Too many incomplete songs and projects. What to do?

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BERFAB wrote:Isn't Paul McCartney famous for creating whole tracks from his unfinished work by just mashing them up. Side two of Abbey Road and Admiral Halsey being two examples.

Cheers
-B
that might explain band got the runs :shrug:
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.

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SODDI wrote:I'm fortunate that I started this electronic music thing as a visual artist.

Please, for a moment, consider your folder full of unfinished pieces as a SKETCHBOOK.

Sketchbooks are full of unfinished things, tests of one's chops, practices, quick ideas jotted down, doodles and, in R. Crumb's case, pornography.

In fact, electronic music sketchbooks are even more forgiving in that you can just banish hateful things into the electronic ether with a key stroke (which you really shouldn't do). Pencil and pen marks on paper need to be burned to be gotten rid of thoroughly.

You always start with a sketch. But a lot of times the sketches don't make it. Tough. The hardest part of being any kind of an artist is realizing that not everything you do is precious.

Move on to the next project. Revist old ones if you wish.

And now for your edification, 2 pages from R. Crumb's sketchbooks (with helpful aesthetic advice.)
http://www.selectism.com/files/2012/09/ ... set-06.jpg

I share this view. I've got folders full of all sort of noodlings. And I like it like that, I can revisit old sketches any time, build on them or practice something totally different on top of them. Some of them get finished, most of them don't. Some "projects" are just a drum beat and a piano and bass synth loaded, something I've just knocked up for playing along but never recorded anything else than the drums. Some are just accompany to a theme I've worked out. When I'm going through the projects, there's always something to expand on or something to use for playing practice.

I really like this sketchbook analogy. For drawing, a good sketchbook is a paperback one, so that old sketches don't get lost, and my harddrive isn't much different.

My folders though, they have a bit of diary/journal to them too. I've moved from place to place a lot in the past, so the first folders are according to place I lived at. Then there's folders for a period of time (I tend to make a new one when one folder has about 20-30 projects). Then I even label the project files according to date, so they stay in the order I've made them, and I can easily see when I've started a track and what it relates to in my life .. I also add tempo and chord info into the project file name itself, to easily find something that could mix with something else.

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The reason that there are so many unfinished songs lying around is because it costs nothing to keep unfinished work. I agree with the previous post about DAW's, but it goes beyond that -- it's the entire non-destructive digital workflow.

In the old days, we used to compose on paper, with a piano or guitar, and then had to invest in studio time, musicians and equipment to finish. Before you started recording, you had a finished song. Today, with hi quality home studios and DAW's, most recording starts from the inception of an idea, so of course you'll have tons of unfinished songs that are really just idea fragments, or a riff that sounds good with a particular sound.

One of the things that differentiate the professional from the amateur is the ability to finish their work -- on time and on budget. This is not to knock amateur hobbyists, or producers who are at the start of their career and don't have clients and deadlines. Just imagine that you are your own client and you have to get the work done by a certain time. This should force you to do something to get the piece done.

Place a value on your time. Imagine you are paying yourself $ 100/hr for the work you're doing on your songs. That will cure you quickly of spending hours and hours on unfinished work, and help focus your attention of projects that you can finish.

There's nothing wrong with having a folder of partial ideas, you never know when an old idea will work for a new project, but to be a successful producer, you need to be able to force yourself to finish.

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Years
Last edited by peppy197 on Mon Jan 21, 2013 11:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Heinrich Heine wrote: "Nothing is more futile than theorizing about music."
Me write: "I have no talent and regularly prove it in the Music Cafe contests"

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ask complete strangers online what to do

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Oh for crying out loud!

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Try writing for events or occasions in you or your significant others life, especially if you do instrumental music.
I can't tie my shoes without a deadline of some sort, and unless I have a paying commercial score to write, my time is my own in terms of finishing pieces.

I know I've mentioned it here before, but loved one's birthdays, christmas, valentine's and milestones are great excuses/reasons to finish something and move on! Next deadline in eight weeks!

In the last six years, I've completed twenty seven full length songs with full midi arrangements, guitars and vocals.
I would have NEVER gotten that done before I started using holidays as deadlines, and treated them like paying work.

