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abeyance vs. overlistening

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Author: rayro on April 04 2007

Viewed 3709 times. 16 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.

People who enjoyed reading this: daswesen, celibacyclub, astroid, Jetsom, jogn, reehc, tonearm, Roshi, mlbot, 11t1, energygiant, calx, quicks, Leo, subset, ragingmime

--> Making a song, I've always had this annoying routine: short spurts of creativity sandwiched between long periods of re-listening to the incomplete results... Listening with critical ears. Over and over again. And listening the next few days...

Usually the feelings toward my incomplete mixdowns gyrate between loving it and hating it with every listen. Then I generally become bored with the track, and never revisit with any intention of continuing or completing, in favor of another new idea. Needless to say my discography of under-two-minute incomplete songs is rather extensive.

I think its a talent in itself to be able to maintain your focus during the track development process ... Creating something lovely, a complete song which lasts over 4 minutes, and fully realized over the course of multiple sessions.

How much relistening with critical ears is too much ? Or do you find its best to get as much as you can get done creatively in one sitting without being occupied with overthinking ?

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abeyance vs. overlistening

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04/04/07 + daswesen

I have this period, where I try to put the stuff down, not being too critical, but trying out lots of stuff, and letting mistakes (or things that sounds like mistakes) there. Then when I get the feel I got somewhere I can stop, I'll switch into critical mode, after a break, and for the next few days usually, and that's where most of what seemed like mistakes becomes new impulses.

When working a lot alot alot on one track (something i haven't done much), I have this 1-week feeling of "it's utter crap" afterwards, having the impression I destroyed the song by overworking it. And after 1 week, I love it love it love it again and all the work was good

Recent blogs: MachineDrum Notes #2, Generating rhythms with the euclidean algorithm, Tweaking the delay

04/04/07 + astroid

a good question

it helps to have some other sympathetic ears.

Recent blogs: blog friends?, california gay-friendly folk looky here, if tubgirl were immortal

edited: Apr 04 2007 + Jetsom

Once I start making smething, I tend to run out of cpu before I run out of 'listening stamina'. To my mind, it's definitely something that can change & it involves the way you perceive/expectation. I can listen to other people's music repeatedly without getting tired too. I love it, it's like having a new skill suddenly!

EDIT: yeah, it's very a liberating feeling, & I remember feeling very frustrated quite often up to that point. I wish I could explain how it came about for me better. I did have some help, my tutor at uni.

EDIT 2: Backtracking - can listen to other people's music on repeat _within reason_...if it's some stuck rhythm and very tiring, er...then it's tiring. I suppose you only need to listen to it enough times to pick out what needs to go or be developed. Then again, maybe that's obvious.

Recent blogs: Hi. I'm Jetsom. I never blog.

04/04/07 + reehc

I tend to listen to my stuff alot as Im walking about, and I think eventually you do get a kind distance from it, which i good i think.

I listen the most just after I've made it , then after while (a week or so) I'll go back and remaster it with hopeully a renewed perspective.

I think one of the best things is finding a tune you've done and completely forgot about & being in love with it. listening to your own stuff over and over for me is the best way to get a overall opinion of the music.

Recent blogs: cluny to the sea, 'Here I am' Video for band Familiar Trees

04/04/07 + tooth

I'm EXACTLY the same. Sometimes you have to turn off and just hold your excitement about bit you've just made and channel it into the next bit. It takes a lot of confidence and discipline to believe that the first bit wasn't just a lucky accident and you can make it into a kick ass finished track.

Recent blogs: I just bought a...., Bath Electrical, US vs UK

04/04/07 + tooth

You also have to remember that whatever you do next CAN be trashed. It's easy to feel under pressure to find THE perfect next bit, but it doesn't actually exist and if you made one you can make the other.

Recent blogs: I just bought a...., Bath Electrical, US vs UK

04/04/07 + Jetsom

"It takes a lot of confidence and discipline to believe that the first bit wasn't just a lucky accident and you can make it into a kick ass finished track."
well put

though i think you could perhaps exchange "a lot of confidence and discipline" for "understanding". I don't think it's necessarily something that takes time, it's just a matter of rejecting some unhelpful ideas/expectations.

