Overcoming obstacles: How to get creative hours / Renoise time in

Off-Topic
1

So here is what I’m struggling with lately…

You have your family at home, your study, your job, house chores / groceries, keep up with the latest movies and games, socialize with relatives and friends. Where do you find the time to be creative? You know, get some precious Renoise / studio time in?

I also find that the best ideas come when I’m not having access to a computer with Renoise at all. Like on my way to the supermarket. Body goes on autopilot while travelling there and can then cook up the best tracks in my head. Then after filling up my cart with all the items from my grocery list and checking out with the cute cashier lady, I’ve already lost every good idea I had just before that!

Time management, like setting aside a specific period in the week that you’re going to focus on music, seems to kill the joy and creativity. When my scheduled music time is finally up, I feel like I’m uninspired and rather play Nintendo instead…

With all that in mind. What do you do to get in the mood? (no, not that you perv. Porn doesn’t help here. I’m talking about the music thing :wink: ) How do you get on with creative hours and how do you deal with creative thoughts outside the studio?

2

Constant creativity…learn to ignore (or rather enjoy without trying to grip on the too hard…) most shit that’s popping up all the time while you can’t preserve, make it happen while sitting in front of renoise, fiddling with stuff… Like just sit there in front of the tracker and tune some unfinished loops or whatever, until there’s ideas in the head on how to expand that loop right_now, or Ideas for other stuff come up that’ll justify some new loop to progress on to be made.

I know that pain. All those brilliant ideas, just to be forgotten right after being dreamt. Unless you’re able to nail them down right away. Taking notes and such won’t really help, I’ve got lots of notes defining lyrics or songs or whatever and I have no clue on how to come back to the idea of how it was supposed to sound. Hm, that’s how shit works, I suppose - phantasy is dream&forget for many people, it can make one sad, or you can just accept it. For many people only the phantasies you’ve got while working directly on the appropriate tool to put them into life 1:1 seem to be useful. Sometimes one can remember ideas well enough until at the daw - the merrier you’ll be then.

Guess that’s partially where the myth of muses playing tricks on artists come from. In the abundance of water the fool is thirsty.

3

For me, the the key is overcoming the inner procrastinator.

If I’m only working on making music, or writing, when I “feel like it”, I’ll spend far more time thinking about doing it than actually doing it. Creativity or “inspiration” kick in once I sit down and start playing around with sounds (with writing, the “free writing” technique works well). Or not. It doesn’t always work, but I’ve noticed that my brain goes into the creative mode at the scheduled times once I regularly practice being creative.W. Somerset Maugham wrote, " I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp."

The rest is just time management and setting priorities. I have to let some other recreational activities go, like watching movies or indulging in gaming. It’s probably also a matter of the right mindset: If you think, “Ugh, blargh, almost 8pm, I guess I should sit down and make some crappy music.”, then you make it work-like, which will probably not keep you motivated. Something like, “Woohoo, almost 8pm, I finally get to make awesome music and learn new stuff!” is probably more helpful. Train yourself to feel privileged that you have talent and interest, and opportunity in this great era where computers and software are powerful, and where you can share your creations with lots of other people!

You could also look deeper to figure out why playing games is more appealing than being creative. In my case, it’s essentially a form of fear: the worry of only coming up with crap, the fear of feeling stupid and hopeless, the fear of not meeting those silly expectations that I have to myself. Games are much “safer” that way (as are movies, forum reading, and polishing spoons). When I feel that way, even cleaning the bathroom is more appealing than doing anything creative.

4

As I read the original request:

you want to be able to take advantage of creativity whenever it strikes, without being tied to a schedule.

The answer has to be some way of capturing what you come up with. It could be in your memory, it could be on paper, it could be a recording or it could be an electronic note.

You say your memory fails you. Fair enough. That means you need an aid, and you need to carry it with you. I often carry a Nintendo 3DS-XL with Detune’s M01D and DSN-12 software on it. That is a powerful note taking tool, or even composition if I’m stuck in a waiting room for a while. Why not start there?

Alternatively, a voice recorder and humming can work as well.

But here’s the key: every note is a promise to follow it up. When you get your renoise time, at the very least transcribe what you created and save it. Eventually, you may find a use for it.

