KVR Audio

screamingFit · Post by **screamingFit** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 1:17 pm

I guess I'm like most on here and that creating music is a hobby and not a profession. Being a hobby, how do you find time to actually sit down and do it? Apart from the daily work grind, there's responsibilities of family/significant others, learning, other hobbies, keeping a tidy space, entertainment, community involvement, friends and sleep! There ain't enough time in a day or even a month to play around and make music (at least for me)!

I have a fairly decent job which has afforded me to assemble a pretty decent studio - that just sits there collecting dust! I've even taken vacations from work to finally "get serious" and you know what? Nothing happens. I sit at the screen - uninspired and bored and move on to other menial activities. That happens anytime I have free time and sit down to "do something".

I know I can't be alone in this struggle for not enough time so how do you all cope? I'm desperately looking for some guidance!

Thanks,
s'fit

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 1:21 pm

for me personally

i work nights
when i get home in the morning my missus goes to work and my son goes to school
i do a general house tidy n stuff then have a couple of hours before i get to bed where i can play

main problem then is if i get into it i can forget to go to bed somedays and end up knackered at work
luckily i only work in a nuclear facility so if i do anything wrong worse hing that could happeen is meltdown

VariKusBrainZ · Post by **VariKusBrainZ** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 1:23 pm

Personally I dont feel that creating songs is the be all and end all of musical creativity. So long as you enjoy what you do when you do find the time.

vurt · Post by **vurt** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 1:25 pm

thats it creepjoint

just enjoy twistiing sounds
get to really know one synth inside out and the rest will come
experiment away when you do sit down
never try to write a song
if your not actually one of those people who can just do it,forcing it will make you unhappy

just play

dekky · Post by **dekky** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 1:26 pm

weekends and nighttime.

due to the fact that i spend my whole work in front of a monitor it sometimes is tough to continue sitting in front of another monitor in the evening.

i get easily frustrated then, if an idea doesn't work after 15 minutes i just shut everything down and read a book.

more reading than playing lately.

Beardedone · Post by **Beardedone** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 1:40 pm

I get in an hour or two after everyone else n my family goes to bed. I find it is very important to work on my real instrument at least 30 minutes too. I usually suffer from lack of sleep though.

Best,
Gordon

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 1:42 pm

Well, not being the most, erm, productive giy in the world, I decided to 'take steps'.

Cos at the moment, Ive only really got time free at home on monday, wednesday, thursday and sunday evenings.

And habitually I spend more time playing with the toys than I do making actual tracks.

So I decided I would try and commit meself to producing a one minute track every couple of days. To this end, Im at least going to do stuff during my lunchtimes at work, where I've got a couple of nice odds and sods that were installed on my work machine to test out in Bidule, as well as access to two ProTools systems with Reaktor and Kontakt. So even if I dont get anything 'major' done at home, Im hoping to at least keep produce something.

meeks · Post by **meeks** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 1:47 pm

Your not alone in this dilema. Being a teacher I use to have, basically, June, August and December off. Now that I'm Admin. I get nothing. Im not taking to it all too well.

I usually work nights when everyone is asleep, keep ideas on paper throughout the day, especially at work, and never "just think about it" without writting it down (no matter how stupid or strange it may be). Just be productive with your time and when you find your not stop and do something completely different, like presets.

The biggest thing students don't get, and I tell them often but it just doesn't register: You never learn a thing when your frustrated.

Wopelka · Post by **Wopelka** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 1:49 pm

the night is your friend, that's how it works for me anyway.

i sleep much less since i started to be musically creative...

and i'm late at work every morning....

but i think the point is:

you'll find the time (even if it costs you some sacrifices in terms of sleeping hours, relationship maintenance, etc) if making music is a need for you, not only a will.

do you feel the need of creating something? do you feel that music, or art, is a necessary part of your life?

Har · Post by **Har** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 1:59 pm

I definitely agree with vurt: don't try to force it or overly schedule things.

