the Wisdom of Composition thread

[xoxos]

if you do not think music comes from the ether, then you have never experimented with ether!

great idea!! I'll try it

i'll be expecting to hear something that goes "beep beep beep" soon then

you tell me.. am i right ??

[pHz]

anyne who takes drugs has the opportunity to gain insight on the matter of perspective

other points well made ... this one too blinkered ...

... in some ways MORE satisfying not using chemicals

slainte rob

[stefancrs]

music is better the more the artists enjoy doing it

that is nonsense, explain me how enjoinment do the music better, please.
if you have an answer, that may be the greatest invention of the whole civilization history

cheers!!

I think my music is better when I've enjoyed producing it. That's all the evidence needed imo

[lanark]

lanark - listen to the music in this thread..

to a citizen of the civilised world, it is fascinating because it emphasises what is already there that they have been desensitised to.

anyne who takes drugs has the opportunity to gain insight on the matter of perspective. in industrial culture, life is routine.. the medium becomes the message.

this sort of ultra-sensitivity is matter of fact to anyone who learns to focus their perception.

http://www.kvr-vst.com/forum/viewtopic. ... highlight=

THAT's a great post, xoxos, that guy is very sensitive, true, and the music is really great, and it is made with work, it gets think and work and tweaking, true?

Anyway, may be I was too extremist, I must pay more attention to my feelings, and let me go, sometimes...

[lanark]

if you do not think music comes from the ether, then you have never experimented with ether!

great idea!! I'll try it

i'll be expecting to hear something that goes "beep beep beep" soon then

you tell me.. am i right ??

beep beep beep beeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.......

[lanark]

I think my music is better when I've enjoyed producing it. That's all the evidence needed imo

well... as I said on a former post, may be I need to take creativity more easily, and let me go with intution more, not be so obssesively precise...

cheers!!

[xoxos]

anyne who takes drugs has the opportunity to gain insight on the matter of perspective

other points well made ... this one too blinkered ...

... in some ways MORE satisfying not using chemicals

slainte :wink: rob

you'll notice the streamlined lecorbu stylings, and the fashionably undeclarative, nonexclusory wording.. :p

if someone wants to work, that's fine, but it's someone's perspective, not a law.. i'm a trancendentalist.. it makes more sense to me to evolve the perception than to evolve the artifact.

in this sense, a symphony is apparent in the smallest sound, and so urging a greater consideration of the detrimental affect of artifact-based technology, i'd rather perceive the complexity in what is. it's not as if it's less profound or anything. after all, music is ~ throwing shapes for mind, and perhaps taking pleasure in what is is as much 'hard work' (as an exercise of perception/understanding) as shaping.

seriously, i have a problem with ideas about where 'you' and 'i' end and begin.. "pop music, everybody made it" :p just uncomfortable with the notion that only things with effort are worthwhile.. force w/o direction. people start believing that, the next thing, they're invading the guys who don't do what they do based on 'merit,' because their effort is 'valid.'

[Ackelito]

Hello Kvrians! here i come with my corny ideas, maybe im just stupid or real stupid, either way im having fun writing stupid things

I have no wisdom at all,
I have maybe finished 2 tracks under my time in the land of music creation! and those finished tracks have not been intentional. 2 finished tracks out of thousands of started tracks.. and im not even happy with the finished ones, haha.

Firstly i would like to say that i agree with many of you, many inspiring ideas and thoughts, i agree with stefancrs that music that is produced with joy is often very good, at least for the creator, blood sweat and tears is another side of it and it can be as good as the other side...there are of course more sides to creation, but this is not what i want to write about.

I think its tricky to just say: you have to be true to your self, and that you have to do this and that...
its not easy to make music, music that belongs to your own vision, sometimes the vision is bigger than your own knowledge, and that is clearly a problem cause this vision is untouchable, a vision is most of the time untouchable, so how can we follow our vision and still end up with something that we like and feel proud over? dont ask me, i have no clue. maybe we should take small steps first, like a baby does.

We all have knowledge to a certain extent, and we all know what happens when a task acquires more knowledge than we have,
it often ends in frustration.
now the most logical progress would be to acquire that knowledge, but sometimes i feel i try to take ways around it, just so i wont have to take that hard part which involves reading and trying and trying and trying and failing and trying again and you know the rest, it is success. But its a long way there sometimes, but well worth it in the end, where ever that might be, the end that is.

so my first conclusion is that knowledge plays a major roll in our quest to be true to our selfs and to fullfill our musical visions!(which we probably never will fullfill) Knowledge is a wide concept, its the core of everything, and only you know which kind of knowledge you need. Knowledge goes in waves, sometimes we dont understand the knowledge we have acquired, we have to mature to understand, sometimes we start in one end and to understand the rest we need to come to the other end, ect ect.

