So I’ve been reading quite alot around here that people can’t seem to finish their tracks and only stick with their 2 minutes song ideas and frustratedly move on to their next ideas … something that’s happening to me every time too! Quite a common syndrome.
Although I have quite no idea about music production yet, I think it’s important to finish a song early so you don’t spend your time playing around for nothing. In the beginning a lot of newbies (like me) tend to experiment a lot with sounds, everything sounds random but their ideas are getting to the point and are yet so unfinished, they follow no rules.
But making music actually means following certain rules. This is something everyone should soon or less realize. To help out, a friend of mine has send me these sheets. They are for analyzing a track to its properties, build up and further development. Another sheet is used to prepare a production of your own song.
Don’t know if these have been posted here already, but those are a big help to me! I finally got a basic idea of how a track look likes, something I’ve been struggling with for a long time … Hope this will be a little help to those who need it
That is where innovation comes from, it is hard to innovate. Because you don’t want to follow rules but be unique. The reason why you mostly don’t get further is probably because the way you want to progress your music, ends up in stuff that you don’t consider to be unique or fitting or you are simply stealing known progressions.
I’ld rather not do this. You risk loosing the posession of a distinct musical style that is unique to you, eventually you might end up with only having your own style in assembling known musical patterns.
There’s nothing wrong finding ways to enhance your methods of completing your inspiration, just be careful how you adopt the material and how far you let yourself getting influenced.
Personally I don’t think it has something to do with someone considering his stuff not being unique. You can have your music sound unique AND follow certain rules to have your stuff constructed as a listenable song. You just have to implement your ideas and thoughts into a well developed song and not into a spontanously and just out of situation 1-2 minute song idea that has almost no understandable and euphonic structure and development. This is where the production sheets are handy.
And of course there is nothing wrong with having a time off and just experimenting with sounds and playing around. This is even very important for knowledge and individual style. That’s totally okay. But as I said, if you still haven’t made after 3 years or so something that could be called a song you have to start making decisions. And yes, these sheets are really only for beginners. They don’t mean to copy another song, they are food for thought. Maybe you can remake one of your favorite songs or something, just for practical purpose, but if you soon know how a song is developed you won’t need them anymore. Your own ideas and experience will do it intuitively… Just my opinion on this.
The main part of the sheets are the patterns of a song. In the sheets they are divided to “0-8”, “9 -16”, etc… This is where in a song usually very significant musical changes occurr. So, what you do is writing down the changes, the trademark sounds of every pattern, the differences, incoming instruments … and so on. The other parts of the sheet are quite self explanatory Unfortunately I don’t have a scanner otherwise I would upload one for example.
When I write, I have a goal or set of goals that I want to achieve with each song. I might start off twiddling knobs on a synth and come across a cool sound that inspires me to the initial idea, but then i’ll take a step away from the computer for a bit and think about what emotion I can use this sound to help pull off and then I’ll start thinking of accompanying sounds to fully realize that idea. Before I go back to the computer, I’ll have a good idea of what the song is that I want to create, and then I’ll start trying to recreate the sounds in my head on the computer. This process makes it relatively easy to say “that’s it, that’s the song” and be done. If you’re not sure, listen to the song without looking at the DAW and then it should be more clear. And also, you’ll likely never be 100% happy with your final product, but if you find yourself tweaking and tweaking and not getting any closer, then you’re probably done. Give yourself a timeline, or announce a release date and adhere to it.
As far as uniqueness goes, you’ll likely never create something entirely unique. The best thing you can do is take what you know and make the best music you possibly can with it. Use presets if you need to, it’s okay. I’m not saying blatantly copy other people, but everyone borrows from other people.
Probably all very obvious, but they’re all things I keep in mind when writing. Have fun and keep writing music, it’s good for you
Cool ideas. I gotta say, finishing your tunes is the most important thing. I wish i could follow this advice. It is more important than being 100 percent original. How many awesome blues tunes are there and how many of them songs use an original chord progression? Yet the artists’ being still shines though. Art is art, not necessarily the invention of a whole new field of science.
There is also another way that may get you going a lot further and that is download an acapella (from either ccmixter or acapellas4u) and then build an arrangement around it.
You are more or less forced to go a certain direction, but adding your own chord- and bass-progression, you can give it the twist that a good song needs.
Link to the original acapella itself can be found on the right.
Here you can select the original:
Though if you want to do something like this, be smart:Don’t listen to the original before you have finished your own version. If you do, you get influenced too much.
I like most of the acapella’s on ccmixter a lot for their crisp clean sound. The only unfortunate is that the sung lyrics in generic aren’t really strong. (I personally also need some good strong lyrics for extra inspiration)
i enjoy customizing the appearance of my digital environments, and have made my win7 so that my entire desktop is empty. this makes for a very clean and easy look, plus you can have the benefit of a fullscreen beautiful wallpaper which is not cluttered with useless shortcuts (which can be tucked away in quickstart, start menu or foldermenu-software).
the relevance of this tale is, that when i want to listen without looking at Renoise, i minimize all windows and enjoy my desktop wallpaper. this works great, and it’s a great tip.
If you’re unsure if the bass is right due to the low frequency, tune it up a few octaves.
Compose the bass right, then tune it back down.
Try to use (edit: at least) one new instrument/effect in each tune you compose.
If you’ve only got old, boring ideas, try the opposite.
Actually, try to do the whole song opposite!
If you’re stuck making the same tunes, hitting the same keyboard keys, tune your vsti or renoise instrument half a tone up, to D#. Play the same tune.
Sounds different, right?
This way, you can gain some new inspiration from the “new” notes you’re hitting.
If the tune sounds dull and dead, try some mastering to give it you/its confidence back; add some compression, fiddle around with an EQ on the master channel.
To give a tune a laid back feel, make some of the instruments hit a tiny bit later than the rest. This works especially well with bassdrums and bass, but also on other instruments. (great for dub and rap )
Try making a song out of ONE Vst instrument, making all the instruments from scratch. This’ll help you get to know your vst instruments.
Never delete anything. I go back over the shit I made six months ago (when I started making music on computers) and it gives me inspiration and confidence with my current work. I think it’s good to prove to yourself that you’ve made an improvement.
what i meant with ‘delete it afterwards’, was when speaking of songparts. say you are building a bassline for half an hour and it won’t fit. you’re not going to save that to a seperate file or anything, because most of the time it’s not worth it. well, that’s my opinion at least. i do not delete sketches or half-finished songs either, and go back to them months after sometimes, and discover some gems sometimes that can be built out into something more (or something else). but, to each his own.
I didn’t even see your post above mine, just coincidence. Wasn’t a dig, actually I agree with you, I delete pieces of tunes that don’t go anywhere but if I make 4 seconds of something good it gets saved so I can go back.
… Hope this will be a little help to those who need it 
Unfortunately I don’t have a scanner otherwise I would upload one for example.