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Melody rut/Composer's block.. Or is it just a simple lack of talent? (pg. 2)
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| RichieV |
| quote: | Originally posted by aNYthing
here's a partial list of music I listened to in the last two weeks, representing my usual cross section of genres.
A local jazz quartet
Andrea Bocelli
Various Russian rock
Various classic music on our local radio
Ambient/chill/trip hop/dubstep/shranz
and of course usual helping of di.fm trance Chanel
Jarre, vangelis, koto, italo synth pop
classic rock
you tell me if my list needs to be more diverse :-) |
couldn't hurt. You need to expand your working musical vocabulary. So listen to new music and rip ideas you like. Notate chord progressions from songs you like, make a catalogue of musical ideas and do transposition exercises to cement them into your head.
try actively listening. Notate the harmony, melody, orchestration ,,, |
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| Stef |
| quote: | Originally posted by Kismet7
Why or how would you compare yourself to a band anyways? Pink Floyd was an outfit of 5 heads cooking things for 1 plate. You're just one person right? |
Spor is one person but yet blows away all the teams of DnB producers out there. |
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| DJ Robby Rox |
Its too easy to become stuck in a rut because I notice music is something I take to obsessively rather then on a regular routine basis.
Because of that I will sit down to produce more out of mere compulsion to produce, then out of a deliberate act to make something specific. I sit down basically with no idea what I'm doing for that session, so naturally I wind up repeating 98% of the crap I did the day before.
Anyway what DOES work for me is like other people said, listen to other types of music. I won't go listen to classical or rock, but more another EDM style of music. And I also won't listen to pro music as it will WORSEN the compulsion to make something perfect.
The other day I went listening to peoples music on this forum. A lot of "amateurs" yes, but I was overcome with inspiration. I sat down, wound up trying things I normally would have never thought of, and wind up with some pretty cool sounds. But more then anything, just BREAK THE ROUTINE. Do something different, anything, just break the monotony and you will find inspiration if you just look for it hard enough.. |
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| adi_hanson |
| i dont really have a problem with finishing a tune anymore , getting any fooker to listen to it , now thats a different question. |
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| Kysora |
Thankfully I went into music production with 7 years of experience with playing trumpet, and self-taught guitar and piano. I had a pretty good sense of melodies but had no clue when it came to theory. My first chunk of music contained chords that were randomly placed and I basically just stuck with patterns that I knew worked. For instance I always knew in the key of A that the note F# sounded good with A and C# playing along with them, but I couldn't tell you that was the 6th degree minor triad for quite some time
For that reason I always felt stuck with what I was producing, always using the same key and the same notes, creating melodies that always sounded pretty similar. To be honest not knowing what I was doing in a way helped me a lot because I could ignore rules I now subconsciously follow and do a lot more with an F# minor chord than I can now.
Still, learning theory let me explore other chord progressions and keys, gave me new ideas.. in all honesty working amongst very loose "rules" lets you experiment even more because you have a better idea of what's going to sound good even when you do something you've never done before.
I still get stuck every once in a while but that's really just because I kind of need to "refresh" from my last track, because if I rush to make a new song immediately after making one, I tend to make something very similar to it subconsciously, just because I've been fixated on that one song for so long. But now with theory I don't have to wait to be in a creative mood to write melodies, usually just doing random things with chord progressions with a simple good-sounding pad will spark my interest and give me an idea of what I want to produce.
tl;dr: Learn theory and push out of your comfort zone. |
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| aNYthing |
| So, is there a trick to getting started with music theory? some shortcut to grasp it? It just such a ing pain remembering it all. Perhaps there's a program that teaches you music theory (not too expensive)... I hate music theory books and have several dozen of them - they all are dull and boring. |
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| Stef |
| quote: | Originally posted by ********
depends what you define talent as...
live die make music or don't, screw around if you don't know where to go, let reality decide. |
lol go back to CoR |
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| pwnage1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by aNYthing
So, is there a trick to getting started with music theory? some shortcut to grasp it? It just such a ing pain remembering it all. Perhaps there's a program that teaches you music theory (not too expensive)... I hate music theory books and have several dozen of them - they all are dull and boring. |
Learn it while playing it on a midi keyboard. |
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| RichieV |
i think alot of people dont realise is that music theory is just some system of representation. It isn't actually theory in the general sense of the word. Its just a system to represent musical pleasing esthetics. Even if you dont think you are learning theory , the fact that you organize sounds in your head someway is the same albeit usually inferior than established "theory".
Theory didn't really take form until some germans in the late 19th century put it down on paper in a concrete form and it has never really ever been entirely agreed upon. That isn't to say all the greats didn't have a way to represent the ideas because it is obvious they did. |
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| cryophonik |
| quote: | Originally posted by RichieV
i think alot of people dont realise is that music theory is just some system of representation. It isn't actually theory in the general sense of the word. Its just a system to represent musical pleasing esthetics. Even if you dont think you are learning theory , the fact that you organize sounds in your head someway is the same albeit usually inferior than established "theory".
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Nicely put - I should put that quote in my signature because my blood pressure goes up a notch every time I read posts referring to music theory as a "bunch of rules." ;) |
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| Sonic_c |
Try this
DFA
EGC
FAC
Chords I like them anyway its in D dorian so the Cmaj chord is actually a major 7th which is really nice.
Actually cryo richie? where would you take that little progression? it sounds unfinsihed and i dont know how to trance it up a bit lol for want of a better phrase. |
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| cryophonik |
| quote: | Originally posted by Sonic_c
Try this
DFA
EGC
FAC
Chords I like them anyway its in D dorian so the Cmaj chord is actually a major 7th which is really nice.
Actually cryo richie? where would you take that little progression? it sounds unfinsihed and i dont know how to trance it up a bit lol for want of a better phrase. |
It's really hard to distinguish that chord progression between Dmin and D Dorian because the sixth note (B) of the root scale isn't represented there. In other words, there is no chord containing a B to make it Dorian or Bb to make it minor. So, you could continue your stepwise ascension up to a Gmaj (IV) chord to establish it as Dorian, but that chord doesn't always resolve strongly back to a Dmin (i), so you may want to follow up the progression with an Amin (v chord), Amaj (V chord), or Cmaj (VII) chord, all of which would probably resolve back to the root chord (Dmin) better than the Gmaj would. Try them and see how they work in the context of your song. |
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