How creative you are?

Q

Quotec

Active Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2013
Sup mates?

I wanna know how long does it take for you to come up with some interesting melodies and overall song arrangement? For example I struggle all the time(and pretty hard) to come up with something interesting and original. I usually start by making some simple melodies or basses and within an hour I get some nice sounding piece of a song but then I find it super difficult to compose the rest of a song - nothing seems to fit. I wonder whether I am just such untalented guy in this field or does somebody else have the same problems of this scale?
 
My creativity is normally set off by a sample i hear. Comes about all sorts of ways tho. One thing ive learnt is you cant force it. If nothing is working when your at your pc, its probs best to go have a break and clear your mind.
 
What I tend to do is split the creative session from the arrangement one, maybe a day on each. Essentially, get all your ideas down first and as fast as you can then switch to the other side of the brain at a later stage. If you try and do both at the same time, it can tend to get more taxing, causing you to get frustrated and potentially give up.
 
Sometimes I can write all the musical elements in about 20 minutes. It's all about having some sounds ready from a previous session that can help get a vibe going.
That's the most important thing... Vibe.
If you're struggling to get something going just make drum hits, create synth patches or try making some effects chains.

I have a few go to channel strip settings that I have saved over the years that I have loaded on a template.
But yeah just try and maintain a vibe whilst working and the rest of it will fit into place.
Maybe the track is fine and you don't need to add any more elements
 
People usually say I'm a creative person. May be because I'm the only one that "make music", even though I have friends that are designers, cartoonists, etc.

What I normally do, is to make two runs on any song I make: one on the creative side, with sound design, drum patterns, song structure and fx chains (normally in that order). This phase can last from 1 day to 1 month, as I'm not working on a single project at once. Then, when I'm satisfied with the creative part, I go to the second run, or the technical part, where I do all the mixing, side chaining, etc.
 
Yeah guys, it sounds really logical that I should divide my production session in two parts: one for creative purposes and one for technical side. Right now im trying to get my neurofunk track´s arrangement ready as quick as possible, I just need some imagination of what I want in this track. From half-finished track it´s quite easy to go with some tweaks, fixes and stuff. The most important thing is to get that big picture.
 
I usually build up track ideas whilst just going on with my day. Then I rush to my computer and get it all in there and when that is done, it's all blank in my head. It usually just leads to frustration and I force myself to finnish the track. I split up my ''rage sessions'' to maybe 2-3h sessions/day over a week or two. Usually I get one or two things that I'm satisfied with done per session. Sometimes I just end up feeling like I can't take it anymore and sometimes it turns into a finished piece. Producing a track is a horrid journey down a road full with spikes and thorns along it's path. Still I continue to make music, mostly because I probably don't know any better…

And that is my ''creative process''!
 
Yukon said:
You must be doing something right because every masterclass I ever saw they said this.
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These are a few things I try to abide by. Although I don't always live upto them. Everyone gets those days where they dwell on something for too long and suck the life out if something.

I really think it's important to keep the nerdy and creative side separate. If only I had more time to work on tunes!
 
I am going to say this figuratively but, when in doubt search for silence. When you are alone with no distractions creativity comes along very nicely. Forget what you're hearing, what is going on in the world, just find some silence and let your mind go places. Once you think you have got a potential vibe then lay it down nicely in your DAW.

At the end it is down to the vibe. Pretty simple really.
 
I think it's important not to stick too much on one idea. When you work on an idea e.g. for 5 hours and it's sounding shit to you, start something new. Don't delete it, maybe you come back to it one day.
When it comes to arranging you can compare it to other tunes. What is he doing at the drop? How does this build up sound like? Then you got some ideas what you can do, and nobody says that a tune has to be full of different melodies. You can use the same chord progression and melody a whole song with little changes. If someone enjoys the melody he will be happy to hear it the whole song :)
 
Menosance said:
I am going to say this figuratively but, when in doubt search for silence. When you are alone with no distractions creativity comes along very nicely. Forget what you're hearing, what is going on in the world, just find some silence and let your mind go places. Once you think you have got a potential vibe then lay it down nicely in your DAW.

At the end it is down to the vibe. Pretty simple really.
Click to expand...

I agree with this guy, I think I read something somewhere that spoke about this and it made sense. I find the majority of time when I'm struggling with making music is when my brain is clogged up with stress and pointless bullshit.

I know it may sound a bit hippy dippy but I think meditation will help with this, being able to control your thoughts and clear all the crap from your mind logically should help induce a creative state. Now I just need to stop procrastinating like I do with most things in in my life and actually meditate.
 
I think creativity and productivity are completely seperate things and being able to finish tunes requires a different skill set to coming up with great sounds, especially in the digital ITB era where you rarely record live sessions or jams. For a band that live jam can be the link between their creative (riffs etc) and the final structured product.
We take on a lot these days as far as track writing goes, like 10 jobs in one, from the original ideas to the final master in some cases. It's not easy.
 
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