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Best Advice You Could Give off The Top of Your Head
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Phurniture
- mnml mmbr
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(Perhaps this will end the debate) - Listen to a lot of music, study your favourite artists and spend some time trying to recreate the elements you like...but at the end of the day follow your heart and don't follow trends. Trends will come and go, but real music will stay.
Other tips:
-Work quickly. Don't get too anal about each little detail...at least not until you've got the arrangement laid out.
-Having your friends listen to your tracks is nice...but most of them will be too nice (since they're friends). Post your tracks on forums like these so that people will hopefully rip them apart and be brutally honest. Don't let it discourage you, but listen to any advice and take something constructive from it
-If you're trying to get your music released on a label realize this: most independent artists that are signed took the time to send their music to a ton of labels. Unless you're the greatest thing since sliced bread, labels won't come knocking at your door (just because you're on MySpace or SoundCloud). So spend some time on a decent mixdown, album art and then send it to a good handful of appropriate labels. Follow up after a few weeks.
-Make music because that's what you like to do.If you're doing it to make money, the there are easier ways to make a buck.
Other tips:
-Work quickly. Don't get too anal about each little detail...at least not until you've got the arrangement laid out.
-Having your friends listen to your tracks is nice...but most of them will be too nice (since they're friends). Post your tracks on forums like these so that people will hopefully rip them apart and be brutally honest. Don't let it discourage you, but listen to any advice and take something constructive from it
-If you're trying to get your music released on a label realize this: most independent artists that are signed took the time to send their music to a ton of labels. Unless you're the greatest thing since sliced bread, labels won't come knocking at your door (just because you're on MySpace or SoundCloud). So spend some time on a decent mixdown, album art and then send it to a good handful of appropriate labels. Follow up after a few weeks.
-Make music because that's what you like to do.If you're doing it to make money, the there are easier ways to make a buck.
There is always something you mimic and deconstruct. BLuese, rock, classing composers.steevio wrote:the people who pioneered EDM didnt have anyone to deconstruct, or mimic.
It's not about making Your song sound like another song. It's about listening to and understanding music construction, sound layering, harmonies, rhythms etc. Ask any musician in the world for inspiration, almost always they will say a number of producers/composers.
This is not an argument against originality. It's just helping people avoid the block of forced originality, and letting people build up their style from pieces of common music theory and construction, all the way up to the point of adding their own touch to the sound.
I think that when You look deep inside You, every single one of us here on this forum actually adopted techniques, sounds, grooves of older masters, whether you know/admit it or not...
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MagpieIndustries
- mnml mmbr
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- Joined: Mon May 19, 2008 10:23 am
I think people are taking my post the wrong way. I didn't mean _just_ mimic, but unless you _can_ mimic, you are doomed to forever randomly tweak knobs. I firmly believe that a solid grasp of the basics is the best advice you can give someone. To understand the basics, you should take advantage of the innovative and hard work put in by great artists already, and build on what they have already achieved. It is no good to sit there and reinvent the wheel all the time.
Originality is NOT a problem for anyone. You just do new stuff! You can even press RANDOM on many synths and get an original patch. Real Talent comes from hard work, studying the awesome stuff people have already done, and deciding for yourself how to take it further. For example, if you have a banging track almost finished, and decide to yourself, gosh, if this just had little touches of acid-sounding action happening in the background, it'd be the most awesomest track ever. You're gonna take that track somewhere if you know how to do some good 303 style basslines. If you never figured that out, you're stuck using presets or random knob tweaks. Even a 303 preset isn't going to get you that sound you wanted, unless you can write stylistically, which is my whole point.
Originality is NOT a problem for anyone. You just do new stuff! You can even press RANDOM on many synths and get an original patch. Real Talent comes from hard work, studying the awesome stuff people have already done, and deciding for yourself how to take it further. For example, if you have a banging track almost finished, and decide to yourself, gosh, if this just had little touches of acid-sounding action happening in the background, it'd be the most awesomest track ever. You're gonna take that track somewhere if you know how to do some good 303 style basslines. If you never figured that out, you're stuck using presets or random knob tweaks. Even a 303 preset isn't going to get you that sound you wanted, unless you can write stylistically, which is my whole point.
thanks for clarifying...MagpieIndustries wrote:I think people are taking my post the wrong way. I didn't mean _just_ mimic, but unless you _can_ mimic, you are doomed to forever randomly tweak knobs. I firmly believe that a solid grasp of the basics is the best advice you can give someone. To understand the basics, you should take advantage of the innovative and hard work put in by great artists already, and build on what they have already achieved. It is no good to sit there and reinvent the wheel all the time.
Originality is NOT a problem for anyone. You just do new stuff! You can even press RANDOM on many synths and get an original patch. Real Talent comes from hard work, studying the awesome stuff people have already done, and deciding for yourself how to take it further. For example, if you have a banging track almost finished, and decide to yourself, gosh, if this just had little touches of acid-sounding action happening in the background, it'd be the most awesomest track ever. You're gonna take that track somewhere if you know how to do some good 303 style basslines. If you never figured that out, you're stuck using presets or random knob tweaks. Even a 303 preset isn't going to get you that sound you wanted, unless you can write stylistically, which is my whole point.
but couldn't one say mimicking is just something that humans naturally do anyway when it comes to anything? and its not like people are buying DAWs when they've never heard music before. i think naturally whatever we create will be grounded with some kind of reference in order to reach people.
