Any methods on cleaning the subjectivity palette for your music?

[xox]

Mozart was 6 :-)

[Brisbot]

nu uh i'm the biggest prodigy ever. aphex move out da way, plz I love you sign your name on my chest but then MOVE OUT THE WAY... respectfully

Edited April 14, 2016 by Brisbot

[Brisbot]

 

 

 

The best thing you can do, at least in my experience, is to play it for someone.

You'll automatically listen to your track through your buddy's ears and you will immediately know what's wrong with it and what needs to be changed. It sounds silly but it fucking works.

I have tried this. All of them (who are into music or make music) are afraid to critique me. I tell them I got over being upset in any way a long time ago, but I never really get anything useful from them. Actually I do have someone I bounce tracks to on the internet though that definitely helps. He is right like 70% of the time about the shortcomings of a track, and after he tells me something that may be wrong, a day or two later I'm hearing it. Sometimes I worry that I am projecting the issue into the track though. Oh well.

 

it's important to have a number of ways to clean the palette. which is what this threads about.

 

 

It's not so much the feedback they give you. It's more the situation it puts you in. If you're with a friend and you're actively listening to the track without anyone talking at all you should be able to tell what needs fixing. Also, a healthy amount of cynicism goes a long way.

 

 

 

 

Def recommend this. Tough part is getting thick skin! I JUST started learning the musical aspects of things. Surprised it took me so long as the tech aspect can preoccupy.

 

Playing the piano and sent out a melody i thought was good but a friend critiqued. i didint take it well. i realize practice makes perfect but how much practice did aphex need? melodies were pouring out of his ass when he was 15.

 

I like to think I've gotten pretty tough skin. Or at least it just doesn't bother me like it used to.

[Squee]

 

 

 

The best thing you can do, at least in my experience, is to play it for someone.

You'll automatically listen to your track through your buddy's ears and you will immediately know what's wrong with it and what needs to be changed. It sounds silly but it fucking works.

I have tried this. All of them (who are into music or make music) are afraid to critique me. I tell them I got over being upset in any way a long time ago, but I never really get anything useful from them. Actually I do have someone I bounce tracks to on the internet though that definitely helps. He is right like 70% of the time about the shortcomings of a track, and after he tells me something that may be wrong, a day or two later I'm hearing it. Sometimes I worry that I am projecting the issue into the track though. Oh well.

 

it's important to have a number of ways to clean the palette. which is what this threads about.

 

 

It's not so much the feedback they give you. It's more the situation it puts you in. If you're with a friend and you're actively listening to the track without anyone talking at all you should be able to tell what needs fixing. Also, a healthy amount of cynicism goes a long way.

 

 

 

 

Def recommend this. Tough part is getting thick skin!

 

But you should keep in mind that not everyone's opinion is valid. For instance, I don't think a construction manager would be interested in hearing what I have to say about his/her work, because I don't know crap about that field of work.

Another thing, listen to the people you respect and who are one or more steps ahead of you in your line of work or your hobby.

But keep your ears open to what people have to say, because sometimes working with sound, and I bet this goes for any other kind of creative work, becomes navel-gazing, and every now and then the person you least expect would ever say anything useful says something that hadn't crossed your mind at all.

[tokn]

 

im really self hating lately on the composing. i get so down. seriously depressed. hoping i dont suck. i just need a few melodies or something i love. cant give it up.

I know that I can't just tell you to feel a certain way about your tracks, that just isn't how it works. The truth is, though, with such a depressed and bad outlook on your work, then you won't make a good track. If you hate your work and you are thinking about how shit the track is while you make it, it will be shit. Coming in with a blank mind and just going with the flow will produce your best tracks.

 

 

Great advice - being able to appreciate your output is sooo important in the first place.

 

 

Any other methods?

 

Different states of mind

[LimpyLoo]

Wilma Koutstall, who studies the psychology of creativity, recommends "time-scaling" for gaining perspective: for instance, thinking about a choon in terms of your entire career, or the entire history of music.

 

(This will also motivate you in unexpected ways)

[Brisbot]

wait what? maybe a link to make it more clear because that sounds interesting.

