Personal composing habits

[ncsteff]

I would be interested to hear how forum members like to approach composing -- and how they use the sequencer as a tool to this end. Naturally my own habits changed early on when I got my first sequencer and multitimbral sound module back in 1987. This is a really personal topic and I'm sure techniques are partially driven by style .. such as acoustic or jazz versus electronica or hip hop ... and whether you started your musical life with a non-MIDI instrument. I'd be interested to hear how others get most of their tracks underway ... write a backbone first, or sequence-by-the-seat-of-your-pants. I'm guessing that the answer would vary a lot depending on musical style, with the more acoustic sounding or expressive stuff tending toward the work-it-out-first approach.

I have built up some tracks in the past by starting with a small but interesting texture, beat or riff, and gradually growing a song by sequencing a little bit at a time, but these days most of my pieces are piano-centric and I feel that I want to work out this "backbone" before doing accompaniment. Several of the newer pieces are irregular in tempo and I'm still refining them ... so its hard to go to the sequencer now with those (of course, I have a rough take of each, to help the memory in case I don't play it for a few weeks).

Another personal issue is this -- my favorite works in the past have been ones that work fairly well as a solo piano piece (although I have added accompaniment), and I have this mental hang-up that for my current and future songs, I want to be able to walk up to any piano and play them, and have them sound reasonably "complete" without any accompaniment. Of course, this introduces another issue -- I take the solo piano piece to the sequencer and find that I need to thin out the piano part to leave room for the other instruments. "Sometimes, you just can't win."

But you know, the most fun pieces are those that build element by element, usually with some rhythmic structure to keep them going ... the pieces where you capture your ideas ultra-fresh into the sequencer. For example, I started working on a piece this past weekend the good old sequencer way -- a nice melody dropped from the sky while noodling around with a neat synthesizer patch ... do a quick basic bass drum and cross stick beat to ground the rhythm... do a few repetitions of the verse using an acoustic guitar patch ... and start adding different backing elements ... Sunday night, a piano solo appears in crude form ... gee, part of that would make a decent chorus ... let's transpose that and try to insert it ... ya' know what I mean?

Anybody but me interested in this?

Cheers to all, and thanks for listening (reading)

** ncsteff **
Fantom X8 and XR, and too many SRXs
Now if I only had the time ...

[dboulden]

Yes, I'm rather interested in this topic too.

What I find amazing is that we both seem to have followed the same path. I too started off (many years ago now!) sequencing a 4 bar riff and then expanding on it part by part.

These days, though, I tend to construct an interesting chord sequence using a piano sound and develop a melody by singing along to the piano part. I think it has a lot to do with the simplicity of an instrument making it most suitable to song writing. If you use a piano or a guitar to write a song, there's no fiddling with sounds, altering this and that to distract you from the job of writing the song... you just play your stock piano sound, real piano or guitar and play... I mean, just pick it up or swich it on and play. It seems to me that if a song idea works well with just a plain piano or guitar sound then it's definitely going to work well when you arrange the accompaniment.

)

Dave

http://www.drstudio.demon.co.uk/
"Musicians fall into three categories: those with a physical block, those with a mental block and those with a wooden block". Unfortunately, I'm in the 1st category!

[V-CeeOh]

Hi ncsteff
Here I am as promised.

I can hardly say that I have a "process" for composing. I only know that something "triggers" me. It can be as simple as a melody line, a chord sequence, a guitar riff or hearing a "sound". Sometimes the melody leads me to the accompaniement. Sometimes it's the oposite.

I'm also on the "4 bar riff-copying- transposing" club back in the 80's. It all started with MIDI and a Roland MSQ-100 sequencer. But I had witness the works made with a MC-4 (before MIDI) - far more complicated and limited - but I found the potential. I can only say that it had a tremendous impact on my song writing. Suddenly I could have an "overall" perspective of my songs - not to mention that I could record when and how I wanted, could or need. There was also the advantage of saving several versions of the same work - far easier to do than with audio recorders . This also increased the quantity of backup tapes (yes, the MSQ-100 saved on cassete tapes) 3,5" disks and similars with complete songs, versions or just some pieces that I could later "merge". I have to say that the "easyness" of this (well, I cant' exactly say that it was easy back then) sometimes leaded me to overcharge the songs. I mean, sometimes I recorded everything that came to my mind at the moment and in the end I had to waste some tracks.

Now, experience tells me that you've got to apreciate simple things and I'm not so impeled to add "more sounds". For someone loving so much Kraftwerk as Diana Kralls music, I do get stucked sometimes. But I don't push it anymore - something that also comes with time. Sometimes it's better to back off for a while and do something else (this is how I made Nocturno)

In the end I agreed with dboulden :
"if a song idea works well with just a plain piano or guitar sound then it's definitely going to work well when you arrange the accompaniment."
but would like to add that a good song is one that you take off all the accompaniement and still can play it in a single instrument.

