Strategies for doing the work
September 5, 2014 9:51 AM Subscribe
A few years ago I decided to pick up making electronic music again after about a 10 year hiatus. Now I'm looking for strategies to keep myself doing the work.
Basically I had an extra bedroom at my old house that made it easy to accumulate a bunch of hardware instruments. I taught myself subtractive synthesis as a hobby and started a bit of a collection of analog instruments. I recorded a few tapes and played some shows. Since then, I moved into a smaller place but accumulated even more instruments including some 'classics' that I somehow felt were lacking in my music. I basically use this stuff to entertain myself after work. I really like fixing up old instruments, I get a lot of pleasure from linking up a bunch of old machines and getting them to play together, I love experimenting with sequencing and routing these things through each other and learning about sound but lately I don't really know what further purpose of all of this has. My house looks like a mess (I'm also trying to rehab the condo that I'm living in). I sometimes hit record and jam for a while and there are always some good moments but lately I never really have the energy to go back and make a finished song out of them. All of the music I have ever finished has just been the luck of having hit record and then not messing up for the next 4-5 minutes. I would love to be able to make the sort of intricate and almost fractal levels of detail heard in the new Aphex Twin track or in old Autechre. But at the same time, for some reason I don't get the nearly the same pleasure out of arranging things in the computer and the infinite array of possibilities in there just makes me blank out or start reading how-tos and crap online. I have an aversion to Ableton for some reason, and I find Reaper passable as basically a multitrack recorder. I'm trying to find strategies to make myself just do the unfun work in order to have something that sounds polished and like it was done for a reason I guess. And maybe try to have some emotion in there rather than sounding like someone's gear experiments. I'm trying to figure out a way to make less excuses and spend more time doing and less time thinking about what I don't have or how to have every single instrument online and 'available' but rather just finish a damn song. Thanks.
Basically I had an extra bedroom at my old house that made it easy to accumulate a bunch of hardware instruments. I taught myself subtractive synthesis as a hobby and started a bit of a collection of analog instruments. I recorded a few tapes and played some shows. Since then, I moved into a smaller place but accumulated even more instruments including some 'classics' that I somehow felt were lacking in my music. I basically use this stuff to entertain myself after work. I really like fixing up old instruments, I get a lot of pleasure from linking up a bunch of old machines and getting them to play together, I love experimenting with sequencing and routing these things through each other and learning about sound but lately I don't really know what further purpose of all of this has. My house looks like a mess (I'm also trying to rehab the condo that I'm living in). I sometimes hit record and jam for a while and there are always some good moments but lately I never really have the energy to go back and make a finished song out of them. All of the music I have ever finished has just been the luck of having hit record and then not messing up for the next 4-5 minutes. I would love to be able to make the sort of intricate and almost fractal levels of detail heard in the new Aphex Twin track or in old Autechre. But at the same time, for some reason I don't get the nearly the same pleasure out of arranging things in the computer and the infinite array of possibilities in there just makes me blank out or start reading how-tos and crap online. I have an aversion to Ableton for some reason, and I find Reaper passable as basically a multitrack recorder. I'm trying to find strategies to make myself just do the unfun work in order to have something that sounds polished and like it was done for a reason I guess. And maybe try to have some emotion in there rather than sounding like someone's gear experiments. I'm trying to figure out a way to make less excuses and spend more time doing and less time thinking about what I don't have or how to have every single instrument online and 'available' but rather just finish a damn song. Thanks.
I was struck by "I would love to be able to make the sort of intricate and almost fractal levels of detail heard in the new Aphex Twin track or in old Autechre."
That's an excellent statement of both a goal and a possible approach to process ("almost fractal").
Possible experiment: what about starting with a tiny chunk -- one measure or 5 seconds or however you want to delineate it -- and actually methodically playing with how many levels of detail / how many different patterns you can pack into just that tiny chunk? 'Zoom in' literally and figuratively, pushing your tiny chunk into such a dense thicket it seems crazy, then see if you want to keep any individual elements of the thicket. Adding then subtracting can be a very fruitful way of experimenting.
The key here is keeping the 'product' so strictly limited that you're not thinking at all about broader structure, just thinking about playing with textures. If you like this experiment, repeat it.
A question you seem to be asking is "How do I make this interesting and compelling for myself and therefore, eventually, for other people?" So it might really serve you to play with texture-building without the expectation that you're making finished products and the pressure/stuckness that can produce.
posted by kalapierson at 1:04 PM on September 6, 2014
That's an excellent statement of both a goal and a possible approach to process ("almost fractal").
Possible experiment: what about starting with a tiny chunk -- one measure or 5 seconds or however you want to delineate it -- and actually methodically playing with how many levels of detail / how many different patterns you can pack into just that tiny chunk? 'Zoom in' literally and figuratively, pushing your tiny chunk into such a dense thicket it seems crazy, then see if you want to keep any individual elements of the thicket. Adding then subtracting can be a very fruitful way of experimenting.
