El Huesudo II
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danimal cannon wrote:

DEADLINES.

SOMEHOW INVENT THEM IF THEY DONT EXIST. Ex: Weekly Beats, Compos, etc

This is sound advice for people who own their own schedule. However, there are some of us who often get reminded that school or the day job often require you (and tell you outright) that you dedicate yourself entirely to them, or else. Otherwise, you might be the kind of person who sets tight deadlines, takes ambitious projects only to later realize you bit off more than you can chew, or are more defeatist than the rest of the people.

Deadlines, then, are not for you.

In that case, well... I can't guarantee 100% success yet because I'm merely starting to try it out, but keep a checklist of things you want to try to practice in a whole month. Yes, keep it to a month - you can even use a calendar. Divide your main goal in lots of VERY SMALL goals, and commit yourself to them in tiny timeslots (think 15 minutes); use as may days as you want for each mini-goal.

At times you'll notice that you're unable (for any reason) to fulfill the practice time on a certain day... It's OK! Just don't mark it on the calendar that day, that's all. At the end of the month, check how many times you could practice. Say, 20 out of 30 days, sessions of 15 minutes? That's 10 hours of practice on the month. Your goal for the next month is to do more than that.

People who already have solid practice or work routines could tell you "isn't that too slow?". Yes, it is slow, but the point is to actually do as much as you can manage to do. Say you're only able to pull off 6 10 minute sessions in March. Only one full hour of practice seems like almost nothing, but let's be honest here - if you weren't at least committing yourself to the tiny daily sessions, would you have had any practice time on March? I've only been able to practice guitar for 103 minutes so far this month; but if I weren't using this system, I'd have 0 practice under my belt.

So do as much as you can in as much time as it takes. It's not gonna feel like it was "too slow" once time has passed and you realize you mastered an instrument and released 3 or 4 albums on Bandcamp (or your platform of choice).

Believe me, I'm not the kind of guy who can benefit from goals and deadlines. I mean, I said I was gonna learn more about music and more about tech and more about... when I was 17. I'm 28 and I've only now started. I don't want to be 35 years old and look back to see I've still "only just started".

Last edited by El Huesudo II (Feb 20, 2015 3:58 am)

chunter
Offline
Brunswick, GA USA
El Huesudo II wrote:
danimal cannon wrote:

DEADLINES.

SOMEHOW INVENT THEM IF THEY DONT EXIST. Ex: Weekly Beats, Compos, etc

This is sound advice for people who own their own schedule. However, there are some of us who often get reminded that school or the day job often require you (and tell you outright) that you dedicate yourself entirely to them, or else. Otherwise, you might be the kind of person who sets tight deadlines, takes ambitious projects only to later realize you bit off more than you can chew, or are more defeatist than the rest of the people.

Deadlines, then, are not for you.

Not necessarily, if you can recognize that missing one of those deadlines isn't the end of life, but there lies the rub...

El Huesudo II wrote:

In that case, well... I can't guarantee 100% success yet because I'm merely starting to try it out, but keep a checklist of things you want to try to practice in a whole month. Yes, keep it to a month - you can even use a calendar. Divide your main goal in lots of VERY SMALL goals, and commit yourself to them in tiny timeslots (think 15 minutes); use as may days as you want for each mini-goal.

I do this though I don't commit to paper anymore.

Although I suggested and I'm fairly sure I need compo deadlines to keep steady, I have my day job and typed half of this to the sound of my daughter screaming as she felt exhausted but refused to do something about it by going to sleep.

Sometimes I get a lot done, sometimes I can't do anything, but I know I might have a better day tomorrow.

Maybe the time will come that I can never do this stuff again- but that thought helps me keep going too. I'll do as much as I can until I can't, and in the meantime I already have a big back catalog.

BitFlourish
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Atlanta, GA

My main motivator is my calendar. I've got a streak of crossed out dates that say "every day, I make at least one thing" and that can also mean "today I made progress on a thing I'm working on" so if I stopped, I'd feel pretty horrible for letting myself down. Bit of a simple mind trick, but it's worked for me so far!