5

While I don’t have much to do in life, meaning I have all the time to Renoise, I do often get ideas outside.

What I’ve done is bring my ipad with me everywhere, I have a few apps I use as sketchpads if need be. I can create whole tracks with it if I wanted to but that would also be a huge pain that I don’t really need. If you have a phone or other device then humming is a great idea and then you can try and translate that into Renoise. If you have an ipad though, bring that along and download Tabletop, a free miniature DAW.

6

While there are many great technological advancements in making music,

most of those advancements are in context of sitting in a room

which could be considered a mismatch from a creative motivational stand-point.

I do share the sentiment that its more exciting to create music outside a room,

perhaps something else in the brain gets arroused when I’m assimilating contrasts of danger and wonder.

When I’m in a room, that scanning for danger and wonder is relegated.

If music can be broken down to two generalized parts, it’d have to be Tone and Sequence.
I guess the question now is what is manageable for you to do outside to bring home, inside Renoise ?

7

I feel like the way most of us do it is that we wait until the time we really should be going to sleep, then we Renoise for 4-5 hours straight in a trance like state of exhaustion.

8

Futher on my point above: I view spontaneous inspirations like imagining what about you’re going to say before an impotant talk with someone. It’s like you imagine what points you’re going to make, how the dialogue would be, while imagining what you say in reaction to what the one you’re going to talk would say. And when the situation comes in, everything is forgotten, and you’ll say completely different things - just inspired and prepared by what you’ve dreamt of before.

Some Zen: Like this, you can see inspirations at times where you can’t use them as a self-training of the brain. Unless you can nail the melodies etc. down right away, you’ll forget the details anyway - but your mind has taken a step to “try out something” as a kind of “playful game”. If it’s capable to do so spontaneuously, it’s able to do so while you’re really working on something. Just like with the talk - it’ll be in other words. As a nerd, you can stop for a moment, and try to rather grasp abstract ideas of the inspiration instead of the full-blown everything - this can help to consciously build upon your capability to reproduce similliar things by will. It’s not like “omg I just hear that 10m$ melody that’ll make me rich in my head” (then you’d rather be considered schizo by a psychatrist), but rather like “ok, this is another variation of sounds with some new idea from the deep of my mind, let’s catch the concept and try to do something similliar when I’m at my daw…”

I also believe, all those inspirations that were forgotten, are in reality deep in the back of your mind, like there’s been something changed, built up on the existing before it, that you can’t reach fully but will be a fundamental of the next things you’ll experience in that regard. This eases the pain of forgetting “that idea” a bit - nothing is lost, the next inspirations might be an improved version of what you’ve just lost. Mind works like this - at no point we know everything that’s in it, and some things we’ll never ever know about it in out lives. Is creepy?

When it comes to translating ideas into real form, nothing beats practice in doing so. I know the pain all to much of having an idea, and getting lost in the details of trying to reproduce that sound until I’ve forgotten the original idea and do something very different instead. It’s all in the flow…it’s beliebig.

To work, you sit in front of the daw and start doing things. If you’d like to do things, but mumble on doing other things while wanting to produce audio, force yourself to do it a bit. until it’s fun. See some parts as training, like you’d lift weights to get your arms stronger, and some as using that strength to make something of everything that would be possible nailed down to a frame of your capabilities - that might produce a tune. Find your own system. If you find the pressure of ideas is stronger than what you produce, work more if time permits and you can overcome your weak inner self. If you find you’re trying to do more than you’d have ideas, take it more slowly. If you can’t bear with all those ideas and track all day, probably you’ll need therapy, or learn to ignore all those hallucinations.

9

The one who seeks victory loses to the fear of defeat.

10

Futher on my point above: I view spontaneous inspirations like imagining what about you’re going to say before an impotant talk with someone. It’s like you imagine what points you’re going to make, how the dialogue would be, while imagining what you say in reaction to what the one you’re going to talk would say. And when the situation comes in, everything is forgotten, and you’ll say completely different things - just inspired and prepared by what you’ve dreamt of before.

Hehe that’s so true. Good analogy. And good points in both your posts. Thx man. Gives some food for thought and can reflect with what it is that we seek.

