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Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician

the.scapegoat.dev

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Re: Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician

#21

Post by breckinloggins »

This feels like the kind of workflow that would fit me. My problem, though, is the "reviewing material I've already put away" part. I feel like I'm hoarding stuff rather than saving material for reuse.

Any advice on how to get out of that rut? I'm thinking I just need to introduce a "review" phase where I habitually go through previous stuff.

Oh... in the middle of typing this I realized a big stumbler for me!

I don't bounce my work in progress from DAW projects to audio, so there's just no avoiding opening each individual project in my DAW, waiting for it to load, hoping all the synths and samples are still installed, etc.

I think I've just convinced myself why I should have a bounced version of everything I do in a "parallel folder" so I can quickly preview stuff and only open the actual project when I want to use it.

Anyway thanks for the music production rubber duck debugging session!

Re: Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician

#22

Post by iraliaf »

"Had I continued to make a song here and there, over the weekend, I would have never discovered that making music is boring"

This is unsettling as a SWE trying to break into the music industry as a hobby. You didn't really go into this; is there something in particular that was boring other than the routine?

Re: Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician

#23

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

iraliaf wrote: post #22

"Had I continued to make a song here and there, over the weekend, I would have never discovered that making music is boring" This is unsettling as a SWE trying to break into the music industry as a hobby. You didn't really go into this; is there something in particular that was boring other than the routine?

There's a sense in which it's a day job, and you have to put the hours in.

But there's also a sense in which you have to have taste and inspiration. Otherwise you'll just be producing an endless stream of crap.

Unfortunately a work ethic on its own doesn't substitute for taste and talent if you don't have them. You will certainly get better with practice, but talent - or lack of it - is a hard limit.

The people who are really, really good at it have the work ethic and the taste to make the work productive.

They also have the right physical location and the right networking and self-promotion skills. But that's a different issue.

Re: Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician

#24

Post by pyinstallwoes »

A pottery teacher split the class into two groups. One group focused on making making one piece over 3 months their best piece. Another group focused on making one piece a day over 3 months.

The group that made one piece a day over 3 months allegedely created much higher quality pottery than the group that tried to perfect one piece of pottery over 3 months.

Re: Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician

#25

Post by raydiatian »

nagonago wrote: post #14
raydiatian wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember seeing a Brian Eno interview where he lambasted non-session musicians as “(every one of them) thinking that they’ve got a Darkside Of The Moon in them, but then they just go into the studio and get lost in playing with Synth patches”

Do you have a link to this interview, or remember where you saw it? I did some searching but couldn't find it.

https://youtu.be/6v6zReRZgOA

Oh how our minds summarize information. It was the Synth player from Pink Floyd, saying that everybody thinks they’ve got a Sgt. Pepper in them.

Re: Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician

#26

Post by PaulHoule »

munificent wrote: post #10
j_kao wrote: post #7

I also wonder if writing music was chore-like due to the genre the author chose, specifically four-on-the-floor techno music that has largely fixed and repetitive structures? This music is meant to be mixed by DJs, after all, so consistency is really key to a lot of the techno genre. Of course, there are very creative divergences in this genre from artists such as Four Tet and Floating Points. Would the author still…

I think so, yes. Back in college, an Anthropology professor told our class "a culture is a set of ready-made solutions to common problems". It's one of the best definitions of anything I've ever heard. In music, I think genre is the same thing. If you sit down try to make "music", you are faced with just an astronomical number of choices to make before you get to a finished compositions. What instrumentation? Acousti…

I was listening to Pink Floyd's Momentary Lapse of Reason just a moment ago and my son asks, "Is that some kind of cheap knockoff of The Wall?" and I said "It's the same band!"

It is very interesting but sometimes sad to see bands constrained by the limits of their own creativity as well as the expectations of their fans. People still pay to hear Stevie Nicks sell Fleetwood Mac songs out of tune, Elton John has been on his last farewell turn I don't know how many times now, but one thing they all have in common is that the fans will boo, tear down the stadium, and leave if they play anything new.

Re: Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician

#28

Post by xhevahir »

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #13
raydiatian wrote: post #4

Everything in music is essentially a remix at its core. The Noisia guys had a similar philosophy of “resample and bounce often”. Always be making bleeps and bloops, then reprocess them, then reprocess them again, as many ways as possible without turning harmonic information into noise (from a band named Noisia, ikr), until you have something that feels novel and rhythmic.

> bounce often I get it, but feel that goes against my software-engineering-make-everything-repeatable learnings

I remember hearing somebody suggest bouncing things to audio (and other destructive operations, presumably) as a way of avoiding the analysis-paralysis that more flexible formats like MIDI can induce.

Re: Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician

#29

Post by lo_zamoyski »

lemonberry wrote: post #15

"Inspiration is for amateurs" - Steven Pressfield in "The War of Art" I think he mentions something about honing your craft so you're prepared for when inspiration strikes. I imagine it's not that different for musicians or programmers.

Billions of people have lived before us, long traditions predate us. The chances that you've had a single original thought in your life is virtually nil (philosophy is a great example where a failure to learn what's old usually results in repeating the same old mistakes). By learning what came before, you are much better prepared for discovery.

Re: Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician

#30

Post by larve »

j_kao wrote: post #7

I also wonder if writing music was chore-like due to the genre the author chose, specifically four-on-the-floor techno music that has largely fixed and repetitive structures? This music is meant to be mixed by DJs, after all, so consistency is really key to a lot of the techno genre. Of course, there are very creative divergences in this genre from artists such as Four Tet and Floating Points. Would the author still…

(author here)

I’m not a song writer but I do have a fair amount of background in jazz and some metal, and while jazz requires a lot of practice to internalize music theory, and both being music with « real » instruments require a significant amount of practice, the writing felt pretty similar. I’d collect riffs, melody fragments, sit down and experiment with chord progressions (very very nerdy and brainy), and then I’d assemble them and see if they fit or not.

The concepts I experiment with when making techno are on a similar level of braininess / research. I will have « theories » that I pursue over many bleeps bloops until I feel I have exhausted the subject. They don’t have words / story per se, but there is definitely a lot of concept and evolution to it.

The « four on the floor » and repetition part of techno can be deceiving. There is definitely some extremely formulaic techno out there, but for many songs, there might not even be a kick, and for sure there never is a loop that is the same as the previous one, as sounds will continuously evolve.

I’m pretty lacking in terms of musical talent, I ultimately left jazz and metal and real instruments behind because I just didn’t « get it ». Techno has taken me 15 years of on/off attention to finally « find myself ». (for what it’s worth, I would personally file four tet and floating points under jazz, not techno, save maybe for a few tracks :).

Genres are so very odd: I feel I can now take a 909 backbeat and a stupid 303 and have some real techno, but doing the same 10 years ago would have sounded… off.

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