Best Regards


o - ...just could not afford the 8
(
\_/
hear what I've done with the 7

[mickphilipps]

I made the same Change of the Way how Composing is done the last 30 Years I do it. Sure I start only with Piano and an White Paper and an Pencil to score the Ideas. Sometimes, coming back to this Method, is an good Idea, all over the Years. But YES, there came the Sequencers and anything was possible, so we think all, isnt it? Possible is only the faster Way to check out what will work with the Composition and what not. And Yes, Inspiration comes often with an brandnew Sound (Fantom ) or an Groove, found on old LPs or so. But everytime the raw Composition is the Goal, to made that Song unique or great. And BTW, I cant say how many good Ideas I lost by the Way to learn all that New Machines, Sequencers, Expanders, Manuals and so on, over all that 30 Years.
Yes Im too start sometime with an Groove what is going in my Legs and turn me on, or an incredible Synthsound where an Idea is coming out the Fingers and not out of the Brain!
But the last 7 Years I start everytime with an Pianosound, nothing more, if I will realy made an Composition. But thats the Problem, can you realy sit on Chair, in Front of Keys and say, now I made an Composition? To me my best Ideas are coming when I made Improvisations and not when I think about Chord Progressions and all other Stuff I learned in Musicscool.
Maybe some People can do that, sit on Chair and going on the new Song. There are a lot of Examples around the World, booth Mens from "ABBA" do that so, when they wrote these great Abba Songs on an Island in Sweden.

But so I agree with dboulden and Fixthemix, that a good Composition works with pure Piano and Guitar, sometimes a good Composition cant work without more of "Sound". Listen to actual Hip Hop or Dance and Trance Music, how should this work only on an Piano?
I prefere an "SONG" and never an "One Chord Groove" for 4 Minutes, as Dance or Hip Hop or Trance is. Please dont woory about me, but I cant hear that Stuff never.
And YESSSSS, thats all is possible since anybody can work with cheap Sequencers Stuff and Instruments what they cant real play.
Sure anybody can hear or do Music he like, if they are lucky with it, its ok. But so I dont like realy "all Music", I cant agree with all that Stuff. So I cant, will, say Commentars to some Music here in the Forum. It is not my Stuff sometimes and so I am quite, BEFORE I say wrong Things!!!

Not the Way is the Goal, it is to me ever the perfect Song!

[honeyshape]

When I first started writing I was totally in to chord progressions. I suppose chords that modulate to various places. I had little reguard for melody at this stage. I figured that you can just find a melody later to sing/play on top.

Now Im more melody focused. I like the melody to drive the where the chords go now. Alot of the time the melody is written while I'm not near an insturment. I use the voice recorder on my phone to 'catch' the idea and if I still think its good, I'll sequence it on my X.

I also like to evolve the song in the sequencer eg. try diffrent bass parts. Sometimes i hit something that will throw the melody off into another tangent only to find out that after working on it for a while it sucks.

I have to think that what ever song I'm writing is the greatest song ever written otherwise I loose intrest. I later find out if it is good or shite.

Sometimes I will write on the bass guitar because you can assume what the chords are on top. Sometimes I write on the guitar because I don't know many chords and have to make them up.

Of course alway remember that anything is possible and permissable. I hate it when people say that all the good songs have been written - what small minded thinking!

remember - NO RULES!

[Phait]

I never say I write or compose music, because I can't read or write notation. I just create, and that's a different thing entirely.

1. Play around with a patch till I like what I hear, then build on the melody. Tweak any offset settings and effects if need be.

2. Sample that melody, loop it, assign to a key. Record for at least a couple minutes, depends how long I want it.

3. Repeat step 1, sometimes 2.. Otherwise I will perform a sequence and that will be the track, actual sequence data.

4. I typically leave panning and volume adjustment, and fine tuning, to when I resample each track it's full length, then transfer to my Powerbook and mix in Logic.

That's pretty much my process. I'm a sad loop whore.

Website: phait-accompli.com
Thoughts & Philosophies: Just Some Thoughts

"That's what real love amounts to- letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending- performing..." -- Jim Morrison

[theologiae]

i'm still new to tracking songs, my work shows that too well. but i'm intrested in twisting and recontextualizing sound. i work mostly from samples that i tweek as far as it can go. start with a girl screaming from a movie and time strech it till it sounds like a saw wave and then make a unison patch out of the to make a bass sound.
for me it's a matter of building a sound and beat relationship and then bringing in different parts to fill out the song. i'll start with a small riff and just see how far it can go and still be interesting.
but i find learning new tricks like sampling drums and assigning them in sterio pan and using the lfo to modulate the time and pitch at different points to be the spring board for a song.
a freind and i were talking about synths as the next conceptual step of composing because now, as opposed to just thinking about the notes of each sound and how they fit together to make a song, we can think inside the sound itself and how that concept plays in relationship to the internal structure of another sound. like taking a speach from winston churchhill and modulating it with the sound of a 1940's machine gun through the ring-modulator so that his voice takes the rythme of the gun he is ordering to be fired.

www.myspace.com/circle6

[pastorK]

I started out in 94 with a TS12, since it would do 24 tracks, I believed I had to utilize as many as possible... The problem is none of that stuff I could simply sit down and play on just a piano.

Now like the others, the melody comes out on the piano... Then I will alter instruments. Usually like my track on the latest compilation "Melissa" rarely do I get past 4 to 6 instruments.

Ultimatley I just play around on my piano, until something comes up, then move to the fantom to bring it to life....

-PK

[Quinnx.]

For me, the FX has changed my methodology, where as before it would be laborious to put ideas together and take days to get some results.

Now, the momment I start with the FX my ideas can usualy achieve fruition from start to finnish in a morning, then going to mastering that evening..

(look for my debut album soon!)

Results not Excuses
MSN: fantom01@hotmail.com

Get optimised: Rev 9.1
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