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Originally posted by AlphaStarred The more you keep busy working, the easier and simpler it actually is. That's what I found from personal experience. Most of the stuff I released I actually made fairly quickly without too much thought, during a period of time where I was constantly working (producing) every night. That's really how all art is, I believe, to echo my former acting teacher's words: It's at once the most difficult and the most simple thing in the world. But it's only simple when you're constantly doing it. You are thus able to trust your instincts more without giving it too much thought and analysis, and since you're constantly working, you naturally are able to produce better results (generally). This is how artists evolve. I do also believe - from my personal experience - what my former English Literature professor once said: when you create art, you kill life. So constantly doing art (creating) can also be bad for your mental health, I believe - I speak especially for myself and a few artists I've known.

I do agree with everything you said - in fact I used to have a saying that if something took me over a week to produce, it would never get finished. It's just that now I'm jumping to a style I've never done before, so it's a bit of a learning process.

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Originally posted by AlphaStarred I do also believe - from my personal experience - what my former English Literature professor once said: when you create art, you kill life. So constantly doing art (creating) can also be bad for your mental health, I believe - I speak especially for myself and a few artists I've known.

There's always a danger an artiste becomes so self absorbed and self aggrandising that they loose sight of the world around them.

Always make time for real life and your loved ones and the natural world. Sometimes we surround ourselves with machinery and Human environments so much so that our true inner mammalian instincts and needs developed over millennia are neglected. Living in large urban environments is actually a very new experience when compared with millions of years of evolution. Your body and inner self enjoys trees and bird song much more than we might realise. Artists sometimes get lost in their Human art forgetting these other needs.

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Originally posted by Mr.Mystery It's just that now I'm jumping to a style I've never done before, so it's a bit of a learning process.

For sure, as it should be. But it's always a learning process, as long as you're experimenting and exploring, thereby evolving. I would imagine, however, that techno would be easier to make than trance/prog. as it's often not as complex (not necessarily a need for breakdowns and buildups, etc. Although older Trance was very much like Techno, as well, so it depends on your intention.)

The way I started making acid (techno) tracks was by listening and being influenced by many oldschool tracks. I wanted to emulate, to an extent, the oldschool style, so I simply listened to many tracks of that period and paid attention to the structure in order to help form the structures of my own tracks.

This is what I would recommend if you're struggling with the structure of the track: just listen to tracks you really like in the style that you want to produce in. This helped me tremendously. And eventually if you keep working, your own style will naturally evolve, etc. You will realize soon enough that it's pretty easy to make a techno track, but you will likely experiment further (but still adhere to a certain structure) and make your sound more complex and unique.

Last edited by AlphaStarred on Feb-20-2015 at 15:33

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Originally posted by Richard Butler There's always a danger an artiste becomes so self absorbed and self aggrandising that they loose sight of the world around them. Always make time for real life and your loved ones and the natural world. Sometimes we surround ourselves with machinery and Human environments so much so that our true inner mammalian instincts and needs developed over millennia are neglected. Living in large urban environments is actually a very new experience when compared with millions of years of evolution. Your body and inner self enjoys trees and bird song much more than we might realise. Artists sometimes get lost in their Human art forgetting these other needs.

Agree with everything you said, except I don't believe we've existed for millions of years. But yes, the self-absorption and self-aggrandizing is spot on, and I can personally attest to this. And one of the troubles of that is that you actually become more disconnected from your fellow human beings, which can result in a very lonely (or lonesome) existence.

And yet another thing is that I haven't made any music since 2011... so I think I'm piling some unnecessary pressure on myself.

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Originally posted by Mr.Mystery And yet another thing is that I haven't made any music since 2011... so I think I'm piling some unnecessary pressure on myself.

what kind of music are you listening to at the moment? going to see any DJs/live acts?

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techno is all about letting the gear take over, you let the technology work, it's like riding a chariot, the gear is the horses and you let it do the running for you but you direct