I read through the 38-page PDF on moodle page around issues of beginning work. I found it really interesting how to break the curse of certain mindsets and workflows. I noted down a few things I found important and noticeable. I also thought perhaps I could create a few ideas for sessions and follow the guide that the book gives. Again just an idea to spark creative ideas.
An interesting point the book makes is that.
“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. “
I’ve been thinking about this a lot and how I can relate minimalism to my prototype to prepare for the major portfolio hand-in. I do believe work that every section is important. Not needing the most update to equipment or having everything at your disposal can be creative heaven. I love the sound of dusty tapes and white noise and analogue hardware and sounds on a physical medium. This line made me think about what I could do to rid myself of this. I have a 4 track tape recorder and I’m yet to create something on it or a whole track. At the moment I use it for processing but I think it’s an interesting thing to do. Make a floor studio in the performance lab. The 4 track as the DAW and play some instruments and a turntable. Sampler. And instruments.
Another was:
Start with what you hear. Many musicians never (or rarely) get spontaneous musical ideas-all of their music comes from active work. lf you happen to be lucky enough to hear original musical ideas in your head, then you should absolutely use them as the basis for your own work. For example, maybe you have a melodic idea that you’ve been humming, or a rhythm that you’ve tapped out on the table. Just because these ideas came to you outside of your active music-making context doesn’t mean you should discard them. On the contrary, these accidental ideas are sometimes the most interesting ones you can have.
I constantly do this, have ideas in my head and sometimes I don’t follow them. I guess I have a fear of not trusting my own ideas sometimes and using samples to cover this. My production due to not knowing musical theory breaks the norms of what is expected and sounds “good”. I’m going to give this a shot.
This was an interesting quote that I wholeheartedly agree with and can relate to. My influences have a large impact on me but don’t define me.
Taking too much is theft. Taking too little fails to acknowledge our influences.
I found this task interesting to attempt, I have already done the attribute task and this deep listening task is similar but a bit more in-depth. I love deep listening and truly focusing on the piece of audio instead of as a background task.
Active listening simply means listening as the primary activity, and it’s an important skill to develop. Rather than using music as the background for another activity, try listening without doing anything else
Listen in Layers
A great way to actively listen is to listen to the same piece multiple times and force yourself to focus on a different specific parameter each time. For example, spend one pass listening only for:
Sound; What are the timbral characteristics of this music? What instruments are used? What is the texture (dense vs. sparse)? Are there some specific production techniques that you recognize (either from your own or other music)? What kind of acoustic “space” is suggested by the music (dry vs. reverberant, near vs. far, etc’)?
Harmony; What key (if any) is the song in? What chords are used? ls there a chord progression that happens throughout, or does it change from section to section? lf there are no overt chords (as in some minimal or experimental music), is harmony implied in another way?
Melody: What’s happening in the melody? Does it have a wide or narrow range? What is its general contour: Angular, with lots of leaps? Stopwise, with motion mostly by one or two somitonos? What
Limiting the fietd of possibilities isn’t iust about making it easier to work. lt’s also about making it possible to begin at all’ lf every possible starting direction is equally appealing, how could you ever choose one?
> Make every sound from one sample. An extreme restriction on available sound sources forces you to really think about the character and possibilities of the sounds you choose’ Can you make a kick drum sample into a lush pad? How about a hi-hat? What kinds of processing could you use for these transformations?
I will be doing this after this blog post, I will be organising my schedule as the first few weeks of this course was me being homeless and searching for a room. I still am but because I am going on tour I need to step up and be more resilient. This scheduling is what helped me a lot last year and I’ll be making a plan.
Schedule tasks as if they were appointments with yourself. Try using a calendar to restrict specific types of work to specific times. For example: Sound design: 7-8Pm Form/song structure: 8-9Pm Mixing:9-1Opm Timeboxing (page 82) specific tasks serves two purposes: lt forces you to narrow your focus while simultaneously eliminating the risk of non-musical distractions (Facebook, etc.)’ You wouldn’t check your email in the middle of a business meeting, so treat these “appointments” with the same kind of care.
Press record, then play and tweak knobs, capturing everything you do as a kind of free-form jam. While jamming, try to forget that you’re recording. Don’t try to make something perfect. Simply indulge in the uninhibited freedom of exploring sound. Follow your instincts-if something is working, let that lead you in a direction. If something isn’t working, abandon it, but do so without stopping the recording’ The trick is to stay out of judgment mode as much as possible. Simply capture as much as you can, following your instinctive sense of what’s right. Don’t worry about hard drive space. If you really need to reclaim the space, you can do that later during the editing phase.
Short timeboxes work because they break apart intimidating’ open-ended tasks into easily manageable chunks; no matter how painful creative work is, anyone can do it for 20 minutes
For me, these two sort of go hand in hand, last year during studio praxis I enjoyed thoroughly the process of improvisation alongside others which is something I want to explore further within my portfolio work and I think doing 20 minutes of improvisation helps that. I want to then perhaps sample what happens during these improvisations.