Sesska
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France (au milieu)

ah, the monthly ''chip-metaphysics''... been missing these smile

Invisible Robot Hands
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Playboy Man-Baby

sandneil
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El Huesudo II wrote:

In that case, well... I can't guarantee 100% success yet because I'm merely starting to try it out, but keep a checklist of things you want to try to practice in a whole month. Yes, keep it to a month - you can even use a calendar. Divide your main goal in lots of VERY SMALL goals, and commit yourself to them in tiny timeslots (think 15 minutes); use as may days as you want for each mini-goal.

thumbs up to this, i do this one too and it works well

metatronaut
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Chips & Dip :3

I recently started a "4 chains+" a day tactic and so far it's working very well! Keeps me busy and working!

Sesska
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France (au milieu)

i've (at last) finished the backlight/pro sound modd, thinking it would ''help to get into it''...

been playing Zelda and Street fighter for a week or so instead... x /

kuzimoto
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Haha, same for me. I finished a ton of mods for my CBG and a PS/2 keyboard adapter but I still can't find the motivation to try learning LSDj more. It's really cool and I've figured out a couple neat sounds, but for some reason can't put together a decent track. I want it to be perfect right off the bat, because I have a lot of ideas but don't know LSDj well enough to make the sounds and arrange the music properly. I was in band for like 7 years so I know a ton of music theory and all that but I'm so lazzzyyyyyyy,

Sesska
Offline
France (au milieu)

héhé, kuzimoto is my hidden (evil) lsdj twin smile)

LazierGunz
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Cleveland, Ohio

There is a lot of good advise here, these are very common struggles for a lot of musicians it seems. I myself have "cyclothymic disorder" according to pros, which is like a weird mild bi-polar-ish depression. So in the case that things I've learned from this can be useful to anyone here, I've listed some things that best help me stay productive:

Regular exercise (cardio / "core" is best). I try to do two 20 min sessions a day.

Diet. I eat a lot of high energy veggies. Avoid things that will make you feel terrible, and avoid eating too much at one time.

Maintaining a to-do list. It is really difficult to get back on track if you let it grow on you. I recommend using a to-do list app for everything. There are ones like Habit RPG that give you level points for doing things, which is pretty fun.

Keeping your environment clean and organized at all times. Seriously, this makes you feel constantly productive, ready for creating things, socially appealing, and positive about yourself image.

Leaving the house during times you are prone to feel unproductive. Schedule time to be at a coffee shop to work on a laptop / gameboy, or just to read / meet a friend. Schedule this time early in the morning on days off, or whenever you're likely to fall into the trap of feeling overwhelmed by things you want to be doing. It kickstarts your momentum, and gives you some scheduling to work within.

ABC: Always Binge Coffee.  This is more of a personal choice, but personally I feel way better after some coffee.


As for Music: When you sit down to make music, try to avoid focusing on your equipment, sounds, patches, VST effects, setups, etc. Just try and make a simple skeleton to a song, focus on making beats, tunes and chord progressions without spending too much time on production. I fall into this trap all the time, after I've spent hours finding new VST effects, and testing all of them, I realize I haven't made anything and lose interest. Starting with songwriting gives you a much clearer direction, and leads to much more meaningful tweaking.


That all said, I fail at these things pretty often and get off track, but having the above advise helps me know how to get back on track. I'm still trying to get myself to make something for Weekly Beats...

Anyway, lets all dominate this sheep year with tons of productivity and releases!

SurfaceDragon
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USA

Going to live shows really helps motivate me. Playing live also helps because it forces you to either want to improve the songs your playing or make more songs/sound that others can be affected emotionally or inspired by. I also like to record my practice sessions because when I play them back it helps me find what works and what doesn't so that I have some idea of where I might want to focus on next instead of doing the same things over and over again. Having your instrument on your person or easily accessible also seems to be something that has helped me personally grow as an artist and as a human.

I haven't been on chipmusic.org in a while but this thread has really inspired me to work on my chipmusic, pixel art stuff, a few other things that I've been meaning to do for a while. Thank you guys so much!

