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Turning music into a chore is how I became a musician

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

#71

Post by lc9er »

maxrf wrote: post #34
PaulHoule wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Isn't Momentary lapse the release after the split with Waters... perceptive maybe

I believe Momentary began as a Gilmour solo album. They may have had a toxic relationship, but Waters and Gilmour undoubtedly made their best music working together.

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

#73

Post by coldtea »

breckinloggins wrote: post #21

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'…

>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.

This is a good thing to do. But another thing to try is also bouncing tracks to audio early within the same project (on another track). This basically means you "commit" to a version of them, and you work with what you got, instead of infinitely tweaking them as MIDI and playing with the VST all the time...

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

#74

Post by coldtea »

fortran77 wrote: post #37
DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #33

I've been making music for 20 years, just noodling mostly. I've made some tracks that friends of mine love, but I don't want to do it professionally. I just enjoy the relaxation involved. In about 2003 I tried something very similar, except I time boxed a song. I had to spend an hour and a half and each song could only take 15 minutes. That ended up being incredibly fruitful. You don't have time to think, you just go…

> I just enjoy the relaxation involved. I can't understand this at all. I've been playing piano for 50+ years. Still practice every day. Play in amateur recitals. It's fun, but hardly relaxing. It's a lot of work, concentration, and study. And as I get older it gets more challenging because of physical limitations (movement, eyesight, hearing) that I have to work around. My fingers don't work like they used to, and s…

>I've been playing piano for 50+ years. Still practice every day. Play in amateur recitals. It's fun, but hardly relaxing. It's a lot of work, concentration, and study.

Perhaps you play classical or learn pieces and paly them as is? (as you speak of "memorization" and "note-by-note and phrase-by-phrase analysis").

Try something like jazz, improvisation, etc - it can be inifinitely more relaxing, and much less taxing (you study to get the general technique for something, and then you can apply it in any way you like, be lax about it, switch things around, and so on).

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

#75

Post by coldtea »

fortran77 wrote: post #43
dsclough wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Practicing piano and fooling around in a DAW are completely different realms of music related activities. The pianists all know have given me the impression the activity is many more parts stress if the goal is practicing to be able to play a challenging piece, while working in a DAW can be more like splattering paint on a canvas when done like the parent comment describes

Ok. I just expected musicianship to be musicianship regardless of the instrument.

Well, musicianship is musicianship, but that doesn't say much.

But how fun/relaxing it is can differ between instruments and between genres (baroque vs folk or blues) and approaches (e.g. strict sheet music interpration vs improvisation).

Also working with the DAW is more like composing, arranging, conducting, and producing/mixing than playing an instrument.

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

#76

Post by amccloud »

breckinloggins wrote: post #21

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'…

I'm working on a tool to help automate and enforce this bounce often and library curation workflow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwpPNCwI5Ic

Should work with any DAW on Windows or macOS. Anyone want try it out with their DAW email me: andrew@dabounce.app

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

#77

Post by DavidPiper »

larve wrote: post #31
DavidPiper wrote: post #6

> In September, 2 months in, I was not only trying to make as many songs as possible, under the nagging time pressure of my sabbatical slipping away like sand; I also started working with other musicians. The author focuses a lot on the prolific creation and "boring" routine, which I completely agree with, and I want to steal some of their routine for my own creative time. However I think they're underselling the imp…

(author here) 100%, the time pressure and collaboration is what made things fall into place. It’s what made me realize that I have to keep at it, rain or sunshine, because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to complete what I set out to do. As for the follow-up: I have been very much focused on writing and programming this year, and haven’t felt the itch to make music, but I can feel that I will take it up again soon. Howe…

Hey, thanks for taking the time to reply.

> I have been very much focused on writing and programming this year, and haven’t felt the itch to make music, but I can feel that I will take it up again soon

Know that feeling very well! I haven't taken a large chunk of time like that yet, and so my whole process is dribs and drabs. But I'm going to try applying some of the "make it a process" things you talk about even to those times and see what happens.

> Further, once I did get about 20 songs released and « leveled » up technically, I found that the studio time tended to yield more bang for the buck. That could just be a technical thing: I got a bit of gear that made recording my hardware and my mixing so much easier (SSL UC1 and UF8 and a ERM multiclock).

The right gear has definitely helped me. I'm only up to about 6 originals, and I can feel the technical improvement on my part with each piece still. I do a lot of transcribing though too as a way of practicing with the tools and learning what others do. That being said, I'm still in limbo about whether all that practice is actaully applicable or just a deeper form of artistic procrastination.

100% agree about the 2 hours a day, somehow I'm not finding that at the moment (also no kids), but I think it's mostly due to a renewed focus on reading and a slight balloon in doomscrolling recently which I have to address.

800k words is very impressive, keep it up! No doubt in a few weeks I'll decide to commit to learning to draw well, and the timer resets back to 0 for that new hobby too :)

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

#78

Post by DoesntMatter22 »

fortran77 wrote: post #37
DoesntMatter22 wrote: post #33

I've been making music for 20 years, just noodling mostly. I've made some tracks that friends of mine love, but I don't want to do it professionally. I just enjoy the relaxation involved. In about 2003 I tried something very similar, except I time boxed a song. I had to spend an hour and a half and each song could only take 15 minutes. That ended up being incredibly fruitful. You don't have time to think, you just go…

> I just enjoy the relaxation involved. I can't understand this at all. I've been playing piano for 50+ years. Still practice every day. Play in amateur recitals. It's fun, but hardly relaxing. It's a lot of work, concentration, and study. And as I get older it gets more challenging because of physical limitations (movement, eyesight, hearing) that I have to work around. My fingers don't work like they used to, and s…

You are playing real music where as I am just noodling around.

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

#79

Post by DoesntMatter22 »

rperce wrote: post #36
kmewhort wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you apply a monetary penalty to yourself?

I'm not the person you asked, but if I had to guess, I'd guess [beeminder]: goal-tracking software where if you don't reach your goal, they charge your credit card. Each time you fail, you get charged more. It's really good! [beeminder]: https://www.beeminder.com/

lol. No. I just paid 20 dollars to charity. Never even heard of this thing

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

#80

Post by larve »

DavidPiper wrote: post #77
larve wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(author here) 100%, the time pressure and collaboration is what made things fall into place. It’s what made me realize that I have to keep at it, rain or sunshine, because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to complete what I set out to do. As for the follow-up: I have been very much focused on writing and programming this year, and haven’t felt the itch to make music, but I can feel that I will take it up again soon. Howe…

Hey, thanks for taking the time to reply. > I have been very much focused on writing and programming this year, and haven’t felt the itch to make music, but I can feel that I will take it up again soon Know that feeling very well! I haven't taken a large chunk of time like that yet, and so my whole process is dribs and drabs. But I'm going to try applying some of the "make it a process" things you talk about even to…

Drawing is so cool because you can listen to podcasts at the same time, it’s a very different kind of activity. Music is all consuming, drawing actually makes it easier for me to process audio information.
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