Breaking out of the 4 bar loop mindset

I’m a DT user and tend to use patterns to compose my song. Typically using one pattern for an intro, one for an outro, and a few in the middle for variety.

I’m messing around with online beat battles lately just for an excuse to experiment and consistently make and record tracks.

The one below was particularly helpful for addressing this problem. The rules of that battle was that you had choose from a variety of samples provided and had to switch up the beat/pattern/sample at least every 30 seconds. I still fall into the trap of not having enough variety, but this at least helped me to remain mindful of it.

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I’ve been writing in rapid fire lately and its working. Like I’ll quick make eight bars with the intention that I’ll have the main idea for a song done right there. Then I’ll do it again with slightly different sounds. The whole time I’m moving forward and spewing out possible song sections that are all related. After 4 or 5 sections an idea for an intro might hit me and yeah the arrangement can get worked out next but it keeps things moving!