Making music : 74 creative strategies for electronic music producers

This book is a collection of solutions to common roadblocks in the creative process, with a specific emphasis on solving musical problems, making progress, and (most importantly) finishing what you start. This site features a selection of chapters from the book. Preface Contents Problems of Beginning Three Ways to Start Catalog of Attributes Avoidance List Active Listening Listening to Music You Hate Mise en Place Arbitrary Constraints “Write drunk; edit sober” Choosing a Tempo One Part at a Time Different Tools Presets as Starting Points The Tyranny of the Default Simple Sounds Extended Techniques Goal-less Exploration Procrastination and Timeboxing Collaboration Thinking Like an Amateur Scraps and Sketches Problem-Solving as Distraction Personal Workflow Originality vs. Quality Process vs. Product On Work Problems of Progressing Breadth Before Depth Foreground, Middle Ground, and Background Fuzzy Boundaries Creating Variation 1: Mutation of Clones Creating Variation 2: Mutation Over Generations Creating Variation 3: Note Transformations Implied Rhythm in Short Loops Asynchronous or Polyrhythmic Loops Misusing Rhythmic Tools 3+3+2 Rhythm Programming Beats 1: On Looseness Programming Beats 2: Linear Drumming Programming Beats 3: Ghost Notes Programming Beats 4: Top, Bottom, Left, Right Bass Lines and Kick Drums as a Single Composite Drums to Pitches and Vice Versa Tuning Everything Silence and Noise Sampling the Old-Fashioned Way Creating Melodies 1: Contour Creating Melodies 2: Using Motives Multiple Simultaneous Melodies Linear Rhythm in Melodies Sound-Color Melody The Rhythm of Lyrics Creating Harmony 1: The Basics Creating Harmony 2: Beyond Triads Voice Leading and Inversions Parallel Harmony Harmonic Rhythm Repetition and Insistence The Rhythm of Automation Humanizing With Automation Envelopes Maximal Density Deliberately Bad Listening Randomness and Responsibility Dramatic Arc Problems of Finishing Arranging as a Subtractive Process The Power of Erasing Formal Skeletons Common Forms 1: Elements of Song Form Common Forms 2: Layering as Form Short Loops as Endings Unique Events Three Ways to End Rendering as Commitment Getting Feedback Diminishing Returns Fail Better For many artists, nothing inspires more existential terror than actually making art. The fear that we're not good enough or that we don't know enough results in untold numbers of creative crises and potential masterpieces that never get realized. Electronic musicians used to be able to hide behind clunky, emerging technology as an excuse for inaction. But musicians today live in a golden age of tools and technology. A ninety-nine-cent smartphone app can give you the functionality of a million-dollar recording studio. A new song can be shared with the world as soon as it's finished. Tutorials for every sound design or music production technique can be found through a Google search. All of these developments have served to level the playing field for musicians, making it possible for a bedroom producer to create music at a level that used to be possible only for major-label artists. But despite all of this, making music is still hard. Why? Making Music was written both to answer this question and to offer ways to make it easier. It presents a systematic, concrete set of patterns that you can use when making music in order to move forward. It will teach you how to make music using technology, with a specific emphasis on solving musical problems, making progress, and (most importantly) finishing what you start