I often read about people making music on here, finishing tracks, being concerned with finishing tracks and with being productive with their music making in general.
I think that’s totally alright, but I sort of realise that I can‘t relate to that much anymore, because more and more it‘s becoming about playing music for me (emphasis entirely on the act and moment itself) rather than making music (emphasis feels split between the act and the output).
I enjoy being in the moment with sound happening and evolving through my movements, inspirations, emotions and vice versa. And when it‘s done, it‘s done and gone.
I remember the tagline of this British/English band, The Bays, who play live and improvised exclusively: “the performance is the product.”
Thought I’d share as I’m finally coming to realise this, and with the realisation this need/pressure to “finish something” is subsiding massivley and I feel freer and more joyful with it all. I guess I say “pressure” because I’ve actually only been wanting to play music for a while, but somehow hadn’t realised there was a different intent at work there than the usual “I’ll make a song/track.” thing and so kept sort of approaching my instruments/studio with the unconscious expectation to finish something when actually I just want to play.
I fully agree, elektron devices totally changed my perspective in that matter, I prefer play the instrument as an instrument rather approach it as a daw timeline, whatever comes out comes out
I look forward to the day when I can play music, but while I’m still learning the ropes of my DAW and various synths I’m firmly in the ‘made not played’ camp.
I’ve been lucky in my life to get paid for writing sometimes. For me, with writing, one of the most compelling things is figuring out a structure that makes an interesting idea into a story that starts somewhere and goes somewhere else. Like… I love structure, I find it endlessly flexible and compelling.
This applies to music for me, too. I’ve learned not to pressure myself into Creating A Song but instead to get stoked on an idea or sound and then experiment until I find a way to take that sound or idea somewhere cool and then maybe somewhere else cool again, and so on. Sometimes that is a verse-chorus-verse structure, sometimes it’s not. But part of the fun for me is creating structures.
Of course nobody else has to approach it this way. It’s just how I like to do it.
i love playing music but kinda hate the fact that i’ve never finished a song i’m 100% proud of. it feels important to have some great output when your whole life is about music.
One thing I find funny is people ask what kind of ‘tracks are you producing’. Being a producer is a pretty specific thing, I don’t really hang out in mastering suites or spend all day mixing and cutting waveforms. I agree it’s become more about setting up the conditions to play a piece or performance, whether with one or just a few pieces of equipment. I don’t consider myself a producer at all, all of that stuff is pretty alien to me and in the end I probably pick up synths a little bit like guitar, running a few lines as if through a looper, to explore a musical concoction.
Even the notion of musical ‘ideas’ I find a bit rich - as if there is some ideation phase about some conceptual insight you will then make concrete. Rather, the playing remains exploratory, and through playing one discovers the interconnect of the elements that lands as the music.
Dude, this speaks to me. And I believe there is a major shift happening right now. Due to overproduced tracks and countless “finished” AI tracks I am also not that interessted anymore in something that went through “pipelines” to become a product. Not making it myself nor consuming it. Playing guitar and piano myself shifting to electronic stuff always had that feeling of of not beeing in the same kind of moment because you are more producing than playing. It always came from a place of expecting the stuff I was doing to sound a certain way, so they had to be pushed.
I think performing and playing. Not being produced will be back. I really like those Youtube stuff where people do that and I don´t need those “Songs” produced all the way.
For myself, I see the difference more between producing and perfoming music. I used to produce music, sitting down with a 4/8/16-track deck, or a DAW, recording bits and pieces, and refining everything until I thought it’s “finished”. Of course I jammed a lot to get ideas, but the end result was always a production where I could go back and change a tiny detail but leave all the rest intact.
These days I am more interested in performing music. I still have distinct musical pieces that take shape and evolve over time, and sometimes I even record them to see what can be improved, but I have no desire to polish or post-produce anything. Eventually I will be able to perform some of these pieces well enough so that I can release a live recording. That’s as far as it goes for me.
