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Workflow - Michael Willis - 01-04-2017
I'm curious what kind of composition workflows other people practice. I know this is a really general question, but I really mean the start-to-finish mechanics of coming up with musical ideas, capturing them in some kind of draft, recording, and producing a finished audio file.
For example, lately my habit is to start by playing the piano without a DAW open, only pencil and blank music notation paper available. I'll explore chord progressions and melodies, and if something strikes me as interesting, I'll write just enough of it on paper that I can remember it later. I usually don't even start using a DAW until I have a number of ideas written down that fit together in some way, because historically I've found that if I open up the DAW first, I end up looking at a blank project on the screen for some amount of time before I admit that it killed my creativity.
I traditionally have done step-entry in a midi sequences, but I'm trying to practice live recording more. This morning I was considering that it might be a good experiment to force myself to live-record EVERYTHING, even harmonic parts consisting of simple whole notes. It could certainly be more spontaneous, and the idea kind of terrifies me, but that's probably an indication that it's a good idea.
Something that I'd like to try is writing a harmonic part, then having the DAW loop over the harmony multiple times while recording improvised melody, and then keeping recorded phrases that I like.
How much do people quantize parts after recording them? Do you find that some styles of play are better left not quantized? Sometimes I'll play a flowing piano melody with parts that subtly slow down and speed up for expression, but I haven't ever tried capturing anything like this in a DAW; I have this irrational idea that I would have to some how line up the DAW's concept of tempo with the flowing tempo that I played on the piano... surely there is an elegant way to capture such melodies with flowing tempos, and admittedly it probably doesn't require the DAW to know about such things.
I've found it easier to keep the momentum going if I don't endlessly go back and edit existing material. If I listen to something too many times, it gets boring and I quickly lose interest in the project. With that said, I understand that finishing music requires several iterations, so I'm wondering how other people push through that? Do you have several projects that you work on at one time, so that you can switch context after listening and editing the same thing too many times? Or do you find some way to discipline yourself and finish one thing before starting the next?
RE: Workflow - tonaliszt - 01-04-2017
Like you I also start at the piano. Sometimes that piano is in my DAW, other times it is a real piano. I write down melodies, chord progressions, ideas, motifs, tempo/bpm, all on staff paper.
I then go into a new DAW session setup for my modular template, and sketch out the form of the piece on a piano, by playing a few measures at a time. I am able to get the main melody and accompaniments down, and it helps me write quickly, without getting bogged down in mockups and mixing.
I then play in all the parts live (the piano lessons paid off!), and do some edits only after I've gotten through the whole thing. I will often make up countermelodies and orchestrational devices that are separate from previous thoughts at this time. Occasionally I will go back and revise the piano "structure" track, and repeat the steps in this paragraph with the new material.
After that's done, I like to take a break, (maybe listen to a reference track), and then do the mix, and when necessary, a quick master.
That being said, I'm always looking to quicken the workflow, and am looking forward to hearing from others.
RE: Workflow - Samulis - 01-04-2017
As I am a rather rubbish pianist, my general technique is to sit in front of Finale and plug away at a few ideas via step entry- sometimes I play them on the keyboard before entering. It totally depends on what I am doing- sometimes the chord progression comes first, other times it's the melody and I'm coming up with harmonies. Virtually everything I do is without forethought or planning, just spur-of-the-moment improvised "problem solving". I hear a piece and then I hear what should be added to it, going through again and again until it has written itself and then I consider it done. It is sort of like having someone sitting behind you backseat driving as you compose blindfolded (although sometimes they are very depressing about what you are doing and nothing gets done).
I also don't use templates. Well, I do have a template that has 10 tracks open in advance, but none of them have instruments loaded. I just pick what I need when I need it and load it up.
When I write for real ensembles, my technique is somewhat different. I often work a bit more formally, but again, lots of improvised "problem-solving". My philosophy of music creation is that the human conscious is infinitely less powerful and music-savvy than the subconscious, and that the best music comes when the conscious is shut out of the process of creation and left rather to "taste test" the progress of the subconscious- very much like how you both play at piano and take notes of things that strike you (or your conscious) as cool.