And the reactions you'll get from those you compose for will make it all worthwhile! TRUST me! :wink:

You've got three weeks til Valentine's, get on it!

KVR/eSoundz: Xenobt

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That's a really good idea.

The other problem is that the workflow with DAW's and synths cause us to wear too many hats at one time. Typically, we're trying to be the composer, the producer and the player all at once -- that's tough.

Try writing the whole song without actually producing it. Once you have a beginning, middle and end, then produce it.

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I don't wanna sound rude, but perhaps it's because you suck (for now) and you want to be better than you are. People think the most important thing is talent, it's not. The most important thing is taste. Your taste is currently above your talent, only practice will put you on an even playing field. Music is 99% confidence.

When I had this problem I was fortunate enough to meet an amazing mentor. He told me network/practice/network/practice/network/practice. The secret is to work with people who are better than you.

Ask yourself what type of song you wanna make. There are only two types of song in this world...

A) A perfect song.
- or -
B) A finished song.

k3ith

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ontrackp wrote:That's a really good idea.

The other problem is that the workflow with DAW's and synths cause us to wear too many hats at one time. Typically, we're trying to be the composer, the producer and the player all at once -- that's tough.

Try writing the whole song without actually producing it. Once you have a beginning, middle and end, then produce it.
Good advice - and tough advice to follow. Synth programming could generously be described as production - and endless tweaking is the opiate of the synth programmer.

And then the painless addition of FX upon FX (esp. time domain FX)... ooh, tweak heaven.

I'm trying, but it isn't easy.

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The problem with trying to wear different "hats" at controlled times is that for many people modern electronic music exists at the nexus of sound design, arrangement and composition, so they all tie and feed into eachother. Especially if you're aiming for the more organic forms of music like braindance. My recommendation would be to get practice at the individual skills by setting yourself tasks and experimental time. Then get good at switching between your hats in realtime as the music dictates :). When I'm writing music I'm not even thinking in terms of "mixing" or "sound design", I'm just chasing "t3h th1ng".

Just keep the mastering hat off until the very end (or let someone else wear it!).
Last edited by Sendy on Mon Jan 21, 2013 10:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
http://sendy.bandcamp.com/releases < My new album at Bandcamp! Now pay what you like!

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Long, long time ago, when people used tape to record, multi-channel tape was expensive. If you didn't like something you did, you just wiped it over with something better. There were little leftovers with the exception of cassette demo tapes and stuff like that.

As mentioned above, hard disks are cheap, people save anything they make, no filter to delete crap, results in an overload of material.

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rewer wrote:So I got a folder with 26 incomplete songs and it's really hard to get into the same mood with which I first wrote them. It kinda gets piled up and even though sometimes I want to begin a new one my mind tells me to take a look at them first and it's kind of a waste of time (I think). Does anyone also have the same problem? Any suggestions?
i collected over 100 unfinished songs in 10 years.
so i feel the pain.
but i'm glad i didn't release anything.....i wasn't satisfied with the tools i had ....and ultimately with the sound.
i finally have a softsynth i'm happy with and comparable with the best analogs (0dff implementation was essential to me)
finally there's some damn good affordable reverbs.
so might finally complete a song or two before i die lol.

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wrench45us wrote:ask complete strangers online what to do
:hihi: :lol:

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rewer wrote:So I got a folder with 26 incomplete songs and it's really hard to get into the same mood with which I first wrote them. It kinda gets piled up and even though sometimes I want to begin a new one my mind tells me to take a look at them first and it's kind of a waste of time (I think). Does anyone also have the same problem? Any suggestions?
while that number seems small tbh, here's a far more important question imho...how much have you learned from those 26 incomplete songs?

Sometimes we do not finish things because we have grown and become bored with stuff that is beneath our level at the time (or our perceived level). While finishing things is important and can give you a lot of confidence dont count out the lessons learned along the way as they can be just as valuable.

I think you can read this thread and see you are not alone, so take what you can from what you've done and look forward...it's all about growth and it sounds to me that's exactly what you are doing...growing :)
The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound, purpose‐larger‐than‐the‐self kind of understanding.

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