What Do You Do When You Get Stuck With A Piece?

In a lot of moments when i am writing a piece, it gets to a point where i don't know how to continue it, what would fit to continue it, etc. That kind of thing makes me uninspired and extremely frustrated. In fact this is probably the reason why i only finished 2 out of the 8 pieces i was composing a while ago.

(and when i say composing i mean writing on paper in front of the piano)

This is basically me getting stuck on a piece. How do you guys handle that kind of situation and how should i handle it?

Do you think the reason i get stuck is because i lack musical knowledge, or something? help me out guys :c

Forgot to mention: the 2 pieces i've finished, were finished on a time where i didn't have that much musical knowledge, so i tended to focus more on the music itself rather than if its going to be good or not. For some reason the more knowledge i gather the more i keep making my pieces more complex. I think that is the reason why i get stuck so much. More knowlodge could help though.

I've found that mapping it out before I start writing helps to prevent that from happening so much. Also, for me, showers help stimulate my imagination and I can think of ideas more easily that I might not have had otherwise. That may not work for you but it's something to try, perhaps. I don't know how much musical knowledge you possess, but I don't think that that is necessarily the problem. Knowing more has increased the quality of my ideas significantly. However, it has not changed the fact that I still get stuck sometimes.

Thanks man, knowing more has also increased the quality of my ideas, but i still think i lack a lot of knowledge, probably why i get stuck so much. My pieces go as far as my ideas do, and my ideas usualy cover a couple of staffs, after that i don't know what else to do and how to continue :/

any other suggestions guys?

I use my phone to record, and go for a walk in the woods and hum what I've written so far.  I always end up spontaneously adding something new, or varying the rhythms, or putting in a key change, without really thinking about it as I go.  There's something about walking and getting away from the paper that seems to loosen up my brain, and then I have a record on my phone that I can go back through when I'm home again to remember what I came up with and write down the best parts.  Driving seems to work well too.  Something about being in motion.  There is a need to fill the aural space with sound, and the brain obliges.  (:  But for me, the most important is a way to record, so that I can just hum, without trying to write it down at the same time.  It seems to free up my brain to let the music out.  

Whoa! Never thought on doing that, i could give that a try one day. The problem would be to record what i hum, because where I live walking around with a phone in your hands = get robbed.

Any other ideas people?

Or pace around the house…  (:  The point is to be able to play with the tune without the pressure of trying to write it down simultaneously.

You could always just record yourself improvising on the piano/guitar/whatever for half an hour or so, then listen to it and choose the best parts.

Sometimes I remain stuck, and that's it.

I assault my piano in the hope of hearing something worth writing down...

It's very frustrating. If I'm writing to order I cannot allow myself the luxury of being stuck. I may say to myself, OK, this is NOT going to be perfect, but there are good parts. Recognize the good and expand on it. I may never feel the joy, the exhilaration of discovery as when I write only for myself. But that's how it is. It's a mind game with a certain attitude. Coffee helps.

Coffee is good, im always drinking it when in front of the piano, but the cool music ideas come at random times at the day in places where i just can't use a phone to record the hums (don't have any way to register the idea)

More knowledge is nearly always helpful but that might not be the problem here. Many of the best pieces of music don't actually have the best musical ideas contained within them but they work so well because they have a strong sense of structure and dramatic flow. After all, music is a temporal art. The listener wants to be taken on a journey of some sort.

When I'm stuck, I often find it helpful to listen back to what I've written so far and ask myself a few questions from a listener's perspective: Where, as a listener, would I like this piece of music to go next? Should it lead to a climax then fade out? Would the piece benefit from a calmer section? Should the piece explore contrasting material or expand on current material? Should the new material be reached suddenly or do I need a transition? Is there a sense of growth/progress to the piece so far? etc. 

Whenever I get stuck on a piece, I leave it for a while. As I like to call it, I've run out of 'creative fuel'. I might leave it for twenty minutes, maybe a day, but once the 'creative fuel' is filled up again it hits me unexpectedly. A lot of the time I'll be browsing the Internet and be playing random stuff, and that's when I'll get the, "Oh, that sounded pretty cool!".

It's a matter of time and a clear, relaxed mind.

But much like what others said: look at what you have so far, pick out the best parts and base go from there.

Don't drive; ride a bicycle.

Listen to loads and loads of other people's music.

I never get stuck composing music. Music always just flows for me. 

Maybe it will help if you play a piece similar to the style you are composing in and then just keep on going according to what you feel and start composing from there.