|
I hold on to everything. As others have said, its good to go back and review older works to see if there was something there or if it isn't worth pursing. In many cases, I have a good base idea for a track, but due to lack of knowledge or experience at the time, did not have the skills to implement it properly.
My production partner sometimes comes by just to lay down simple ideas, on which I will then build full tracks. I have loads of these tracks sitting around, which are usually nothing more than a chord progression and a simple lead. In other cases I have a framework track basically fleshed out with arrangement and basic writing finished. This results in my having a LOT of projects on the disk, of which it is easier to determine status by color coding. I'll generally color code the project folders on my disk to indicate the state each project is in.
Uncolored: Idea.
Yellow: Has potential, work in progress.
Green: good track basically done, need to finalize.
Blue: Finished product.
It's good to get into the habit of coming back to things, especially if you work with other people. Remember that Sasha - XPander came about from a riff that had been laying around on a DAT for like 5 years. Charlie May was sitting in the studio with Sasha, and played it for him, to which Sasha programmed a simple beat and the track was born.
That being said, I also think it is important to know when to give up on an idea and move on.
|