I've also taken full weeks of vacation off from work with the full intention of making it my "music only week"...only to sit there with a vacant look on my face with not an idea in sight, burp, fart, scratch my ass, look at more porn, and not record a single note of music.

But on the other hand: some of the best stuff I've recorded has been when it needed to be done in hurry and I bash it out with no planning at all, a few hours just before going to bed at night and right smack in the middle of the work-week.
Kind of like in an "on-demand" sitution, or when I hear a tune that's just amazing (like Donk's new one, "Fortune", or the stuff I've been doing with Scot Solida or Mystahr

) and I just feel compelled to jump on it right away before the moment slips away. In such situations where there was zero advanced planning or warning, it seems like the ideas just flow out of nowhere.

garret · Post by **garret** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 2:01 pm

meeks wrote:never "just think about it" without writting it down (no matter how stupid or strange it may be).

Absolutely... I'm able to write my stuff in a few hours a week, with a dodgy memory, because I make notes on paper and record rough takes incessantly. It's sort of an iterative or cumulative process... I'll get the seed for a tune while strumming an acoustic guitar, and play it for a few minutes... if it's good, I'll record it right away so I don't lose it. I can't count the number of tunes I've lost over the years because the phone rang or some other distraction.

Then the next morning before walking the dog, I can listen to what I recorded the night before and get right back in it... a 20 minute walk around the neighborhood works wonders for working through musical ideas.

Time at work is tough.. I feel very energetic and creative at 10 am... but occasional forays over to KVR at lunch for gear talk or to offer feedback on someone else's music keep me thinking about music.

After the baby boy gets to bed (around 8 pm) I have an hour or two to work on music, if I'm feeling up to it.

Just keep things moving forward, and try to focus. John Lennon said his one bit of advice to the aspiring songwriter is to 'finish everything.' Get it done, and move on. Spend a few weeks working on one tune, continually improving it, then work on production, post for feedback and kudos, and move on to the next. The sense of accomplishment from finishing one tune will help you through the blank slate panic of starting the next.

-Garret

mao · Post by **mao** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 2:04 pm

Incredible...

I thought I was the only one waiting for his wife going to bed (wives normally fall into sleep in 5 minutes

) and run to switch the pc on !
Sometimes I play starting from 11p.m, sometimes I need to sleep, sometimes I watch my clock and wonder it's 2 a.m., sometimes I go in bed but a melody pulse on my head so I lift up my ass and go to switch on pc... or sing in my nokia n-gage and record the melody for the day after

So some hours during nights... some minutes during weekend...but luckily, I'm very fast on "sketching" songs... 1 hour could be sufficient... and another hour to mix-ozonize-normalize-fadein/out...

aaaaaaah !!! So I'm not an alien at all !!!
...or... are all of us aliens ???

Lucky_1 · Post by **Lucky_1** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 2:06 pm

vurt wrote:luckily i only work in a nuclear facility so if i do anything wrong worse hing that could happeen is meltdown

... and your real name is Homer

cu

DevonB · Post by **DevonB** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 2:13 pm

Sometimes it's better to just say screw writing and start learning instead. LEarning doens't have to be 'creative'. Do you know how to make your own patches? Then learn what knobs do what to affect the sound. Know how to do automation? Experiment. Options in your host that you've never touched? Read up on them. Wonder why the hell someone would need 'feature x' in a host, do some research and figure out why. Knowing your tools inside and out helps the creative process... otherwise you end up frustrated... and never write anything anyway.

Devon

Ixox · Post by **Ixox** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 2:14 pm

Like many of you, i switch on the computer in the evening... from 10pm to 1am...
Before going to bed, I usualy put my track on my mp3 usb key and i listen to it in the following morning while going to work...
Most of the time, in the morning, i can hear many problems and have other ideas... I try to remember that and fix them in the evening...

The problem is to find time to record guitare and voice but that does not take a lot of time....

If i don't have anything to work on, i just take my guitare and try to find melodies.

How Do You Find the Time?