Simplifying Music?

[enroe]

with a dagger.

Sure, if you've just found the melody line of your life on the way -
then with a knife, or as a tattoo.

[enroe]

A KVR user had a complaint after listening to many many songs on KVR:

Only so much

"glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum ting ting woop glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum ting ting woop blooch" ...

... a man can't take in one evening. Each to their own, but they really should carry
a health warning.

One reason for the glitchy-bum phenomenon is that many don't really compose.
Instead, a drum loop is chosen and edited - and you're left with "Glitchy-bum".
But if it makes you happy, that's OK too.

[Dimetil]

Mozart's music (if you could ask him) could swear to life, his music was pretty simple.
And it actually is.

One of the most simplistic, yet great, musical content I have heard in the recent years would be bands such as:
The Midnight
Now, Now (the album "Saved")
Emptyself (Eric Johanson)

[ghostwhistler]

I like simple music and I like relatively more complex music. But what I really like is somewhere between the two. Something that's simple, but not obvious. Perhaps a different chord structure or an odd melody or time signature, just to keep it interesting.

I also find myself more open to using presets these days. It's much easier to come up with ideas when you can just dial through some presets and see what strikes your imagination, rather than spend time creating some sounds first. I suppose if you're a genius sound designer that's not an issue

[ghostwhistler]

A KVR user had a complaint after listening to many many songs on KVR:

Only so much

"glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum ting ting woop glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum ting ting woop blooch" ...

... a man can't take in one evening. Each to their own, but they really should carry
a health warning.

One reason for the glitchy-bum phenomenon is that many don't really compose.
Instead, a drum loop is chosen and edited - and you're left with "Glitchy-bum".
But if it makes you happy, that's OK too.

the what now?

[BertKoor]

10 tracks is much? That depends. Orchestras have more players, even more sections. Its a matter of dosage, building up.

People cannot track more than 6 or 7 things at the same time. If you put things in the spotlight and others in the background, that helps on focus and having interesting things to discover.

So, it depends on your composing / arranging / orchestration / production skills.

[enroe]

A KVR user had a complaint after listening to many many songs on KVR:

Only so much

"glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum ting ting woop glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum glitchy bum ting ting woop blooch" ...

... a man can't take in one evening. Each to their own, but they really should carry
a health warning.

One reason for the glitchy-bum phenomenon is that many don't really compose.
Instead, a drum loop is chosen and edited - and you're left with "Glitchy-bum".
But if it makes you happy, that's OK too.

the what now?

That's just one example of why someone ends up not recording a song that's
good for him.

What I want to say: You can play and tweak drums and do "chaka-boom" for
a long time. And that can be fun and even fulfilling.

But - if your goal is to actually compose and record a song, as you describe
in the opening post, then I think you should take a step back and really
compose. You would have to compose in the sense that you would have to
come up with a melody, a real groove to it, and a little motif.

[ghostwhistler]

Yeah i'm great at that

[thunder1677]

You could trying following the standard rules of tonal harmony. Instead using non-chord tones trying using chords that belong to the chord formula.

[A_SN]

You have to identify what is the core of the essence of any music. It often comes down to a theme you can whistle. I think too many people try to come up with a pleasant fireworks show of chords without have a strong theme to underpin it all. A great theme is something monophonic that you can whistle and will want to whistle after hearing it. If you listen to Tour de France there's a simple but pleasant monophonic melody in it that underpins it all. You can play it monophonically on whatever instrument you like to try to figure out what makes it great (try to know which scale it's really in to make sense of it, I mean this in a general sense, it isn't always obvious and understanding the function of each note is an important part of making sense of it), and when you come up with your own music, you might want to start by doing this, coming up with something simple and monophonic as the backbone of whatever you're composing. You can genuinely look at composing as having this backbone of a simple whistleable monophonic theme and then everything else builds around it.

Something that might help you would be listening to genres of music that rely more heavily on a strong theme, like classic film themes or even Greek music (rebetiko has insanely catchy and rich tunes, more than any genre I know) rather than recent electronic music that often gets away with relying on a strong beat or sound effects to make up for a lack of anything you could whistle. So don't build a track around nothing, find the something before you even open your DAW, and don't try to rely on gimmicks either like weird time signatures, exotic scales or unusual chords you heard about somewhere. And remember one thing that too many amateur musicians forget: there's nothing wrong at all with making a cover, in fact it's an essential and overlooked part of growing musically and you can make a great cover of a standard that is very much your own.

[enroe]

You have to identify what is the core of the essence of any music. It often comes down to a theme you can whistle. I think too many people try to come up with a pleasant fireworks show of chords without have a strong theme to underpin it all. A great theme is something monophonic that you can whistle and will want to whistle after hearing it.

... You can genuinely look at composing as having this backbone of a simple whistleable monophonic theme and then everything else builds around it.

This is exactly what is called a "motif" in music: a short melodic,
monophonic phrase that forms the core and hook of a song.

Something that might help you would be listening to genres of music that rely more heavily on a strong theme, ... rather than recent electronic music that often gets away with relying on a strong beat or sound effects to make up for a lack of anything you could whistle.

So don't build a track around nothing, find the something before you even open your DAW, and don't try to rely on gimmicks either like weird time signatures, exotic scales or unusual chords you heard about somewhere.