[LimpyLoo]

She was on an episode of Composer Quest (podcast)

Check it out

I go back to it like once a month because it's such a goldmine of ideas

 

But the gist is that when we think about a zoomed-in 'time-scale' (e.g. today, this week) we focus on fine-grain details (e.g. hi-hat is too loud in bar 7);

When we think in a broader, more zoomed-out 'time-scale' (e.g. this year, my entire life, history of music) we are no longer preoccupied with minutiae, and instead focus on the broader-strokes of the piece.

[LimpyLoo]

http://www.charliemccarron.com/2013/10/the-psychology-of-creativity-with-wilma-koutstaal/

 

Since the episode is so short she quickly plows througu a bunch of concepts

I highly highly recommend listening to it like 3 times to catch it all

 

Time-scaling

Alternative Uses Task

Studies on experts vs novices (novices tend to be better at generating new ideas, whereas experts are better at executing ideas once they get them...seems to be because experts are stuck in 'zoom-in' mode)

Action-Perception Cycle

Novel environments stimulate novel ideas

Why taking a shower or wearing oven mitts will stimulate creativity

Multi-Modal Thinking

Etc

[LimpyLoo]

Also:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/our-innovating-minds/201604/unveiling-underappreciated-key-creativity

[LimpyLoo]

(Revisiting this stuff almost makes me wanna start an "EKT resource repository" type of thread with this sorta stuff...but all of my threads tend to be spectacular failures...)

[Brisbot]

Alright thank you Stimpy Doo. I am downloading it, will likely listen to it several times as well. Philosophy honestly may be the most important thing about music, as it drives you general direction,vs the technical skills which allow you to achieve that direction.

[ceiling]

creating melodies and arrangements with simple midi default sounds instead of synths really helped me to spot errors in my arrangements as it only sounds nice if the arrangement is working and I can't cheat myself out of a bad arrangement with lush synthesis

Second this. If you've written a great song just through using the default midi sounds you're usually onto a winner I reckon. Using synths and fx can very much dictate what melody you write and sometimes this can be a negative or a positive.

[ceiling]

1) time...put it in a drawer, pull it out in a week or two

2) mix it down, listen to it in a car (or on a friend's system) in the context of other music

The Cars the best place for checking mixes I reckon. Confined space so little reverb and you've got the vibrations of the song travelling through the chassis of the car. On top of that you can kinda get more a feel for the song as you're distracted by driving and thus not listening so intently.

[Squee]

Another useful thing is to listen to all kinds of music. If you're listening to the idms and nothing but idm you're fucked. It'd be like if you were a sound designer and only listened to recordings of earthquakes. That doesn't really broaden your horizon

[Guest WNS000]

My experience:

• Work fast, if possible (not always possible, but the more skilled you are the faster you will get).
• Listen in various emotional states (happy, tired, indifferent, sleep-deprived etc). You would be surprised how much otherwise great professional music sucks when in a bad mood. The best tracks tend to suck the least even in really really bad moods.
• Listen on various systems and in various environments (noisy environment can point out some mixing mistakes) and in various contexts (home, train, car, outdoor, with friends etc).
• Listen in a context of other music (mainly as a production and frequency spectrum check).
• Most importantly, do also listen in a completely calm, quiet, undisturbed state and concentrate the best you can on the music you are listening to. This is, for me, the ultimate test case because it really shows if the track can really hold one's attention. Dancing around or doing other stuff can create an illusion that the music is really fun to listen to while in fact you were just suppressing the boredom by other means. Find a piece of music that you really consider to be a masterpiece and try it yourself.
• Don't mistake the fun you have while creating the music with how good the music really is. It rarely connects in my experience and the most fun tracks tend to have the least longevity and most "mistakes" although exceptions may happen. If you are into making the best possible music and into sharing it with others then "the-fun-to-create approach" is not the good one imo. The key is to have fun after the music is finished. Although driving oneself to the point of absolute frustration while making a track is also not good. The balance is important.
• Critical breaks are very important.

Edited May 1, 2016 by Jev

[bubbhasdance]

start cumming and stop squelching 2016

[Guest WNS000]

 

creating melodies and arrangements with simple midi default sounds instead of synths really helped me to spot errors in my arrangements as it only sounds nice if the arrangement is working and I can't cheat myself out of a bad arrangement with lush synthesis

Second this. If you've written a great song just through using the default midi sounds you're usually onto a winner I reckon. Using synths and fx can very much dictate what melody you write and sometimes this can be a negative or a positive.