lets say you have a vision to make a great pop track,
would you just open up your sequencer and make it?
would you experiment til you find the right ingredients?
would you copy the best parts of all the tracks you admire?
would you let your spirit guide you?(more or less the first alternative)

My opinion is that none of these ideas would work on thier own, maybe the first and last one,
but a blend would probably make a better solution,
but still in some places you would lack knowledge, and that would make problems to realize your vision, so you acquire knowledge to continue, but as you acquire more knowledge, the more your vision changes... can you see the never ending vision just grow up on you? i can only relate to my self, So what i need to do is to step down from the throne of visions and break the visions down to goals, goals which i know i can reach.

so my conclusion is that a vision is just a bait for your imagination, a utopia that you can feed from. A vision is something you can never realize, you would only be able to think and not act. and thats where most of my time in music creation gets spent, its in thought.

I have a theory that the truth lies in chaos, so how badly you want to create something it can never become what you truly want it to be if you dont surrender to chaos...
in chaos you only have your true knowledge to guide you, everything else wont matter, The truth lies in chaos and its there everything reveal it self... you just have to grab it.

like havran said, "adjusting the accident is how i proceed" this is where knowledge have less power in the begining, but in the end your knowledge plays the big part.
in chaos you can see your true knowledge, and the fact is that my knowledge is very limited so i rather create in chaos and use the little knowledge i got to arrange it afterwards where my mind is in charge. I let all other pieces fall automatically from the depth of chaos, now this is not very visionary thinking, for visions you need great knowledge to guide you in chaos.


now i state here clearly, everything is subjective, so is truth. how can we tell in art what is true, the meaning is only there for you, and there for others to interpret.

thats the end of my philosophic ramble.



Now i might share one composition idea i have,

Start with throwing in all kinds of drum hits in various shapes and forms, just fill your sampler, now randomly(probably from experience) fill the notes with what you feel like, play it back and if your not happy, change something, now take some effects that you feel like, put them in the chain and merge everything to a nice stew...
now go back to the sampler(pot) and pan randomly some hits to left and some hits to right, its almost like if you are eating salt and suger and lemon and cinnamon at the same time, you need to seperate the taste´s on the tongue...it does probably taste very ood at the same time, but everything spread out on the tongue might taste good.

i bet a watermelon that nobody have the slightest clue what im talking about

adios!

[move3rd]

What your mind can conceive, you can achieve.

[shamann]

What your mind can conceive, you can achieve.

Don't dre-heam it, be-hee it!

[move3rd]

What your mind can conceive, you can achieve.

Don't dre-heam it, be-hee it!

[Kajiki]

I don't remember making exceptional pieces of music , but here's the things I thought of:

Do not let your compositional tools compose, or don't let the limitations of your tool limit your imagination.

Composition is not the same as recording (a composition is alive whereas a recording will always remain the same). So don't be obsessed with the idea of finishing a masterpiece recording. Your song will evolve while your band play it over and over again.

Do something you haven't done before, or don't do the same thing again.

Know what your are trying express. In the end, even though your song is a cliché, if the song is articulate enough, it is an exceptional piece.

Live honestly (emotionally) so that you will have a lot of things to express.

Listen to all kinds of music. You should never copy other people's cool music, but you can always think of what makes their music so cool, and if you find the secret, you may copy that essense.

Lastly, sequencerers should sometimes stop playing with computers and play instruments with other people.

By the way, I sometimes compose a song in my dream. I wake up and record the phrase before I forget it.

[move3rd]

I think the above is some of the best advice in this thread Kajiki.

Do something you haven't done before, or don't do the same thing again.

I know what yuor saying but I wouldnt put it into those words.

Its important not to get stuck doing the same things over and over again as this can prevent a composer from moving forward. At the same time I think it is important to understand how you have gotten to the point you are at by study what you have already done.

I often listen to music I have created and think 'how did I do that?'. This is not a good thing.

[Kajiki]

I think the above is some of the best advice in this thread Kajiki.

Do something you haven't done before, or don't do the same thing again.

I know what yuor saying but I wouldnt put it into those words.

Its important not to get stuck doing the same things over and over again as this can prevent a composer from moving forward. At the same time I think it is important to understand how you have gotten to the point you are at by study what you have already done.

I often listen to music I have created and think 'how did I do that?'. This is not a good thing.

Yeah, that's true. Steve Albini said the same thing. In his words, "experiment is good, but if you don't understand how you've done it, you won't learn anything." It's important that you can replicate the cool trick you have done before.

[gizmo]

About it being natural and about it being work...

It seems that there are two phases: The first where there's inspiration and it's easy and you can't believe you just made that. The energy takes you for a ride and time disappears: better than anything.

Now comes phase two, when you finish it, and this is frustrating and lots of work until you get really good at this whacky craft and then it's just work.

I think these two make a good team.

PS This is the best thread in months thanks to everyone for contributing.