ive found myself doing more with pen n paper lately.
i tend to use diagrams and text rather than notation, lots of coloured blobs and squares.
Techniques when composing (tips and trick thread)
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- addled muppet weed
- 111253 posts since 26 Jan, 2003 from through the looking glass
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- KVRist
- 400 posts since 5 May, 2004 from North Carolina
I seem to get most of my ideas when I'm nowhere near an instrument. Driving is a nice environment, at night on a straight road without much traffic. When I hear something in my head that sounds like a keeper, I've developed a crude type of notation that helps me remember the melodies, then I'll go back and write in some chord names above the melody lines. A lot of times, if I'm doing something with lyrics in mind, it can be hard to tell which came first, the words or the music.
Anybody else out there that avoids instruments during the initial part of composing? It can keep you from being governed by "finger memory" - when you find yourself playing riffs or chord changes you're comfortable with.
Anybody else out there that avoids instruments during the initial part of composing? It can keep you from being governed by "finger memory" - when you find yourself playing riffs or chord changes you're comfortable with.
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- KVRAF
- 4692 posts since 28 Jan, 2003 from In these very interwebs
Good point about recognising a comfort zone. I know I have one. I most effectively get out of it when I collaborate with other musicians and composers, and deliberately give them some responsibility for creative direction (which is hard for me - I'm a control freak!). Letting someone else come up with ideas for you is an interesting process.me109 wrote:Anybody else out there that avoids instruments during the initial part of composing? It can keep you from being governed by "finger memory" - when you find yourself playing riffs or chord changes you're comfortable with.
-Kim.
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- KVRist
- 400 posts since 5 May, 2004 from North Carolina
Kim (esoundz) wrote:I collaborate with other musicians and composers, and deliberately give them some responsibility for creative direction (which is hard for me - I'm a control freak!). Letting someone else come up with ideas for you is an interesting process.
And that's the main reason I've been participating in the Music Cafe contest since January. When Scoops releases the parameters for the new contest, usually within a few hours, my obsessive mind comes up with the basic song, lyrics included if I'm going there. I can look for ideas all month to do something on my own, but when I'm given the assignment by somebody else, it just happens.
This time, after having what I considered to be disappointing results the previous month, I resisted the urge to go with the first song outline that I took seriously enough to rough out. I forced myself to do two others, and settled on the third one. That produced very satisfying results for me. According to the way the voting has gone so far, I seem to be the only one satisfied with it, but that's ok, too.