Creating music vs. fiddling around

[Spindrift]

Yes, well said Lemmi!

I agree with your reverse theory and I know thats how many producers and musicians I know seem to feel about the process.

[asian_bud_nation]

whats up ppl?

 

i dont know, id say all the equipment us music makers use these days definately make it easier to start from nothing, with no particular vision, etc, but in the end it is up to our minds to create the layout of the track, the builds, everything..

 

when i first sit down to make a track the only thing i know is in which emotional direction the track will go..from the start i decide whether the overall mood of the track is going to be dark, happy, ...whatever my emotional state is at the time..

knowing this, or having decided this, creating a bassline and beat that fits the mood comes almost naturally....once i've got that my line of sight keeps growing wider and wider, and see more and more of where the track is going..4 bars turn into 8 bars, then into 32, etc..

 

creating a song is a long process, and to think that any artist could visualize an 8 minute long track from start to finish before even touching any gear seems a bit far fetched...because in the end, electronic music is created from a constant balance of human input and equal electronic output....we control the machines, the machines make sounds, the sounds alter our minds and ideas, those ideas change more parameters...

 

another joy of making psy is that a song can change in matter of seconds...u create one more sound or a new bassline, and bam! the song shifts direction..

 

anyways i dont know where exactly im going with all this, but anyways, i guess some tracks are made from already existing visions, meant to touch our souls in one way or another, and some tracks are the product of constructive randomness, made to trick our minds and play with our emotions..

 

and in the end...isnt that the nature of psy??

 

peace!

[mono mono]

The thing about jamming in a band is that you've got a bunch of souls interacting with each other. This represents tremendous creative potentiality. A band with musicians that don't listen to each other isn't much of a band. At some point, with electronic music, you've got to do your homework- learn and experiment with your gear and software. With psytrance, there's some point where you have to just tweak around to discover a killer sound to be used in a current or future project. Musical vision comes into play, here, when you have to be the "editor". That is- choosing the right experiments (i.e. the sounds) for the piece of music. Of course, you can have vision for the overall approach and architecture of a track. That's a starting point, but for any good artist there's always little suprises along the way, this is what keeps it exciting. Obviously alot of artists have their formula, it's really represents their artistic limitations.

 

I don't know about you, but I find it difficult to just get in front of computer and "jam" unless you've done the experiments. Then with something like Ableton Live you can drop your bits of sound and sketch ideas for tracks.

 

Typically with a project (a track) i'll create hundreds of sound fragments/loops/patches. In the end, there are plenty that haven't been used, good for remixes or other projects. Sometimes i'll recognize a need, then try to build it (for example, "this section needs a hi-mid snare-ish sound for rhythmic focus in the measure"). One recent project will probably yield 5 tracks, all totally different, throw in some remixes from some other artists and i've got another album.

 

much fun...

dean