rose…
Wipe your tears dry.
Sing to you
And let the dove in you fly.
 
You cannot teach creativity, I went to the university of Tasmania once, and did a few months in a song writing course.  Michael Spilby was the lecture, he had a couple of hits here in Oz with his band The Badloves and he started crapping on about the inner child.  I told him the child has no control over his or her creativity, and told him about the magician.  The magician knows where all the buttons are to turn the satellite on and to beam the information down from the gods.  "turn off your mind, relax and float down stream it is not dying" The magician is fool, shaman, wise man and scholar...he is all man-as he is no man.  Ok so, maybe you can tap the child in you for creativity but to become the magician is a path but again I believe you have to be born with it, otherwise your a craftsman.  A crafter of creativity, never in control, always searching for the elicit moment or elixir.
 
Here is the words of the immortal Keith Richards, I don't rate Keith but he taught me the satellite analogy.
 
"One day your jamming on a riff, and bam your playing "Jumping Jack Flash", its like some one turned on a satellite" Keith was the eternal child...never the magician in my opinion but still someone who was born with creativity.  Someone like Freddie Mercury was a magician born with it and a master of it.
 
Here endth the lesson.
 
Ben

PS, you can possibly win creativity...think Achilles. 
Or beg the gods for creativity...think Samson.
 
Ben 

Thank you Ben for your big contribution. I appreciate it. I think that one can boost one's capability to be creative by doing for example meditation or by positive thinking.
kakku

kakku
Thank you Ben for your big contribution. I appreciate it. I think that one can boost one's capability to be creative by doing for example meditation or by positive thinking.
kakku

So did Michael Spilby!  Best advice, let it flow...if you aren't born with it, the process will be slow.  Don't force it and be patient.  And perhaps the gods will smile :)
 
Ben

Guitarhacker
Kakku... I like Rain's response....   work, work, work...
 
The more you work the better you get at something.... Then out of that work there are things that just naturally start happening, as if by magic.
 
I heard a hit songwriter, Jeff Steel, a guy who has over 24 #1 country hits to his credit say that he writes a song a day. He doesn't write with the intent of writing a hit, he simply writes. And out of the 250 or so songs he writes in a year, most are good, 10% are really good, and of that number one or two of them get recorded and climb the charts.  It's a numbers game.
 
If you want to supercharge your creativity, get a co-writer to work with on some music.  Even, or should I say especially, the big hit writers often collaborate on writing. 
 
Without a doubt, I think some of the best music I have written has been a collaborative effort of more then just me working alone.  That also tends to be the music that publishers have picked up and signed most often.
 
Hope this helps you.

A lot of comedians do the same thing. I read a book about comedy writing once and it said one of the most important things was to write at least one new joke a day. If you end up with 50 killer jokes by the end of the year, that's a job well done. I think I heard Jerry Seinfeld say the same thing - very important to write something new every day, even if it's not great. By the end of the year you'll have written enough jokes for a set. And how many comedians change their set more than once a year? 

Fast forward out of the late 60's druggy clichés... 
 
The greatest creative minds of all time often speak of genius and creativity in very down to earth terms, and examine it in a very rational, even mathematical light. 
 
JS Bach used to say that anyone who'd put in as much effort as he did would arrive to similar results. Whether we agree or not with this is NOT the point here. (I personally don't).
 
They also often avoid mystical non-sense.
 
Though the tendency to fall into mysticism is often seen as relative to creativity, and though many artists do indeed suffer from that shortcoming, it is but a shortcoming, not a prerequisite.
 
 
It is also a cliché, and one dearest to people who fail to mature past a certain point and who prefer to avoid stepping out of this very comfortable state of confusion and move on to the next step.
 
True self-expolraion and self-knowledge - which are essential if you want to truly express something - should leave no room for such a confused blend of half truths, myths, and other superstitions. 
 
Those are in no way essential to creativity and arts except to those who lack the intellectual discipline and are satisfied w/ remaining a cliché themselves. 
 
That doesn't mean that you don't acknowledge stuff beyond the limits of your comprehension, but simply that you don't fall for pseudo-science and fairy tales and dwell in that confused state. 
 
The advice they give will denotes their lack of hold on anything - nothing but vague formulas and clichés, which in themselves, show how little grasp they have on anything.
 

Rain
Fast forward out of the late 60's druggy clichés... 
 
The greatest creative minds of all time often speak of genius and creativity in very down to earth terms, and examine it in a very rational, even mathematical light. 
 
JS Bach used to say that anyone who'd put in as much effort as he did would arrive to similar results. Whether we agree or not with this is NOT the point here. (I personally don't).
 
They also often avoid mystical non-sense.
 
Though the tendency to fall into mysticism is often seen as relative to creativity, and though many artists do indeed suffer from that shortcoming, it is but a shortcoming, not a prerequisite.
 
 
It is also a cliché, and one dearest to people who fail to mature past a certain point and who prefer to avoid stepping out of this very comfortable state of confusion and move on to the next step.
 
True self-expolraion and self-knowledge - which are essential if you want to truly express something - should leave no room for such a confused blend of half truths, myths, and other superstitions. 
 
Those are in no way essential to creativity and arts except to those who lack the intellectual discipline and are satisfied w/ remaining a cliché themselves. 
 
That doesn't mean that you don't acknowledge stuff beyond the limits of your comprehension, but simply that you don't fall for pseudo-science and fairy tales and dwell in that confused state. 
 
The advice they give will denotes their lack of hold on anything - nothing but vague formulas and clichés, which in themselves, show how little grasp they have on anything.
 