Recent blogs: Hi. I'm Jetsom. I never blog.

04/04/07 + phundamental

relistening to your music alot while in the process of making it is a bad bad thing, just makes you bored with the track easier, i think it's better to listen to it just as much as it is needed to complete it

Recent blogs: zoolook, i spilled coffee all over my pance

edited: Apr 04 2007 + Jetsom

yeah, don't you think attentive listening is needed, rather than listening over and over? Sounds obvious, but I think that's maybe why we get tired out, through inattentive listening. Busying our mind up while it's playing. Maybe. meh...

Recent blogs: Hi. I'm Jetsom. I never blog.

04/04/07 + mlbot

By critical ears, do you mean... you start in on the mixing/mastering process before you finish the songwriting process??

If so... force yourself to leave stuff RAW until the last second. It can be hard, esp. if you NEED to bounce stuff down to save processor space (this is one of the awesomestest features of Ableton Live: "unfreeze" track. Now you _can_ go back and fix it!)

Anywho, my problem with finishing songs is when I start mixng/mastering too soon... i get bogged down on minor details while leaving the major details crappy... and I eventually hate it all.

Recent blogs: Dumb Machine LP - Maces of Disruption, astroid vs jdg, Pies for jdg

04/04/07 + 11t1

i get better results when i spend less time listening & more time thinking

play around with the tune in your head as much as you can & think about what it needs & what might make it even better - listening & tweaking gets to be a dead-end as far as creativity goes, so i try to save it for the last possible moment (mixing)

Recent blogs: Recommend Me Some Hip-Hop, Rallying the Troops, Point & laugh; I'm on TV!

edited: Apr 04 2007 + cbit

props for using 'abeyance' in the blog title. This difficulty is very familiar to me too. interesting posts.

Recent blogs: Song for Two Mega Sites, Probably no God: buses in london, My Arduinome (monome clone)

04/04/07 + mux

do your mix, lay out your arrangement and make some notes about it (ie parts that you know need to be redone), and work on it until you're finding yourself bored of it - then do the "collect all and save" thing, burn the whole project to DVD and SHELF IT FOR A WEEK.

when you come back to it with fresh ears and a fresh mind, the first time you listen to it, turn off your monitor and just use your ears and a pad of paper, and listen to the whole thing through critically while making notes about it. then start working on it - if you haven't finished the track in a day, save it and shelf it again for another week. it's not a race.

I'm finally starting to realize just how much better NOT listening to a track for a week is, over spending a week banging away at it and increasingly hating it. if I spend the time on it, the track certainly changes, but it doesn't get any better, and it doesn't get any closer to being finished. OTOH, I have three new tracks "on the shelf" right now, and I'm looking forward to getting back to them in a few days.

Recent blogs: new website finished, FINALLY., vid: public transit livepa by MUX

04/04/07 + calx

"you start in on the mixing/mastering process before you finish the songwriting process??"

this is me.

Recent blogs: Net Neutrality, Sick-bed Studio, I want one!

04/04/07 + 5l4

this is a good topic! i think the best thing really, is to lay out a serious method in terms of song completion. i know for a lot of us, song making is just for fun, but it helps to treat it a little bit like a job, even if it really isn't (i promise it doesn't take any of the fun out of it). a lot of the way i work on songs i learned from being a painter-- it's very easy to get caught up in small sections or portions of a painting you love, but if you spend too much time on one space, you'll never get anything else done, and even if you do, it won't seem natural. the best way to avoid this is to work gradually on the entire thing from start to finish-- and i think this applies to music as well. When you begin with loops, or performances, or whatever you base your songs off of, get an idea of the composition in its entirety from day one, and start fleshing the song out in that way. then, when you start getting bogged down and want to quit, you will actually have a full piece to come back to later, not a fragment. even if you start with a 4:30 loop, that does not mean that later, you could change, over time, the second half to be something entirely different! If you leave it as just a fragment, it's concept as an entity within a certain time frame and mental state will be sacrificed, and the song will seem unapproachable later on. give it a try!

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