Tell me how I can become more creative at making basic electronic music

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me how I can become more creative at making basic electronic music

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Ralph Hurley posted:

If you have chosen electronic music to be your medium for creativity, the first and most important step you can take is to avoid and maybe abandon genre cliches. The world does not need more trance, drum n bass or synthwave.

The palette of electronic sounds is practically infinite. Sequencers like ableton allow you to use an enormous variety of synth plugins and many of these are free. Just try messing with the settings on a synth, learn how they work until you start to find sounds you like. Let the sounds themselves determine the music you make. Also YouTube is full of tutorials.

Music theory is a good thing, but you don't really need to be an expert in chord structure to make decent electronic music. In fact, one of the greatest innovations that electronic music offers, going back to the early experimental days, is the ability to incorporate non traditional and even non musical sounds into your compositions.

Maybe you do just want to make trance or whatever but I think with learning to play any kind of music if you get hung up on trying to copy a particular style you're going to end up frustrated when you've made something mediocre. Try making something personal or even just loving weird. And yeah have fun.

Pick a song you like and try to copy it. It will sound like poo poo, and nothing like the song you are copying, but you'll have a structure. Now listen to it, as its own piece of music. What does it need more/less of? play five tracks of keyboard noodling over it, one after the other, then listen to each track against the piece. As you go, if a passage sounds poo poo, mute it.

Bam you've made a piece. Now: do it again.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2017 03:22

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# ¿ May 1, 2024 06:09

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

FreudianSlippers posted:

1.Smoke weed
2.worship Satan.

checks out

# ¿ Aug 21, 2017 02:35

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Canine Blues Arooo posted:

All of the following should be prefaced with, 'I think'... I'm don't want to suggest any of this is some kind of magical truth in any of this, but rather that this is how I look at music composition and production without having to say, 'this is my opinion' at the end of every sentence.

---

I really, really disagree with the idea of building music with some kind of structured approach (Start here. Add this stuff. Do this next). I think music is at it's best when it's inspired, or whimsical, or otherwise spontaneous. Trying to 'build a song' is going to result in a song that feels built out of some predefined set pieces. It's boilerplate and bo ring. Whatever your process is, I think it's way more difficult to build something wonderful if you are trying to, if that makes any sense.

Now I'm going to say weird things, so let's go explore weird parts of my brain. There is this weird piece of my brain where I can feel almost absolutely creative in the twilight of consciousness. The moments before I fall to sleep are moments where I have total, deliberate control of the creative forces of my brain. I can hear whole scores of original works in my head, but if I try to snap out of that state to jot it down, I lose it all. I've become pretty good at learning to focus on an idea, a motif, or some theme and commit that tiny bit to memory, in hopes that I can break off of that later. That's the 'creative process' that I used a lot. I don't know how to teach people to leverage those moments, or how to extend that mental state to several minutes, or if it's just a quirk in my head and not universal, but it's something to maybe be aware of if you are looking for a font of creativity.

If you are looking for more direction than that, maybe try working off of a simple motif. Ori and the Blind Forest has a whole soundtrack built on the back of 9 notes, and it's absolutely beautiful and stunning. I know a couple people who try that as a means of channeling something more creative.

I feel like both personally and from talking to others, that trying to force creativity is a great way to hit writer's block. Avoid some kind of structure and experiment, both with and without direction. Try to recreate circumstances where you feel most creative and see if you can channel that more effectively with practice.

I dunno - i think the only way to do it is to do it. Your creativity works for you, not the other way round. Just make music even though it's dumb and bad. Waiting for the perfect moment is a bad strategy.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 11:46 on Sep 10, 2017

# ¿ Sep 10, 2017 11:07

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Davinci posted:

Creativity is a muscle. You just need to exercise it. Lift weights until you can lift heavier weights, make songs until you can make better songs. It's all a numbers game and the more you do it the easier and more automatic it will be.

I've done a crapload of professional theatre and music and my experience is that the best way to make art is to get someone else to give you a deadline.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2017 00:17

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Mordecai Sanchez posted:

Can we get a mod to permaban the dude until all 12 of us subjectively agree that the 2 minute house beat he made is art?

lol the op hasn't actually posted since June, this thread is just us pumping each other up into an art frenzy YEAH DO IT GO GO GO ART THAT MOTHERFUCKER LIKE U STOLE IT GOOOOOOOOOO

# ¿ Sep 13, 2017 02:36

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Line your chair with upside down pushpins

# ¿ Oct 31, 2017 09:39

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# ¿ May 1, 2024 06:09

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Find some audio of children playing, pitch it right down and distort the poo poo out of it.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2017 21:04

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me how I can become more creative at making basic electronic music