Hmm I have three degrees (almost submission ready for Honours), I must be doing something right.  I fear it is the blue-collar worker vs the thinker/artist problem we have here.  Sure, there is a level of creativity in all and it can be tapped into...I named it creative craftsmanship.  It's the hard slog type and not easy to tap into.  You can possibly teach it, via the usual wishy washy channels: meditation, perseverance and positive thinking.
 
What I was talking about is not pseudo mysticism, nor 60's drug addled meanderings.  I in fact said, that it was bollocks to think by taking x or y it was going to increase creativity.  At best substances like marijuana will block out the internal dialogue and make it easier to concentrate.
 
I also gave examples of how creativity strikes and you should listen i.e. seeing how the colours come through the window at different times of the day and using this as inspiration.  Also you should look, hear and feel.  How can this not be good advice to budding creatives??
 
I think Rain, you are a poor scholar who likes to cherry pick peoples ideas and arguments to back up your own spurious assertions.  I perhaps, was saying to the OP, creativity is not something which can be taken lightly...it is a path and a way of existence.  Choose it wisely.  And to use the analogy of 60's drug addled musician's, they choose the path and they got lost.  I would also be cognisant of accusing me of being drug addled too, I have been diagnosed with ADHD and Asperger's, so hence...maybe I muse and wander from the topic but that is what artists do.  The technicians get frustrated with this.  Yes I am stimulant medication for ADHD but it only acts as a filter not as muse, catalyst or key.  I can work for hours and hours and hours, far more than a mortal man...these days.
 
I would also be aware of the many studies done on creativity, ADHD and Aspergers here is a small sample of some of the readings I have done:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Aspergers-and-Genius-Share-Same-Characteristics&id=1020152
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3353548/Hunting-the-genes-of-genius.html
http://www.autismtoday.com/library-back/Einstein,%20Newton,%20Mozart%20achieved%20genius%20through%20autism.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8496955.stm
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-26925271
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2044646.stm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3091391/
http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/8681.html
What you are doing Rain, is tantamount, to bullying the odd one out in the school yard...fortunately I can stand up for myself and fight back...with facts.      
 
Finally you mention Bach, well I've been doing what I have been doing for 28 years, I think it is long enough to have a grasp on the topic of music...in general, I've also done art history, general history and various other topics.  When you don't get caught in the trap of human (note human not humanity) foibles and crap, it leaves time for scholarly pursuits.  As for the assertion I don't leave my comfort zone, I can equally throw this broad and unproved assertion back at you.  I on the other hand, have dabbled in popular music, western art music, video art, photography, painting, drawing, poetry.  I play various instruments, I have had music that I have written and performed used on TV...not once...not twice but three times...actually four times and three songs.  It is quite surreal to hear oneself on TV.  I have also completed (submission pending) three degrees, I also have enough subjects for 1st year on a 4th one, with subjects as broad as The Fall of The Roman Republic, Philosophy, Film Studies, Photography and Electronic Media.
 
So I ask who has left their comfort zone? "with no direction home, like a complete unknown"..."you can never go home anymore" and who would you trust to give an appraisal of creativity, some blue collar worker or a scholar?  Sure most scholars are less flashy, less megalomaniacal, less assured, shrinking daisy's or violets.  And yes you are correct, the ones who scream the loudest about "genius", scholars and philosophers know the least but just maybe, just maybe the universe (mystical mumbo jumbo) has thrown humanity a curve ball.  Maybe there are many like me and have been many like me.
 
"But you've been told many times before
Messiahs pointed to the door
And no one had the guts to leave the temple"  Pete Townsend.
 
But sharks who can yell at the top of their voice's are the order of the day, the world we live in is filled with scared apathetic sheep, who follow the rules and play the pipe to which the rest follow.  So perhaps Rain you should come out and play.
 
Ok now for the whole, you need help...blah, you've got serious issues...yea well tell that to my highly qualified shrink...just because I don't see the world like you doesn't mean I don't see.
 
Sorry to the OP, I just thought you should experience true creativity, and possibly the perils and pitfalls.  Honestly just listen to the hum of the universe and you will be able to create.
 
Ben
     

We're not talking about you, your degrees and the fact that you are a self-proclaimed expert at this and that, pal.
 
What you think about me is irrelevant. If you chose to believe that I don't understand your ramblings - which are essentially nothing but ideas you grabbed form your heroes and recycled into an incoherent mish mash - be my guest. But I'm free to to call it as I see it. 
 
I'm not bullying you, I'm just not putting up with BS. I don't care about you. I ignored you for over 2 years. 
You interacted in one of my threads recently, I opened the door again. I've seen people were still politely trying to call on your BS, half ignoring you. Me, I don't put white gloves.
 
 
So let's cut to it:
 
 
The title of this thread is Maximizing Creativity.
 
If you don't believe that it's possible and yet decide that to chime in, all you can do is brag about yourself and your beliefs. Which is what you did. That's all there is to it.
 
Unfortunately for you, the forum is called Techniques, not Chez Ben, new age spiritual guidance.
 
I assume people come here for technical assistance, not to read ramblings about shamans, gods, the Tibethan Book of the Dead or "listening to the hum of the universe"... 
 
Telling people that you can't stimulate creativity is basically admitting that you don't have a solution for them. Stop there and spare us all the new age hippie non sense. Most of us have been to college - we've had our "phase" , we simply grew out of it. 
 
You're free to say whatever you want, my friend. Just as I am free to reply. I'm not talking about you, I'm not interested in you - I'm debating ideas, and what you posted. 
 
 

Thank you guys for giving me such great answers and tips. I wish you could also continue to be as brilliant on my less successful thread that I would love to get some comments on. It was my meaning to improve the forum.
It is here:
http://forum.cakewalk.com...spx?m=3099401&fp=2

kakku

Something that usually works for me and might work for you is to not listen to music for several hours. Then go for a walk. Music/melodies start popping into my head in rhythm with my pace.