To what extent do you make the music you listen to?

I don’t mean “do you listen to your own music?” but more - how much of the music you listen to actually sounds like the music you make (and is that intentional)?

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In B4 the flag :wink:

Do you make music that you enjoy listening to or do you make music that you enjoy making? - #80 by darenager

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Not as a rule but I do like browsing through the snippets I have on my phone just as evidence that I actually do make stuff with all that gear.

The only thing I listen to daily is a thing I made that I use as an alarm tone. I have video evidence but zero recollection of making it - I think I was just mucking around with an iPad synth and later thought hey this wouldn’t be too bad to wake up to.

Edit: I completely misread the topic and have answered the part you specifically said you weren’t asking haha. In reality I listen to so many different styles of music that I don’t know where I would start trying to make any of it. I did once write a guitar based song that a friend took to completion on an EP he recorded. It got comments that it sounded like a band in a similar genre to the one I was aiming to emulate.

I find with guitar based music I’m generally much more inspired towards emulation, but synth based music I’m at much more of a loss for which way to go.

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Ah, thank you! What’s the best course of action - abandon this? Delete it? Carry on regardless and wait for them to magically merge? :smiley:

None. I listen to Boston hardcore, death metal and IDM. I make ambient piano music and shit pop songs.

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For my personal projects, i only make the music that i like listening to (house, minimal, deep, funky)

For clients I’ll make the stuff i would never listen to (like melodic techno/house, afro house, tropical house, progressive house).

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yes. I really like most of it

It would be closer if I could do it better :upside_down_face: It’s very intentional

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I’d say it sounds like stuff I listen to but I also try and make stuff that sound’s different though influenced by it if that makes sense. Also I DJ out and would usually drop stuff I’m working on to test it out and can easily find other tracks to mix in and out of it so even if sounding different they have a similar vibe

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: )

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Always an interesting topic!

I’ve started to make an effort recently to try and make more of the music I listen to - I’d really like to be putting out stuff more like, say, Burial.

Whenever I try I end up in a different space but I’m finding it’s good for discipline.

I only really buy breakbeat or hip hop - all my released stuff is cinematic synthy stuff and most of my recent work is some kind of combination of acid/techno or mixed genre EDM, which I never buy or listen to.

My most successful intersection of taste and output has been dub techno which I have a separate artist set up for and I hope to have an album out some point this year (although I’ve slipped with that goal a bit).

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I re-watched the Library Music Film recently and have been listening to nothing but library stuff for weeks now. I never really thought about it before but there’s an extent to which I’m always aiming for something like the drummier (not a word; should be) end of things. I ostensibly make hip-hop but don’t seem to meet the expectations of people who listen to what I do with “hip-hop” in mind.

There are definitely people whose work really resonates with what I make (Mr. Chop, Drumetrics, Mophono, Son Of A Bricklayer etc) but because I haven’t found a load of it I tend to over listen to it and sort of kill it a bit.

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I feel like there are pieces of all kinds of things I listen to embedded in the music I make (some more deeply embedded than others). Often it isn’t until after I’ve started down a path that I realize I’m emulating something, or trying to integrate something from somewhere else. And, with hope, those emulations/integrations aren’t straight-up rip-offs of something else. :slight_smile: There’s always an interesting tension (the productive kind, mostly) between making deliberate choices about how to approach an idea, and letting things flow and fall out where they will as the work progresses – keeping things organized and contained so they don’t get overwhelming while maintaining the space and flexibility for happy accidents.

It’s hard to say if someone else could identify a relationship between the music I like to listen to and the music I make, but to my ears at least, it’s all part of the same continuum. I can’t approach most of the stuff I really enjoy for all of the usual reasons (lack of technical ability on certain instruments, being lower on the learning curve with a lot of stuff, etc.), and I’m often surprised by the connections other people make between what I put out and what it reminds them of, which is actually awesome – I love being surprised by that, and it’s like a whole new path to explore. What’s always satisfying to hear from someone whose more familiar with what I do when I play them something new is that it sounds like something I would make.

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I probably listen to metal more than any other genre, but while I’ve made a few metal albums, it’s not my main style. I’d love to write more though, maybe with someone else on vocals.

I tend to go through phases of wanting to write in various genres, and sometimes follow through, but rarely for more than a song or two. I’m planning to alleviate this by making a “compilation” where all of the bands are just me and various guest musicians writing songs in different styles, like the soundtrack to an imaginary skate game.

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While my music is definitely a product of all the music i listen to, i think its kind of its own thing.

all the time! i love it! it takes on more meaning to me as it ages too, what with all the connections to times and places and spaces in my life.

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Not very much. My music collection is vast, and I like lots of different styles. I dont make metal, northern soul, folk, punk, 60s psyche, Motown etc. I dont listen to much electronic stuff at all really, but the stuff I do listen to no doubt influences me. Does my music sound like that stuff? I dont think so, I think its different. Others might disagree.

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I agree with this a lot. In my head I can identify that X part of a track might be something where I was thinking about a particular Tangerine Dream sound and Y might be a technique derived from an idea I had when watching an interview with The Books etc. I guess I probably subconsciously magpie parts from everywhere to the point where I have a nest full of different elements, the origin of most of which I couldn’t really place

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I enjoy making the most what I also enjoy listening to the most. Currently psytrance/ambient and some synthwave, in the past hiphop/rap.

I also listen to other genres, mostly metal, but I’m having much more fun with synths than guitars so… :slight_smile:

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I listen to about 40% metalcore, 40% dance/electronic stuff (Fred Again, Burial, Field etc) and about 20% stuff from my yoof.

Musically, after 20 years focussing on guitar music, I made a conscious decision to leave guitars behind as I lost interest in the whole shebang and had a 5 year break & wasn’t sure what to do next. In my head I wanted to focus on the Burial/Field vibe but hillariously what comes out is more like standard 4/4 house & pop dance stuff. So yeah I guess I do make music that I listen to, even if that deviates from what I think I want to make.

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A person of excellent taste

Many disagree, but thanks - I’ll take it :joy: :pray:

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