I feel like the way most of us do it is that we wait until the time we really should be going to sleep, then we Renoise for 4-5 hours straight in a trance like state of exhaustion.

Hehe that’s some of the good old days for me. Game till late hours then right before bed time: bam! The best stuff flows into the sequencer. Sleep 3 hours and get totally wasted at work, only to rest there and do it all again later that night. Now living together with my girlfriend, we tend to match sleep time together, so I actually never (really NEVER) do this anymore. Hmm, there might actually be a clue in there, why I’m struggling so much. This might be a missing puzzle piece, right here :slight_smile:

If you have a phone or other device then humming is a great idea and then you can try and translate that into Renoise. If you have an ipad though, bring that along and download Tabletop, a free miniature DAW.

Good advice! Also the humming thing is something a lot of people probably can do. No iPad here though and I know the humming doesn’t really work for me personally (tried it many times before when I was carrying a Zoom H4 on me all the time to record ambient sounds wherever I go). But I’m going with Jan Koekepan’s similar idea:

You say your memory fails you. Fair enough. That means you need an aid, and you need to carry it with you. I often carry a Nintendo 3DS-XL with Detune’s M01D and DSN-12 software on it. That is a powerful note taking tool, or even composition if I’m stuck in a waiting room for a while. Why not start there?

Dyem man… I do have those Korg apps sitting on my 2DS and I’m not doing anything with it right now. And that while I have the 2DS on me 98% of the time (Go streetpass!). This is actually a great idea! Thx man. Why didn’t I ever think about that? Before I’d only use it when it’s on me in the studio and I hook it up to the mixer. I should bring earbuds though. Never have those one me. So that’s one to start doing from now on :slight_smile: … Sadly I won’t be able to 2DS traveling my bike, doing groceries, or most of the work day at the office, but it’s a start :slight_smile:

But here’s the key: every note is a promise to follow it up. When you get your renoise time, at the very least transcribe what you created and save it. Eventually, you may find a use for it.

This is good practice indeed :wink: In fact I save and even backup everything that is ever done in studio time! Never loose something that might proof to be important later :wink:

I guess the question now is what is manageable for you to do outside to bring home, inside Renoise ?

Now that I think about that question, it’s more than tone and sequence, there is a lot one can do to stay in touch with their music and prime for that Renoise session at a different time. A few examples:

  • While in the office, I could potentionally dig out new VST’s or tutorials and get excited about making sounds like that.
  • Always render MP3 of work at the end of studio time and review any recent mp3’s throughout the day, wherever I go.
  • If possible I could potentionally scout out new music and listen to that (I used to do that a lot, but not that much anymore lately)
  • As noted above, play with the Korg apps on my 2DS (or do something similar on Ipad, or phone, or whatever)

If you think, “Ugh, blargh, almost 8pm, I guess I should sit down and make some crappy music.”, then you make it work-like, which will probably not keep you motivated. Something like, “Woohoo, almost 8pm, I finally get to make awesome music and learn new stuff!” is probably more helpful.

Although this is not that much the case with me, it is a good point and something everyone should look out for whenever you’re doing ‘time management’ of any sorts. It’s a common pitfal: you make it about “I NEED to do this and that” instead of “I WANT to do this and that”. Wanting to do stuff is easier to follow up on :wink:

You could also look deeper to figure out why playing games is more appealing than being creative.

That’s one I’ve also been struggling with. I actually banned games from my life for a good 2 years as an experiment. It didn’t up the productivity though and for some reason those games (and movies) are an inspiration in themselves. I’m happy to have them games back in my life again. Thing is I’ve always found them interesting ever since my dad put my 4 year old self behind a commodore 64. Heck, I got interested in synths because of the sound of that thing. Yeah, on the other hand it is such a time waster, so to come back to time management… Gaming is something that I do WANT to do, so it is something that I definitly want to reserve time for. The problem is with wanting it more then making music at times I set down for music. I know I want to do music when I plan it, but for some reason it becomes a “Ah I scheduled music… Shit I have (NEED) to do music now otherwise I never get to it, but I WANT to play games right now (or whatever else)”… I sometimes think scheduling your free time in detail is not the way to go. By experiment I’m gonna see if it’s better if I just schedule “Jeffrey time” in my agenda instead and then do whatever I feel like with that personal time. The obvious problem here probably being I’ll end up gaming most of those times, but maybe if I do go create music I’m probably in a better place.

