How do YOU write tracks?

[dewdrop_world]

I've wanted to post to this thread for awhile, just been too busy...

I might come back later to the general question of compositional methodology, but what I really wanted to bring up now is a little project I'm doing to get myself out of a creative rut. I get kind of frustrated sometimes because I tend to think in terms of ambitious projects -- which means that months pass sometimes without anything concrete to show. That also fosters the bad habit of tinkering with little details when my time might be better spent establishing flow and making larger scale compositional decisions.

I was watching Project Runway on Bravo several weeks ago and thought, interesting, each week they have something new to do, with pretty tight constraints, and they have very little time to finish the garment. Maybe I should try that!

So I took my trusty Macbook Pro into the middle of Dupont Circle in Washington DC, with a microphone and a MOTU Ultralite and recorded about ten minutes of city noise... airplanes overhead, horns honking, a two-year-old running around screaming at the top of his lungs, buses' air brakes releasing, birds chirping and set myself some one-week challenges of my own. The main common thread is that all the challenges must use the field recording as the primary (or only) sound source. Different types of processing will be allowed or disallowed each time.

After two of them, I've already learned quite a bit about myself (in addition to a whole slew of new techniques, which was my other reason for starting on the project -- as a kind of "idea factory"). The first thing was to let go of "perfection paralysis." The second thing was to refocus attention on the fundamentals of composition -- form, unity, contrast, and what Mme Boulanger taught to notable pupils like Aaron Copland as "la grande ligne," the long line from start to end of a piece. In one week, there isn't enough time to come up with a vast array of materials out of which to sculpt form. It's a quite different experience establishing the long line with four or five compositional elements, as opposed to 15 or 20.

The last one, which I just finished today, taught me a lot about negative space. I still haven't totally conquered the anxiety that I haven't put enough "stuff" in there, but in this track, the only really good solution was to build the generative processes with space in between the "phrases" and allow presence and absence to interact -- sometimes you hear A+B, sometimes A only, sometimes B only and sometimes nothing. I'll probably be struggling with that issue my whole creative life...

Anyway, since I write all my music in SuperCollider, my work flow is a bit different. Typically the beginning is to prototype some synthdefs (signal flow graphs), refine the internal and external controls and (if appropriate) generalize the synthesis algorithm into an Instr definition. For generative processes, I have a number of stock prototypes that are pretty powerful. If one of them fits the sonic material, I supply the parameters and tweak until it sounds right. Otherwise I can write a custom process -- and typically I will, sooner or later, try to make user-accessible parameters out of values I hardcoded in the prototype, so that I can reuse the general prototype later.

Oh yeah, the first 2 challenges are on my website -- more will be posted as I finish them...

http://www.dewdrop-world.net/audio/runway1.mp3 -- no filtering or EQ allowed! (some chorusing + reverb though)
http://www.dewdrop-world.net/audio/runway2.mp3 -- only 3/20s clips, 327 of them, sorted for sonic similarity

Just a few late-night thoughts before I collapse into bed

James

[mosc]

[dewdrop_world]

Hey Howard,

Thanks for the nice feedback. I'm pretty happy with the first one, though it's a bit lower-fi than I'm usually after, and I'm very pleased with the second. It's grown on me with repeated hearings, which is a good sign.

I kind of got into electronic music in grad school by way of dance music, which was a great way to get into it but it also allowed me to make formal decisions based on emulation of one genre or another (what I now call "genre-itis"). Not a good place to get stuck... so another reason why this project is perfect for me right now is that it's forcing me out of that habit.

Something I forgot to say about my working method is that I'm shooting for an ideal of live electronic improvisation -- still a long way off but I'm starting to gain some real confidence in making "long line" decisions on the fly while realizing the piece in real time. A couple of places in that second track, I had only a general idea of how to get from A to B and made some unrehearsed adjustments while capturing the final recording . I used to be such an obsessively careful composer -- much more fun to take some chances (in a real time recording situation that's inherently risky).

James

[mosc]

[Raptor]

All I need is my Korg KP3!!

[flowersniffer7]

lately I have found myself in a bit of a "funk," if thats the way to describe it? Anyway, I have wanted to get together with other like minded musicians and I always find that in some way I tend to clash with other musicians... So for about the past two years I have begun to find ways around that... Mainly through MaxMSP, Ableton Live and little synth building and circuit bending projects that I have begun to incorporate together. I started using ableton and Max for more structured music, but lately I have been recording samples about 500 or so in the last month and categorizing them as drones, glitch, melodic, and noise... Using ableton live I have begun to work on a process of creating climactic soundscapes from these sounds, some of which some have effects applied to them, mostly little pluggo vsts I've been working on... I trigger the samples in different orders and try to build from very quiet to very loud and harsh by the end of the set... towards the end of my sets I start throwing in more analog aspects of oscillators and circuit bent stuff and feedback loops and radio interference... Then I usually try to build it back down to the point where it feels resolved and end... My files are generally too big to upload anywhere (25-30 minutes or so), so i haven't tried in quite a while... but if anybody is interested in hearing it shoot me an email at r.nelson20@my.caculinary.edu and I would be happy to share...

