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Here's my take, and totally just my own opinion. But I know exactly where you're coming from. The way I see it, electronic music requires a fundamentally different approach compared to traditional instruments. To me, that's because your palette is virtually infinite. With a guitar, you may spend years practicing, but you'll always sound like a guitar (unless you're using crazy pedals). That limits you to a ton, which is both good and bad. There's really only so much you can do with it to be sonically interesting. You could say back in the day, electronic music was limited by the hardware and space of your studio, but none of that matters today. Every hardware synth, drum machine or effects kit is up for grabs. But this is the beauty of electronic music. You can make tracks crafted and composed entirely out of one noise synth that doesn't even have tonality. You can make sweeping orchestral pieces, a simple 4 track dance tune, a track that's made of various samples of you just breathing into a mic, and on and on. I honestly don't think spending time on music theory is even really that important at this point. Just stick with the C scale until you feel like branching out. I would never, ever say this to someone learning a physical instrument though. So there's two paths here - the technical sound design and the creative aspect. Sound design is way under appreciated, but it is crucial. Since you're analytical, this is where I can see you having the most fun. By sound design, what I mean is the process by which you actually create unique and interesting sounds. IDM guys like Aphex Twin, Venetian Snares, Autechre pushed the limits originally, but today you have a crop of new guys across any number of genres doing this. Culprate, Koan Sound, Chee, Noisia, Audeka, Moody Good, Uppermost, Reso, etc. The way I started, I refused to use patches. I would learn from them, but would consciously avoid using them. It forced me to understand how a synth works, how to EQ properly, how and when to use effects, and how to properly make sounds. I try and create my own basses, pianos, percussion, etc by this process. It's slow going at first, but eventually you'll have enough of your own patches saved up where you won't have to reinvent the wheel everytime. Getting a good grasp of concepts like filters, oscillator types, waveforms, resonance, automation, LFOs, modulation, etc will allow you to "craft" what you hear in your head, and even if it doesn't, you're guaranteed to make some weird, crazy poo poo that most likely no one else ever has. And honestly, that's way better. There are a number of tutorials on sound design, and it's entirely an engineering process. But coming up with something unique and YOURS is not only incredibly satisfying, but will add value to your creative side when you get there. Also, people may say to get this or that physical hardware, but honestly it's overkill until you're invested into making music. Get the basics down first. Again though, this is just my opinion. I personally just don't see why you'd want to get into a weird and nerdy hobby like electronic music to be a glorified patch assembler, but the effect of that is the prevalence of the same loving sounds everywhere. On the creative side, this is where it may be daunting. The easiest trap to fall into is just getting stuck in loop hell, where you'll spend a lot of time on whatever 8 bar loop and have no idea where to go from there. I broke out in a few ways: 1) Have a theme. It can be an idea, or maybe a mood, or just a sound/sample you really like. Similar to jazz, it's something that centers the piece concretely and it gives you an anchor to build the rest of the piece around. 2) Copy an existing form. This one is good for starting out, but becomes a bit of a crutch later on. Find a song you like and break it down into pieces - intro, drop, verse, bridge, second drop, etc. A bit boring, but it's tried and true. 3) Find stems from other artists. Remix competitions are everywhere on Soundcloud and you can find artists giving away stems. Learn from them or incorporate it into your own track. 4) Just make a poo poo ton of music. Seriously, they will initially be terrible but who cares! It doesn't have to be a full song - maybe just a minute or 2 of music. Upload them all and listen to them! Often times, I'll just be in my car and play some 1 minute track I made and realize, holy poo poo it'll sound really good if I do this, or gently caress, I really need to remove that. Good art takes a long time, with many many revisions. 5) Sample things. Knock some pans together. Rub an eraser. Record your dog drinking water. Be on the lookout for cool sounds to incorporate into your track. It'll get your creative juices flowing. 6) Most importantly, have fun with it. I was watching The Office, and Kevin had a line where he asked if Oscar went on a gaycation. I thought it was funny, sampled it, and made a short track. https://soundcloud.com/stosz/gaycation/s-RzLOc
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Sep 11, 2017 05:22
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| # ¿ May 1, 2024 12:57 |
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