RE: Workflow - Otto Halmén - 01-04-2017
I'd like to add a step which now sits in my workflow permanently: The core idea.
The core idea is simply something that goes like "I'm going to write a song that [......]".
From there, the next step is considering the elements of music, i.e:
- melody
- harmony
- rhythm
- timbre
- voicing
- etc. (this list is not exactly universal)
This is the unscientific personal part. What type of harmony, what types of progressions, slow melody + fast harmony (or vice versa), countermelodies, instrumentation, minimal or maximal, etc. What supports the idea? I don't keep a written document on this or anything, but I often spend a good while thinking about this (and trying out things on the keyboard) before I get to the actual writing.
After the core idea, I don't have a workflow set in stone. Some parts get conceived on pen and paper, others on-the-fly when recording. Sometimes I compose first (e.g. using a piano staff or track) and orchestrate separately, other times I'll just dive right in.
EDIT: I moved this thread to Composition.
RE: Workflow - Paul Battersby - 01-04-2017
(01-04-2017, 12:01 AM)Michael Willis Wrote: I'm curious what kind of composition workflows other people practice.
Because I add accompaniment, I have the luxury of beginning with someone else's chord progression, tempo and song structure, but some of my workflow might still be relevant to others.
(01-04-2017, 12:01 AM)Michael Willis Wrote: I have this irrational idea that I would have to some how line up the DAW's concept of tempo with the flowing tempo that I played on the piano...
I like to work with a grid lines and bar lines in my DAW so for songs that did not follow a click track, I tempo match. This means I make the grid lines in my DAW line up with the tempo of the song. I don't need to change the song tempo, I change the DAW's tempo to dynamically follow the song.
(01-04-2017, 12:01 AM)Michael Willis Wrote: How much do people quantize parts after recording them
I do not quantize anything - not even percussion, BUT I will correct bad timing by dragging a waveform or MIDI note close to a grid line. That way, I get good timing without it being artificially sounding perfect timing. My aim when dragging with the mouse towards a grid line won't be perfect so the timing won't be perfect, just like a real performance.
I don't worry about working on the song linearly. If the first idea I have is for the last bar of the song, then I'll go ahead and record that idea. I embrace inspiration when it occurs. I'll work through a song haphazardly adding music wherever I get ideas and then add more music to connect the various ideas that I've already recorded.
I will often loop a chorus or a verse or even just a few bars and let it repeat over and over again as I play along to it until I like what I'm playing and I can play it well, then I'll record it. If I make a mistake while recording, since for me it's almost always MIDI, I can just correct it in the editor later.
If I'm recording guitar (so not MIDI), I'll loop a section and record 10 versions in a row without stopping, of me playing the guitar for that section. From those 10 takes, I'll slice and dice to get the best performance combination. Maybe the first bar from take 5, the next 3 bars from take 2 and then the rest from take 9.
(01-04-2017, 12:01 AM)Michael Willis Wrote: I traditionally have done step-entry in a midi sequences, but I'm trying to practice live recording more
I use a combination of MIDI recording a performance and entering notes with a mouse to create my parts. I may play chords using a strings sound, then go back and add some passing notes, or extra rhythm by drawing in extra notes with the midi editor in my DAW. Or I might record a MIDI performance and then using the mouse, add, move or remove notes as I see fit.
(01-04-2017, 12:01 AM)Michael Willis Wrote: I open up the DAW first, I end up looking at a blank project on the screen for some amount of time before I admit that it killed my creativity.
One solution to that is simply just let the DAW begin recording and do what you'd normally do but without the paper. Just play around, experiment. If you have something you like, perhaps note the time code but don't worry about recording lots of unusable playing around or even lots of silence. You can just delete the unwanted stuff later.
RE: Workflow - Mattias Westlund - 01-05-2017
I don't really have a fixed or even vaguely defined workflow... I like to play around with different instruments (and combinations of instruments), articulations, chords, scales, modes and whatnot, and before long something interesting usually pops up. My piano playing skills are not much to write home about so I've never been able to rough things out with just a piano sound. I just use a big project template with everything I might need, and then experiment from there.