[mosc]

I would be interested. Please post something here on the electro-music.com forum...

[flowersniffer7]

Okay... here is the one I consider the best example... hopefully this will work, this is my first time posting a file to this forum... we shall see...

---

02 Radio Friendly Fire Campaign (inf.m4a
Description:		Download (listen)
Filename:	02 Radio Friendly Fire Campaign (inf.m4a
Filesize:	11.57 MB
Downloaded:	555 Time(s)

---

[blue hell]

I like stuff like this !

BTW, I have QT set up to play mp4's but ended up downloading and playing it in VLC, QT didn't feel like it for some reason.

[mosc]

I could play it with WinAmp. Sounds good to me too...

[mosc]

After a second listen, I think this is an excellent composition. You have a good sense of mixing. The textures come in and out with good musicality, IMHO. To me, the ending has the feeling of a classical music cadenza.

Good one...

[flowersniffer7]

Thanks for the feedback... I am glad you guys enjoyed it... I guess what I like most about this process is that it is constantly evolving around the sounds that I sample and the stuff that I build and incorporate... Which allows me to structure sounds in abstract ways without a band... I also think it affords me alot of control over volume which sometimes can be hard to control in a band... I can build from almost inaudible to ground shaking smoothly enough that it doesn't have a rough transition I think... Which allows for more climactic structures.

[bachus]

I too must say that I find this piece laudable. Good work indeed!

[Atomsplitter]

Currently im using Renoise (tracker) and Sony Acid (slicer/arranger). What i do is make cool sounding beats at 180bpm in renoise which usually have an IDM feel to them, and a nice melody to overlay it, i solo the beat, export that to .wav then do the same for the melody and basslines if i have done them. I usually also make variations for each also, these are single patterns with 64 steps. Then i import all of these into sony acid and arrange them adding buildups and edits to the drum beats and sometimes i add additional effects. I don't start with a plan i just evolve the music from it's basic form and i have had some great results so far.

[finleysound]

Sounds usually inspire me to write. I'm a guitarist, so typically I'll be tweaking an effects patch and the sound will suggest a melody. And then I'll try to figure out where to take it from there!!

Matt

[m.earthman]

I'm working in the 4/4 template primarily making dancefloor functional tracks. I use Reason for most of my stuff. I have Live but don't have much cajones about it and have been slowly getting into it. Haven't made anything in it yet.
I try out different ways to write and compose and don't rely on any particular formula as yet. Sometimes I can make a track in a few days other times it takes months. I'll take a track I'm working, clear it of the automations and start a new one or I'll find a break in a track I'm a good way in on and rearrange and cut and paste a second composition starting off that break and bury the actual beginning deep inside the second one.

Right now I'm getting ready to start in on some new tracks with a batch of samples I sourced off of old hardcore and punk records. I want to try extract some nuance out of them I can use to base the tracks out of. I'll take those and load up Redrum or three and route them through the Maelstrom and a few other places. I guess I'll be building up the redrum kits from scratch for this as I think its time for a new kit and I'll probably borrow one from another track and insert a few extra copies of the samples to bounce around.
Once I get the backbone set. I'll probably play around with the beats for a few until I get an idea of what they are about and can get the samples down to their essence and start getting some nuance and a groove going. Once this is going and I have some patterns programmed then I'll start locating the other sounds to bring in with the synths, the sequencers and so on. I might start with a melody or something or maybe a bassline. Not sure just yet how these tracks will come about since I don't know what the samples are up to outside of their original sources. I might do another gathering to get a juxtaposing sample i.e. soul or jazz or maybe some hickerbilly, which'll probably lead into another track getting started as well.

The most recent track I finished I really just wanted to make a drum edit. I was influenced by the idea of the No Model No Tool release of Luciano's on Cadenza; the Ricardo Villalobos edit of Plastikman's Snark and those sacred drum Joe Claussell mixes on Spiritual Life. From there it found a life of its own. I loaded up a rack with 4 different redrum kits from various other tracks I had worked on and abandoned mapped them out and jammed on them until I decided to press record. I found two more kits and a sequencer or two to add and dropped them in so I could get a few additional hits and textures to work with. I built it from the rhythms up so the drum channels were pretty well on their way before I added keys. Generally once I get the idea of what I want to use I'll make a loop of a melody or pattern and build off that. I'll paste out a bunch and make a longer loop to jam off of and then go in and edit and tighten it up as well as find more loops to extract and use. Then comes the last and most fun part; editing and listening and listening and listening and editing.

[IanBuzz]

Umm... simple question High with Logic Pro open