I agree that it's in your best interest to learn techniques from other people's work, but the last thing I want to hear/see is someone copying a trendy style, and then spamming big beatport ads of it all over myspace.
i'd also like to add, there can be much beauty in randomness...
@magpie
i think you have a good point, kind of like if you were a jazz musician or whatever you'd learn loads of standards and stuff so you could learn to play before you can write your own things. likewise rock bands etc.
but for some reason, for some people (myself included), that doesn't translate as easily to electronic music, possibly to do with the difference between performance and say producing with hardware/software. obviously this is a fairly general.
for me though, i think because of sample cds, tutorials, loops, synth presets, freely available software, Daws etc, its actually never, ever been easier to write tracks. its not something to get excited about really. in some cases, its more like playing in a cover band than writing your own music, imo.
so doing, or at least attempting to do, something personal or unique or original (or whatever word) is actually the only real challenge left to a producer anymore.
like when people learn and instrument, some people just want to keep learning more and more complex stuff and reach a really high technical level. and other people can barely play the thing and they are already trying to write their own pieces even though they barely know their scales.
this is all getting a bit long and rambly, but i guess to surmise, the democratization of music production has come such a long way, that level of input of the artist can be either very mechanical or very personal or somewhere in between, and the lines between what is composition and what is a cover or tribute are becoming more and more blured.
feel free to ridicule this btw.
i think you have a good point, kind of like if you were a jazz musician or whatever you'd learn loads of standards and stuff so you could learn to play before you can write your own things. likewise rock bands etc.
but for some reason, for some people (myself included), that doesn't translate as easily to electronic music, possibly to do with the difference between performance and say producing with hardware/software. obviously this is a fairly general.
for me though, i think because of sample cds, tutorials, loops, synth presets, freely available software, Daws etc, its actually never, ever been easier to write tracks. its not something to get excited about really. in some cases, its more like playing in a cover band than writing your own music, imo.
so doing, or at least attempting to do, something personal or unique or original (or whatever word) is actually the only real challenge left to a producer anymore.
like when people learn and instrument, some people just want to keep learning more and more complex stuff and reach a really high technical level. and other people can barely play the thing and they are already trying to write their own pieces even though they barely know their scales.
this is all getting a bit long and rambly, but i guess to surmise, the democratization of music production has come such a long way, that level of input of the artist can be either very mechanical or very personal or somewhere in between, and the lines between what is composition and what is a cover or tribute are becoming more and more blured.
feel free to ridicule this btw.
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oblioblioblio
- mnml maxi
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with the free versus disciplined debate it's a really difficult topic and maybe there are no exact universal answers.
some of my favourite pieces of mine that I made were very early on and I barely had any idea what I was doing. I had a little experience with some musical theory, but mostly my only experience was from consuming music rather than constructing it (though blurry lines at this point too). anways, armed with a daw, some presets, some personal momentum and inquisistiveness I came up with some material that I look back on quite fondly nowadays.
I was speaking to a friend the other day who plays violin in an orchestra. Apparantly a really talented musician that he knew who was learning at a famous insitution was forced to relearn their bowing technique for around 4 months before they were allowed to do anything expressive. Even though this is an extreme example, I do think that letting your artistic methods allow freeness is very important.
I guess you could debate this all day and it wouldn't make too much difference. Always the important thing is balance, which is a very personal thing to find.
with electronic music, like Atheory has mentioned we've already been given a very big helping hand, and though definitely imitation and other forms of study/learning are hugely important, I think the phrase 'do your own thing' is the best answer to the topic so far.
In reply to Magpie's most recent post, I think that from growing up with certain forms of music you are already aware of it in a way that you can learn from. and I think if you are approaching the topic from the 'doing your own thing' point of view you will have a natural tendancy to deconstruct things a little. Whether it's looking at chords, thinking about sampling. etc etc
some of my favourite pieces of mine that I made were very early on and I barely had any idea what I was doing. I had a little experience with some musical theory, but mostly my only experience was from consuming music rather than constructing it (though blurry lines at this point too). anways, armed with a daw, some presets, some personal momentum and inquisistiveness I came up with some material that I look back on quite fondly nowadays.
I was speaking to a friend the other day who plays violin in an orchestra. Apparantly a really talented musician that he knew who was learning at a famous insitution was forced to relearn their bowing technique for around 4 months before they were allowed to do anything expressive. Even though this is an extreme example, I do think that letting your artistic methods allow freeness is very important.
I guess you could debate this all day and it wouldn't make too much difference. Always the important thing is balance, which is a very personal thing to find.
with electronic music, like Atheory has mentioned we've already been given a very big helping hand, and though definitely imitation and other forms of study/learning are hugely important, I think the phrase 'do your own thing' is the best answer to the topic so far.
In reply to Magpie's most recent post, I think that from growing up with certain forms of music you are already aware of it in a way that you can learn from. and I think if you are approaching the topic from the 'doing your own thing' point of view you will have a natural tendancy to deconstruct things a little. Whether it's looking at chords, thinking about sampling. etc etc