The key to make this work for me is a sequencer that makes structure performable, and a setup where I can to recall a piece on multiple synths and effects very little effort, almost as fast as a pianist digging a piece out of a stack of notes. I can decide on a whim to revisit a piece, or to start something new. I’m not looking back to clicking my mouse 24/7.
I can relate as I spent most of my life with that type of cavalier attitude towards music. It’s always been fun but at the end of the day I’d rather have something to show than to describe what I did, and if I’m going to show something I’d rather feel proud of what that is.
I’m of the camp that says you should enjoy both facets, but work more on whichever you have less confidence in. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that
Totally get this. Fast realising that my main criteria for instruments is that I want to ‘play’ them and not just use them to produce songs.
However, somewhat ironically, this approach has led to me actually finishing more tracks, as I now just press record on logic and then play my synths for 5 mins and see what’s at the end.
It’s the main reason I sold a bunch of stuff to purchase the solar 42f. I sometimes regret it, but it’s like my guitars, it makes me play it and doesn’t repeat anything back to me, so I’m forced to be in the moment which I enjoy.
I guess I see it as more ‘performance rather than production’, and of course that is the way music was played and enjoyed for thousands of years before we came along. Audio recordings of music are still a relatively recent thing, so it’s certainly a more than valid approach and we wouldn’t lose sight of that. Musical performances that exit in the moment only have a very definite magic to them in my opinion.
What i love about this forum, is that there are so many skill levels here, and as time goes on, you see everyone come to the same destination with the acceptance of being a musician…
I blame record labels and marketing that infer a false sense of gatekeeping about what music truly is…
meanwhile, music is literarily everything… from a little girl banging pots and pans to a full symphony… a dude whistling while walking down the block…
That’s the beauty of music for me. I can approach it like a carefully crafting mathematician or like a chaotically rampaging maniac. And everything in between and apart from that.
I like diving deep down in nerdy sound design just as much as playing a groovy bassline for 10 minutes.
Sometimes i feel like making music and sometimes i prefer playing music. I could never choose just one.
But i know the feeling of having to finish tracks or an album very well. Actually right now i’m in a phase where i kind of learn again to enjoy the sound in the moment versus the idea of getting stuff done and rushing things to get a track finished.
I struggle with this so bad. I think a big part is there might be a lot of unlearning of what a premeditated composition can do, and the willingness to improvise within the available tools.
I’m just reading Rick Rubin’s book The Creative Act: A Way of Being. These paragraphs are kind of relevant to this discussion:
By conventional definition, the purpose of art is to create physical and digital artifacts. To fill shelves with pottery, books, and records.
Though artists generally aren’t aware of it, that end work is a by-product of a greater desire. We aren’t creating to produce or sell material products. The act of creation is an attempt to enter a mysterious realm. A longing to transcend.
What we create allows us to share glimpses of an inner land-scape, one that is beyond our understanding. Art is our portal to the unseen world.
Interesting topic for me as a new M8 user. My brain is overloaded trying to understand how to navigate the M8. Forget about me having any spontaneous musical ideas while the thing is in my hands. Yesterday I worked on a set of accompaniments of scales in broken thirds for the violin. First I sat down at the piano and played around with some harmonies until I had a general idea of what I wanted. Once I moved to the M8, however, I couldn’t stay focused on that idea, because the implementation was taking too large a cognitive load.
I think this situation is going to improve as I build my skills on the M8. The question is, how much will it improve? It’s as if either my left brain or my right brain is going to take all the available oxygen, leaving none for the other hemisphere. My experience with the M8 currently resides firmly in the procedural, left-brain realm.
People talk about “clicking” with a certain piece of equipment or workflow. I certainly have yet to “click” with the M8, but I think clicking, for me, may be about finding that balance between the left brain and right brain, between “making” and “playing” music. Not one or the other; both.
I have phases but do this as well, i think it’s a great way to actually finish music too because I really enjoy just playing without any pressure and then curating later… unless deadlines be a knockin
Rachmaninov said he never played the same. It was always improvised. He couldnt see the point of reproducing music always played the same. He said art is about improvisation and spontaneity.