 

 

This can be very problematic though. While it is indeed much easier to spot compositional mistakes with clean, "midi piano" it is also very important to compose with a given sound in mind. And I personally, can do it only for guitars because I can imagine them in my head (to some extent) while composing "midi". The better way is to compose with a complete sound and then transfer the notes into a "basic midi sound" and check if there are false notes. But some sounds are designed in a way that cannot be really checked like that because they are too complex and unpredictable in tonality and simply works in a given moment. So the best method is to have golden ears... :)))

 

Also, programming sound-creating/music-composing algorithms is a good way how to ensure the composition stays in a given key/mood even in chaotic, fast, and dense compositions but it is difficult for us non-programmers.

 

Another way is to use tools that keeps your playing in a scale but that can limit the creativity as it prevents some "happy mistakes" from happening.

Edited May 1, 2016 by Jev

[sweepstakes]

http://www.charliemccarron.com/2013/10/the-psychology-of-creativity-with-wilma-koutstaal/

 

Since the episode is so short she quickly plows througu a bunch of concepts

I highly highly recommend listening to it like 3 times to catch it all

Man, this is great stuff, thanks for sharing.

[vkxwz]

On 4/14/2016 at 4:54 PM, xox said:

Mozart was 6

I think stuff like this proves that it's not solely about just grinding until you're suddenly a great composer, it has to be something else, like the way they actually think about music is entirely different. Otherwise you'd just be believing that they were born with musical talent or a brain that learns 1000x faster than the average person which is absurd. And aphex proves it's not about knowing music theory so you nerds can fuck off with that. It's gotta be something to do with the way they conceptualize music OR how they treat the process of creating and/or listening. telling people they just need to grind it out seems like the slowest and least efficient way to get to that point, and they may never even get there.

[thawkins]

13 hours ago, vkxwz said:

I think stuff like this proves that it's not solely about just grinding until you're suddenly a great composer, it has to be something else, like the way they actually think about music is entirely different. Otherwise you'd just be believing that they were born with musical talent or a brain that learns 1000x faster than the average person which is absurd. And aphex proves it's not about knowing music theory so you nerds can fuck off with that. It's gotta be something to do with the way they conceptualize music OR how they treat the process of creating and/or listening. telling people they just need to grind it out seems like the slowest and least efficient way to get to that point, and they may never even get there.

I think Mozart's and Afx's stories both show that it's the combination of grinding (hard work) and talent (luck). I don't think either of them lucked out by accidentally composing their music perfectly on the first go. It was probably a lot of experimentation and learning (not necessarily classical music theory) that got them to where they were.

I read something in one of those smart books (Thinking, Fast And Slow) that basically it's true that 10 000 hours of work will get you to an expert level of whatever thing you are doing, but the catch is that you need to work in such a way that you can get feedback/criticism on whether you are progressing in the correct direction or not. With music this is incredibly difficult because there is no such thing as objective criticism on art.

That said, working on your technical producer chops and knowledge of the gear and tools you use is going to make it much easier to execute your vision at least.

[xox]

5 minutes ago, thawkins said:

With music this is incredibly difficult because there is no such thing as objective criticism on art.

 

But we can be ‘objective’ enough to be, practically speaking, ‘objective’. 

[thawkins]

1 minute ago, xox said:

But we can be ‘objective’ enough to be, practically speaking, ‘objective’. 

That's probably true, but another thing that comes to mind - you won't find enough other listeners that will give you that feedback with enough detail. Even if it's in the form of thumbs up or thumbs down.

[sheatheman]

OPTION A: Upload tracks to Bandcamp directly from your DAW, delete any project file that you’ve spent more than 30 minutes on. Never listen to your music after you make it.

OPTION B: walk around with hours of your own tracks on your phone, only listen to your own music, and NEVER release anything.

[ghsotword]

14 hours ago, vkxwz said:

And aphex proves it's not about knowing music theory so you nerds can fuck off with that

Is it known for a fact that Aphex doesn't know music theory? To me, his early 90s stuff sounds like it's been made by someone who doesn't know music theory but I would guess he has picked up the theory later