The one who seeks victory loses to the fear of defeat.

Hmmm, so deep that I’m missing the point in relation to all that is discussed above I guess :slight_smile:

Anyways, as Mivo and OopsIFly already hint at, I guess a good part of it is psychology and training brain patterns, etc. Conditioning yourself, setting yourself up for the right mood in the right environment with the required time set aside. Easier said than done though, I’m actually feeling like for me, I might have to make a big shift in lifestyle / priorities to make that happen though. However, only thinking about it doesn’t accomplish anything, so I guess it’s time to just DO IT. Will be applying some of the ideas summed up above, like bringing earbuds, getting more time on those 2DS Korg apps, review mp3 during the day, make better use of my day job office time, but I assume there is plenty more I can do / change. Will see and experiment :slight_smile:

Thx for all the input so far guys. This is meaningful stuff! Keep’em coming :slight_smile:

11

“I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.”

― W. Somerset Maugham

Time management, like setting aside a specific period in the week that you’re going to focus on music, seems to kill the joy and creativity. When my scheduled music time is finally up, I feel like I’m uninspired and rather play Nintendo instead…

Unfortunately, this is a lie that we creative types tell ourselves.

The truth is, we will procrastinate, no matter how much time we have available.

That’s why, with a hectic schedule, you find yourself playing Nintendo instead of making music during your scheduled music-making time.

Creativity is a habit. Set a schedule, stick to it. If you can get more time in, great. If you can sit down when inspiration strikes, great.

But if you can’t… at least you’re doing it when you say you will.

It might seem difficult at first, but all habits are. Keep it up, and it becomes a habit and you won’t have to think about it so much.

You reinforce your own behavior. If you set a schedule, and then break it (“I don’t feel inspired…”) then you a) break a promise to yourself and b) reinforce the belief that you can only work when inspired, and that your inspiration doesn’t match your schedule.

Not what you want to hear, I know, but ignore this at your own peril…

12

+1 for pat :slight_smile:

Time management is a myth. You can’t manage time. You can only manage your use of the time you have, and the only way to do that is to manage yourself. Instead of focusing on the problem of how to get inspired when you’re sitting at your computer, or worrying about capturing inspiration while you’re out in the world, focus on the ultimate goal you have in mind. It sounds like your goal is something along the lines of wanting to make more music, or spend more time working on it.

The only way to do that is to do it anyway, whether you’re inspired or not. Set yourself a reasonable amount of time to spend working on music every single day , or as close to every day as possible. Less time more often is better than a huge block once a week for a number of reasons. First, if you finish up with little to show for it then you’ve ‘wasted’ less time. Second, your brain can handle heavy use only for short periods of time before getting tired and unreliable, so a half-hour a day will net you greater focus, concentration, better decisions, greater insights, and generally better results than a 4-hour binge that burns you out in the first hour. Third, creativity is largely a habit, like pat says above, and habits are best created with more repetitions. 30 minutes every day is more repetitions in the same week than 4-hours a day once a week. If 15 minutes a day is all you can manage, then go with it. If you can swing an hour, great. Just make sure you give yourself regular breaks to rest your brain.

And here’s another ugly truth about creativity: inspiration is only perhaps 10% of it. The rest is work. Consider the awesome bass line that just popped into your head. So you get it down in Renoise and it sounds exactly the same as you imagined it. Now what? You either leave that inspired piece of muse-breath as it is, 100% inspiration, or you figure out how that bass line fits into a song and start building things around it. Teach yourself to enjoy the work part of it as much as you enjoy the inspiration, or you’ll never really like doing it.

As for catching inspiration in inconvenient places at inconvenient times, it’s not really that big a deal. Inspiration comes from your subconscious, and your subconscious is always going to throw something new your way. Inspiration deals in general things that your conscious mind has to hammer into specifics. Rather than trying to remember the specifics you come up with at your moment of inspiration, see if you can figure out and remember the general shape of it, the mood or atmosphere, or other songs that remind you of your idea (careful not to get too focused on the details of those songs, though). You can always flesh things out later when you’ve got Renoise up and running.