As for quantization, I usually use somehwere between 50% and 75% on stuff like percussion and staccato instruments, so as not to make rhythmic parts a big slop-fest. Sustain samples and solo instruments I rarely if ever quantize at all.
RE: Workflow - Michael Willis - 01-05-2017
I am surprised at how markedly different all of the responses are from each other! Really though, I shouldn't be, it's obvious in retrospect that every musician has some way (or lack of a specific way in the case of Mattias?) that works for them.
The first time I became aware of this was during my teenage years when I started playing keyboard along with a guitarist. I came from a background of playing clarinet in school band for years. I really had it carved into my head that we needed to have our music written down in some fashion. I thought "How in blazing thunder are you supposed to play music as a group when you don't have anything written down?"
The guitarist's take was the diametric opposite: just let each musician play however and whatever they want in a jam session, and occasionally you'll strike something together that you really like. He really opened my eyes to a much more free-form style of composition.
(01-04-2017, 03:03 PM)Otto Halmén Wrote: EDIT: I moved this thread to Composition.
Aww, I was hoping to bump off that "Am I the only one..." thread, I guess I'll have to find something even more general and yet still on topic
RE: Workflow - Mattias Westlund - 01-05-2017
(01-05-2017, 09:48 PM)Michael Willis Wrote: I really had it carved into my head that we needed to have our music written down in some fashion. I thought "How in blazing thunder are you supposed to play music as a group when you don't have anything written down?"
Coming from a rock/metal guitar background myself, I can't fathom why anyone would want to write music down. I mean sure, notes that help you remember chord changes, lyrics and song structure, yeah. But the actual notes you play? Completely incomprehensible to me, but of course these are two totally different disciplines of music. I rely on memorizing things, which I've become really damn good at over the years, while others rely on visual cues written down in beforehand -- and they've become equally good at just reading and playing the stuff.
Edit: obviously I haven't memorized every single thing played in every virtual orchestra piece I've ever composed... I was talking more about playing something on an actual instrument.
RE: Workflow - peastman - 01-06-2017
My approach is somewhat like Samulis'. Everything starts in a notation program. (These days I mostly use MuseScore.) I begin with a general idea of the structure of the piece I want to write, and maybe some melodic fragments, or maybe just an idea of how I want it to feel. Then I fiddle around on the keyboard, trying out ideas for the next measure or the next few measures. When I find something I like, I start plunking notes onto the score, and experimenting with different orchestrations, and agonizing over every note. Once I'm happy with it, I go on to the next measure. As you can imagine, this is a very slow process.
Once the whole piece is written, I export it as a MIDI file and import it into a DAW (Logic Pro in my case). And then I spend hours polishing the performance, tweaking the velocities of individual notes and tiny changes in tempo and things like that. Again, very slow, but what can I say? It works for me. I've tried composing directly in a DAW, but quickly gave up. It just didn't match the way I interact with music.
RE: Workflow - Samulis - 01-06-2017
(01-06-2017, 05:32 AM)peastman Wrote: My approach is somewhat like Samulis'. Everything starts in a notation program. (These days I mostly use MuseScore.) I begin with a general idea of the structure of the piece I want to write, and maybe some melodic fragments, or maybe just an idea of how I want it to feel. Then I fiddle around on the keyboard, trying out ideas for the next measure or the next few measures. When I find something I like, I start plunking notes onto the score, and experimenting with different orchestrations, and agonizing over every note. Once I'm happy with it, I go on to the next measure. As you can imagine, this is a very slow process.
Once the whole piece is written, I export it as a MIDI file and import it into a DAW (Logic Pro in my case). And then I spend hours polishing the performance, tweaking the velocities of individual notes and tiny changes in tempo and things like that. Again, very slow, but what can I say? It works for me. I've tried composing directly in a DAW, but quickly gave up. It just didn't match the way I interact with music.
It is funny, we work so similarly, but I rarely can invest more than two hours total in a piece before boredom drives me to complete it. Most of my pieces take between 2-4 hours max. Once I did as little as 20 minutes, but that was a satirical "sappy strings" piece which ended up getting used in a bunch of games and animations, but that's another story for another time, hahaha.
Edit: Of course, I later revisited the idea as a demo for VSCO 2-
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/652265