Music & Art plus other stuff (title changed)

[credit_agro]

With any art, you need to practice loads to learn the skills. If you stop practicing you can forget the skills because the skills required run deep into you thoughts. Their intuitive. I started using ableton again recently. I picked up 6 just to mess around with until I start putting together a hardware studio, which should be soon. Its only in the last few days that I have began to remember again some of the skills which I have learned previously. I have a few questions now regarding a few things production wise. These questions may be too deep or intuitive to be possible to communicate with writing. I will give it my best shot.

1. Today I realised what people mean when they talk about the equalizer. I mean this in the sense that the track must sound very good even without any equalization present. Apart from maybe cutting out thin bands of frequencys when your finding it quite difficult to shape the sound perfectly through the synth. What ive just wrote here is a question albeit not a direct one. I invite people to discuss this as I hope I may pick up some extra stuff I haven't thought of.

2. I find one the difficult things is to make up little doodles and sound effects to bring a new sound in. eg. Lets say I lay down a kick drum for 4bars and then I want to bring in the bass. Do you wait until the track is nearly all arranged before you start doing this? I suppose it doesn't matter anyway.

3. How long did it take you to get good and of much do you practice?

4. What are your processes for keeping your mind focused on the job at hand? How do you cope with creative frustration?

I can't help but feel greatly unsatisfied after writing this post. I can't think of many of the things I wanted to ask!! Perhaps, im naive to think I can get the answers to the questions I have. Talking and writing really is to me in many ways such a limited form of communication.

I may be back with more questions YET.

[oblioblioblio]

1. i see equalisation as a tool just like any other. use it/abuse it.... whatever sounds right (or just plain wrong).

2. Today I realised that every single one of my songs is neatly arranged into a structure that revolves around multiples of 4. I think that by escaping this structure, the introduction of new elements will be exciting without needing to resort to clever little tweaks to bring in new sounds.

3. I don't think I'll ever see myself as being good, every time I make 'progress' it changes my definition of good, so all I can do is keep pushing myself and hope that by doing so I can create more 'good' in my music for other people to appreciate.

4. To keep myself focused I try to spend as much time as possible either working on the various skills that can be used to make music (there are many, so picking one to fit a mood is often quite easy), or listening to other people's music, or going out dancing to other people's music, or reading through every post by steevio on this forum with pen and paper ready to take notes. heh.


Hope some of this helps answer (to some degree) the questions you asked.

[Measax]

about the eq...

i have found that the more eq if have to put on a sound the more it just doesn't work....sometimes a shelf or slight db cut here or there may help something pop out better but everytime i start going nuts on an eq...the worse it gets...less is definately more for that..for me anyway..

[kwality]

^^^^
You're right. The fundamentals of the sound have to be strong, and subtractive eq is always more preferable than boosting.

As for question 2, what I tend to do is make a very solid 8 bar loop with lots of different elements, and get it sounding good. Then it's a matter of laying it out the way it sounds right. If I know the destination, the journey is easier!

Practice? It's all practice, but none of it really is. It's not like sitting down and doing scales, it's learning your tools, and coming up with ways to use them. Like last night I was playing around and came up with some new ways to use sends in cubase, and a few more tricks on an s950. I don't consider it "practice", but I definately learnt something as a result of taking time to think about it.

The best piece of advice I've ever been given was a question - What are you trying to communicate?

I really thought about it, and learnt that you have to put emotion into your music, not the latest plugin. Making a standard electronic song is pretty easy - I could teach my mother to do it in a few hours. Where the magic comes in is when it creates feelings, and thoughts. As soon as I realised that my tracks started being picked up by labels.

Frustrations? It could mean that you should get away from your computer and go do something completely different. Go for a run, walk your dog, read, watch a movie, do something unrelated to music. You'll eventually come back with fresh ears and everything will fall into place.

Above all, have fun and don't take anything too seriously! Just strive to progress and remember that music without emotion is like junk food. It may sound alright, but it's not nutritional for anyone!

[credit_agro]

I really thought about it, and learnt that you have to put emotion into your music, not the latest plugin. Making a standard electronic song is pretty easy - I could teach my mother to do it in a few hours. Where the magic comes in is when it creates feelings, and thoughts. As soon as I realised that my tracks started being picked up by labels.

Just off the point here for a second...
This is an area where I have a problem. Im quite unsophisticated when it comes to art but I have always been attracted to it in many forms. I strive to know more about it, yet I only seem to be able to pick up tidbits along the way. Just an example, I was browsing a Dali book recently. I found many of the pictures interesting. The text only explains the circumstances of the pictures and stuff but I want to understand the art. How did you learn about art or is it something you just know? Perhaps, the answer is under my nose and I just haven't seen it yet. But back to your point?