13

Being wired to try something, do something, outcome independend, including repetition for a reasonable amount of time, I actually have tried to ‘keep it up’ already, but forcing it has been counter productive over the past months, maybe years already, even. You may argue that I should stick with the program until it does work. However, I don’t think that repitition is the answer in my case. Some puzzle pieces are missing in this line of thinking. And when things are not working, I tend to change the approach over and over, until something does work and that’s why I posted here for some ideas. Which have been plenty so far :slight_smile:

Not what you want to hear, I know, but ignore this at your own peril…

I don’t want to hear, because most of it is in line with some of what Mivo said, W. Somerset Maugham quote included? :slight_smile: Kidding. This ‘creativity is a habit’ stuff is making sense in a lot of ways. What is entirely new to me is this ability to force a pattern by repetition, even if the repetition doesn’t seem to give off good results (which, by your own line of thinking would reinforce that I can’t win at this… Maybe that’s what Mister Sombrero was also hinting at. That’s how I see it now).

Anyways, in no reply to anyone, but rambling on a bit myself here now: Reflecting back, what used to get me in the mood was late night binge producing at the cost of sleep. Or rolling out of my bed on a sunday directly into the chair behind the synthesizers, dressed in only a bathrobe all day. Due to lifestyle changes, ie. own house, different financial situation, living together with girlfriend, yadda yadda, etc. My creativity habits are pretty much interrupted and I get stuck in trying to force it, like a good vinyl record that got scratched up, no longer able to play from start to finish, cause it hangs itself up no matter how many times you try to clean it and play it. So a way of thinking with me now is, maybe I need to get myself a new record? But it’ll be a matter of selecting a record that is right; not everyone is into the same kind of records and my taste may have shifted as well. So exploring new records it is!

Set yourself a reasonable amount of time to spend working on music every single day

Now there is a challenge! And I like it :slight_smile:

Asking myself now… How can I do all the things I love (including music) every single day? … Such a simple question, with multiple long answers, that may not be right or fully thought through, but they inmediatly give some perspective on how to possibly better structure life. Not something to change over night, but a dream and mission to pursue.

14

renoise is a darn good video game

about the art stuff, put the gist of it on a piece of paper. if it can’t survive the trip from there to your DAW, it probably wasn’t art anyway.if you’re not on a mission it is all just a video game. and that’s cool. hi score!

15

Restructuring life here… Redefining my game, relationship, music and socializing hours. For what it’s worth, productivity seems to be slightly higher than usual.

Up next on the list is my day job. It’s such a waste to spend 40 hours a week on something you’re not passionate about anymore (and only get sub par payments anyways). It’s hard though. Mortgage can be a bitch. If you’re still living with your parents, think hard about your future before you mortgage up :stuck_out_tongue:

For now it’s about getting music related time in during the boss hours, but I’m also looking hard for an exit :slight_smile:

Excitement :smiley:

16

Some really good advice and thoughts here:

https://makingmusic.ableton.com/

PS. I don’t really use or particularly like Ableton Live, but a lot of the concepts are generic and applicable to any form of computer-based music.

18

On your desktop, make sure that the shortcuts to Renoise and the forum look different

forum_app_icon.png?raw=1

Or get rid of internet completely on the music machine :badteeth:

19

Or hack the registry of all your Windows computers so that they load straight into fullscreen Renoise as a shell, instead of that explorer desktop meh. Who needs that crap anyways?

20

modern living is rubbish for creativity. i like to noodle on my beautiful american telecaster and a portable pignose amp in the toilet to get peace and seclusion in my environment.

sometimes when i get a nice line going and start to get into it i realise that i’m in fact sitting on a toilet and that’s how bad my creative process is becoming.

i do let one go sometimes but i always flush and don’t wipe till i’ve put the guitar back in its case if your concerned about infection control.

21

i now use sunvox to sketch track ideas since i can do that on my phone which i always have with me.

another thing i try to do is figure out what the “next move” is at the end of each session. something small like “test different tempos” or “write a variation on part x”. for me that makes it a bit easier to overcome procrastination… it’s all about just getting started for me.

that being said: i need to figure out how to get one or some more hours per week where i know i won’t be interrupted.

getting out of the house always worked for me when i studied so that’s probably what i will try out next.