The key here is keeping the 'product' so strictly limited that you're not thinking at all about broader structure, just thinking about playing with textures. If you like this experiment, repeat it.
A question you seem to be asking is "How do I make this interesting and compelling for myself and therefore, eventually, for other people?" So it might really serve you to play with texture-building without the expectation that you're making finished products and the pressure/stuckness that can produce.
posted by kalapierson at 1:04 PM on September 6, 2014
Interesting. I am now 47 with this exact same problem. I've tried all the excellent suggestions of turntraitor in the past, but to no avail. Everything I've produced has always sounded like "gear experiments". In my opinion, this is a far bigger problem than something that can be solved with a few suggestions. I had music lessons as a kid, a musical family, parents who still make music and have always enjoyed it, a brother and a sister who write music and have forever played in bands. I've released songs, had piano lessons, saxophone lessons, bought more music hardware and software than a person should be allowed to. Went to school, did the tutorials, had lots of chances, collaborated, etc., etc. But something essential is always missing.
When I had jazz saxophone lessons as a teenager, my teacher said (when nothing was happening during improvisation sessions): "You are the only student I've ever had who did all the required scales and arpeggios and didn't start improvising at this point.". I never managed, so I gave up on it.
I very much recognize the having-fun-connecting-shit-to-see-if-it-works drive. That's what I've always been able to do. I do enjoy that part, I would also enjoy having made a really finished emotional song, but the middle part is just not there. I have a legal installation of Ableton Live 9 Suite. Same for FLStudio. Pro Tools. Logic (though I stopped updating that one). I used to have tons of MIDI synthesizers. Sold the whole bunch.
I think the problem is unsolvable. Probably something to do with how my parents acted during my early years. It is a lack of drive. Years of therapy might help, maybe. I don't know. I gave up. Maybe you can become an engineer for someone else who does all the intricate production stuff. Whatever. Just don't become 47 like me, hunting for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there. Good luck.
posted by hz37 at 1:38 PM on September 20, 2014
When I had jazz saxophone lessons as a teenager, my teacher said (when nothing was happening during improvisation sessions): "You are the only student I've ever had who did all the required scales and arpeggios and didn't start improvising at this point.". I never managed, so I gave up on it.
I very much recognize the having-fun-connecting-shit-to-see-if-it-works drive. That's what I've always been able to do. I do enjoy that part, I would also enjoy having made a really finished emotional song, but the middle part is just not there. I have a legal installation of Ableton Live 9 Suite. Same for FLStudio. Pro Tools. Logic (though I stopped updating that one). I used to have tons of MIDI synthesizers. Sold the whole bunch.
I think the problem is unsolvable. Probably something to do with how my parents acted during my early years. It is a lack of drive. Years of therapy might help, maybe. I don't know. I gave up. Maybe you can become an engineer for someone else who does all the intricate production stuff. Whatever. Just don't become 47 like me, hunting for a black cat in a dark room that isn't there. Good luck.
posted by hz37 at 1:38 PM on September 20, 2014
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Or rather, I have figured out how to have fun doing those formerly un-fun things because Ableton enabled me to.
Now, to be sure, there was a learning curve! There was and still is time I spend learning how to do things in the platform, rather than actually doing them, and you just have to understand that this is how it will always be.
To me, it sounds like what you've got is a process problem, and the only real way to fix those is to try some more processes out until you get one you dig.
Also you have to learn to love what it is you produce when you're having fun, too. You need to give yourself permission to just be happy with the sketches even if they don't turn out to be a "real song". They can wind up interludes and the like.
So, three recommendations:
*As I've said, work with whatever software you're working with, do the tutorials, and get a process figured out that if not fun, makes those things you're loath to do at least doable with a replicable process that gets you results you like. Having done it once will cause you to realize it wasn't the end of the world, and if you got a product you liked out of it, that it actually achieved a goal. I had this same sort of block, but it was about finally sequencing/getting cover art done/releasing the album. I had all the tracks, I just hated the actual non-musical business of getting that stuff together and releasing it knowing after that I wouldn't be able to keep tweaking the little bits, something I loved to do. So I forced myself through that bottleneck, and now that stuff I was formerly anxious and unhappy about I know I can at least do and so planning and building the projects I'm working on now feels less ominous, and I actually look forward to releasing them.
*Give yourself a deadline to get an EP out, or a single, or whatever, and schedule specific nights or days to work on specific things. Like September 6th, 1-5pm, work out scratch arrangement for Sketch #3. Doesn't have to be the final arrangement, just get a skeleton worked out.
*Maybe collaborate with somebody, so you get that same sense of "I have expectations and standards I should be living up to" as you can get out of the second suggestion up there, about scheduling the work. I find collaborations to be very creatively invigorating, as the initial audience is now greater than myself, which means I have to live up to an even slightly higher standard of quality and what I expect from myself. Shit, if you're into it, send me mefi mail, I'll have you email me some bits, do a skeleton arrangement for you, and send you back a to-do list for what you should do next.
posted by turntraitor at 10:36 AM on September 5, 2014 [2 favorites]