Now I just need to self motivate myself to gain more knowledge, wealth, happiness, good health and meaningful relationships then I'd be set.

Last edited by SurfaceDragon (Feb 20, 2015 6:09 pm)

kuzimoto
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Sesska wrote:

héhé, kuzimoto is my hidden (evil) lsdj twin smile)

Indeed wink

And thanks LazierGunz for that post. I think it brings up a lot of nice things to think about. I definitely need a to-do list. I'm so scatter-brained that it's definitely hard to keep track of things I need to remember.

ShintarouMusic
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Boise, ID

An energy drink or two helps motivate me and create more than anything ;p

Saskrotch
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Chicago IL

Adderall

Dire Hit
Offline
Seattle, WA
Saskrotch wrote:

Adderall

Before I first started Vyvance I had no idea how to use FL Studio. At the end of the day I had a pretty ok song. This is a good indicator of how poorly I was able to focus before I was diagnosed, especially considering I had owned FL for 2 years at that point.

Basically my system is to always try to write something. You're never going to regret booting up lsdj and messing around for 15 minutes, and if you do that every day you're going to hit that magical "wow I wrote that" feeling (the one that allows you to write a song in 1 sitting) more often than if you only write on a whim. Worst case scenario you don't get anything special out of it, but that's ok. Most of the time you're going to either figure out something new or at least get a cool loop that you can incorporate into a song when you switch on "wow I wrote that" mode. I don't think there's any point in forcing yourself to continue a song you're not feeling, but if you at least try to make something on a regular basis you don't have to force it. Give it a shot often enough and you'll write more because of frequency. Don't let not getting anything useful get you down and start writing less, just make yourself give it a shot maybe 10 minutes a day and then decide whether to continue.

Here are some things I do that help me improve and be productive:

- Write in a different style: Think Roboctopus is a pretty cool guy even though you write hard house or whatever? Maybe you should write with whatever physical instrument you have nearby in mind. Try writing what you think someone you admire would write; chances are it won't be the same, but the point is to step outside your comfort zone and maybe you find something you didn't know you were good at.

- Copy down something cool from a song you like: Man, that arp in the backgroud of X is neat, I wonder if I can recreate that. Maybe I'll try to put the bassline in next, make a mistake, decides it sounds cool and different, and roll with it. You like music and probably want to write music that you like, so if you borrow something you know you like it gives you a starting point to create something new. Most of the time when I do this I don't even end up using the borrowed part in the final song. (I'm not suggesting you straight lift a melody off someone, but try taking a drumbeat or chord progression in a different way than the original song did. Plagarism is not ok, tasteful sampling is.)

- Write outside of the DAW you plan to produce the finished song in: Every so often I like to leave netflix running on another monitor and mess around with a piano VST in FL Studio to see if I can write something before I need to worry about what sounds to use. This never feels like a waste of time because it's always at least entertaining, and sometimes it's really helpful to not worry about what sounds you're going to use, so writing with something you for sure know isn't going to be in the finished product can be very freeing.

This is a subset of the previous one: download some new software. There is a deep well of free tracker software on the internet, and you're never going to run out of things to try. I can recommend Arkos Tracker specifically, it comes with a ton of demo songs to dissect (Even some 8bc era Ultrasyd!) and it's simple enough to pick up in a few minutes.

- Know when to walk away: Sometimes you're just not going to get anything useful done, and this is ok. Writers block happens to everyone and if trying to punch through it doesn't work there's no shame in just taking a 2 or 3 day break to come back with fresh ears and a positive attitude. I've broken a lot more songs through over-editing than I've fixed, so I'm very wary about continuing when I'm no longer making progress. You can just let future you deal with that riff that can't seem to fit any chords, or that patch that sounds amazing but you can't seem to write with.

This stuff is all I really do when I'm having trouble. If you're like me and can't write well while actively trying to, these might help a bit. I can't make it dark and stormy, but I can make sure I have the diabolical contraption ready when lightning strikes.