I find the best music does make me think and stimulate my imagination but for me the ideas and inspiration come from the sounds im making at the time. As I tweak the synth new ideas and pictures spring to mind. But for me its its not a concious effort to create an idea in mind. After I have the i initial idea layed down though (8 bars or whatever). I do feel myself trying to create a journey through this new universe so to speak. I suppose I actually do try to make it an emotional journey come to think of it but its always seomething ive never imagined before. It doesn't really describe anything thats happening or has happened in my life. As far as I can tell music can only express these sort of things when vocals are involved.

[nikaj]

think less.
don't look for approval from anyone but you.
be objective.
don't talk about it.

(this is what works for me, whenever i don't do one of those things it turns to sh!t instantly.)

[Torque]

Just off the point here for a second...
This is an area where I have a problem. Im quite unsophisticated when it comes to art but I have always been attracted to it in many forms. I strive to know more about it, yet I only seem to be able to pick up tidbits along the way. Just an example, I was browsing a Dali book recently. I found many of the pictures interesting. The text only explains the circumstances of the pictures and stuff but I want to understand the art. How did you learn about art or is it something you just know? Perhaps, the answer is under my nose and I just haven't seen it yet. But back to your point?

I find the best music does make me think and stimulate my imagination but for me the ideas and inspiration come from the sounds im making at the time. As I tweak the synth new ideas and pictures spring to mind. But for me its its not a concious effort to create an idea in mind. After I have the i initial idea layed down though (8 bars or whatever). I do feel myself trying to create a journey through this new universe so to speak. I suppose I actually do try to make it an emotional journey come to think of it but its always seomething ive never imagined before. It doesn't really describe anything thats happening or has happened in my life. As far as I can tell music can only express these sort of things when vocals are involved.

Quit trying so hard to understand art in general. That being said you don't have to understand something to do it. Visual art and music are the same thing because both in their pure form there is no rules. Art is anything that forces an emotion out of the viewer and that couls litterally be anything and everything. The most widely accepted artists are able to achieve the desired emotion they want from the viewer by working within a framework. The best Music IMO is the marriage of science and art. In order to be a consistant effective artist and be accepted amoung a wide variety of people you have to have a firm grasp on the science. You have to know the rules in order to break them in a dramatic fashion. Some people learn quick, others don't, some will never learn. Music for the dancefloor is just as much a science as it is an art. Listen to music closely, close your eyes and try to feel your way around a track. It's not that bad once you stop doubting yourself so much.

here are a few things i'v learned:

Not every track is sacred. If you started somethingand come to a place where you can't think of anything else to do but know the track isn't finished just delete the track or break it down to only the strongest one part and start over from the beginning. It's hard to part with something like that but for me it's what really made the difference.

Always build into changes. If you need to take out a part take out a bunch at once not just one. Being too subtle with changes has hurt techno IMO because the new listener will never get it. Sometimes it's the difference between a good track and a great one.

If a track can't stand on it's own outside of a mix then it isn't a good track it's just a good loop.

Touch your piano keys as much as possible. Even if it takes 5000 times to get the right take it's worth it because it helps your mind lock into the groove and helps you figure out what you need to do next. If you quantise everything you may loose the life in a track, try not to.

Break your instruments down to only the ones you need and keep it as small as possible. If you spend too much time having to look for a sound then you might lose your train of thought. Stay on task.

Find people that will give you a harsh review. There are too many people that will tell you everything is good just to not hurt your feelings, those people will hold you back. Most of all you should be your own harshest critic.

Pick one track and work on it for as long as it takes to get it right. The mona lisa to that mthrfckr a huge chunk of his life and never truely got completed but the results are undenyable. Art is a mans only hope at immortality and it is important that what you leave behind is a true description. In this music the producers are the composers and the DJ is the conductor. Everytime you step up and create something you are contributing to the legacy of mankind.

Sweat the details.

[credit_agro]

Quit trying so hard to understand art in general. That being said you don't have to understand something to do it. Visual art and music are the same thing because both in their pure form there is no rules. Art is anything that forces an emotion out of the viewer and that couls litterally be anything and everything. The most widely accepted artists are able to achieve the desired emotion they want from the viewer by working within a framework. The best Music IMO is the marriage of science and art. In order to be a consistant effective artist and be accepted amoung a wide variety of people you have to have a firm grasp on the science. You have to know the rules in order to break them in a dramatic fashion. Some people learn quick, others don't, some will never learn. Music for the dancefloor is just as much a science as it is an art. Listen to music closely, close your eyes and try to feel your way around a track. It's not that bad once you stop doubting yourself so much.

You say the best music is the marraige of science and art. Well, by science do you mean the actually technicalities of creating sounds arranging and stuff. Like in say painting..getting colours and stuff right. So the science part that you say is a key in good music is actually inevitable whether the music is good or not or art or not?

You also say art in its true forms has no rules and then say you have to know the rules in order to break them so are you talking about science when you say rules, right?. This ultimately says to me that to make good music you have to experiment and try out new production techniques and experiment with synths to get new sounds. (and of course include the art aspect.)

Have you just said something really obvious in the most complex way possible?