And you're absolutely right: Unless you have a motif or theme like that,
it doesn't make sense to tinker and work on a song. Without a motif, a
song remains bloodless, interchangeable, unrecognizable - just like
millions of other songs floating around on the net in a relatively
irrelevant way.

That's why my appeal to music composers, producers and
creative people is: find a motif first! Compose the core monophonic
melody first! Nothing will happen without them!

[donkey tugger]

You have to identify what is the core of the essence of any music. It often comes down to a theme you can whistle. I think too many people try to come up with a pleasant fireworks show of chords without have a strong theme to underpin it all. A great theme is something monophonic that you can whistle and will want to whistle after hearing it.

... You can genuinely look at composing as having this backbone of a simple whistleable monophonic theme and then everything else builds around it.

This is exactly what is called a "motif" in music: a short melodic,
monophonic phrase that forms the core and hook of a song.

Something that might help you would be listening to genres of music that rely more heavily on a strong theme, ... rather than recent electronic music that often gets away with relying on a strong beat or sound effects to make up for a lack of anything you could whistle.

So don't build a track around nothing, find the something before you even open your DAW, and don't try to rely on gimmicks either like weird time signatures, exotic scales or unusual chords you heard about somewhere.

And you're absolutely right: Unless you have a motif or theme like that,
it doesn't make sense to tinker and work on a song. Without a motif, a
song remains bloodless, interchangeable, unrecognizable - just like
millions of other songs floating around on the net in a relatively
irrelevant way.

That's why my appeal to music composers, producers and
creative people is: find a motif first! Compose the core monophonic
melody first! Nothing will happen without them!

Each to their own, but I never ever work like that. It's always interesting chords and harmonies first - the vocal melody will then emerge organically from within that, i don't make a distinction. Just trying to write something monophonic in isolation always comes out a bit cheesy.

[A_SN]

Each to their own, but I never ever work like that. It's always interesting chords and harmonies first - the vocal melody will then emerge organically from within that, i don't make a distinction. Just trying to write something monophonic in isolation always comes out a bit cheesy.

Your work is a pretty good example. I think it's well produced and sounds pretty good, but when the song is over what's left in my head? Indistinct chords rhythmically hammering on, the melody of the vocals giving a bit of something to hang on to, and that's about it. Contrast with for instance a song like this which is entirely driven by a strong theme:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywczb67RH70

The difference is that this makes this song instantly more unique, engaging, evocative, and if covered by anyone else (which it regularly was over the last 75 years) instantly recognisable, despite the clear weaknesses in terms of production. It's weak in the areas that you focus on and strong in the ways that you neglect, and the result and its enduring appeal confirm the importance of an inspired and evocative theme.

I'd go so far as to say that there are two phases to enjoying a song, there's how you feel about it while it plays, and what's left after it's done. A song like this one is ok while it plays, I can't help but notice things wrong with it as I hear it, but when it's over it's somehow more enjoyable as the rich essence of the song stays with me for a while, enough that one might want to take a break from listening to anything else after that, whereas a more slickly produced but less remarkable song might be enjoyable while listening to it (mostly if the sounds that make it up are really nice), but if there's nothing to it but a series of chords that don't really go anywhere then what's left after it's done might amount to nothing more than an annoying rhythm that is washed away by the next song. Of course not everybody can compose something remarkable, which is why I insist that making covers is a good way to go.

[donkey tugger]

Each to their own, but I never ever work like that. It's always interesting chords and harmonies first - the vocal melody will then emerge organically from within that, i don't make a distinction. Just trying to write something monophonic in isolation always comes out a bit cheesy.

Your work is a pretty good example. I think it's well produced and sounds pretty good, but when the song is over what's left in my head? Indistinct chords rhythmically hammering on, the melody of the vocals giving a bit of something to hang on to, and that's about it. Contrast with for instance a song like this which is entirely driven by a strong theme:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywczb67RH70

The difference is that this makes this song instantly more unique, engaging, evocative, and if covered by anyone else (which it regularly was over the last 75 years) instantly recognisable, despite the clear weaknesses in terms of production. It's weak in the areas that you focus on and strong in the ways that you neglect, and the result and its enduring appeal confirm the importance of an inspired and evocative theme.

I'd go so far as to say that there are two phases to enjoying a song, there's how you feel about it while it plays, and what's left after it's done. A song like this one is ok while it plays, I can't help but notice things wrong with it as I hear it, but when it's over it's somehow more enjoyable as the rich essence of the song stays with me for a while, enough that one might want to take a break from listening to anything else after that, whereas a more slickly produced but less remarkable song might be enjoyable while listening to it (mostly if the sounds that make it up are really nice), but if there's nothing to it but a series of chords that don't really go anywhere then what's left after it's done might amount to nothing more than an annoying rhythm that is washed away by the next song. Of course not everybody can compose something remarkable, which is why I insist that making covers is a good way to go.

Now you can have whatever opinion you like of what I do (hence.."each to their own"..) but I think you'll find that most songwriters (as in songs with vocals, not bits of instrumental music) will not work in the way you outline. It's very much an integrated process, whether it be composing on guitar, piano, or whatever, with writing interplay between the instrument and the vocal. Do you really think that songwriters are composing vocals in isolation?

[Uncle E]

I know this is a compositional question but a trick for simplifying is to use sidechain compression and gating. Use compression to drop parts out when more important parts are playing or use gating to make busy parts only come through at the same time as more simple parts (particularly drums and percussion).