8-Bit-Rex
Offline
Chepachet, Rhode Island

So a little while ago I saw a couple posts regarding the fact that one is never really "finished" with a song, but rather just putting it on the back burner for a while.  I completely agree with this concept and I think it would be a good idea to dedicate a thread to it. 

Post your strategies, secrets, mommy issues, etc...whatever you find helps you with reworking previously written music.

I use LSDJ (so far...checking into Beepola as well in the near future).
A thing I do a lot is clone a chain, say from the noise channel, then throw that bad boy into a Pulse channel.

...Okay, now hear me out.

As anyone who uses LSDJ would expect, it'll sound like completely horseshit.  But after changing instruments, messing around with all the different commands I can 9 times out of 10 create something that I'm impressed with. Cloning the noise over into a Pulse really helps make more phrases which are basically derivatives of previous ones, but can sound much different while still actually fitting.  It definitely helps vary up a song.

Heosphoros
Offline

I overplay my songs, get bored of them and throw them not on the back burner, but in the fireplace and wish they never come back to haunt me. Fuck my music.

Velathnos
Offline
Montreal, Canada
Heosphoros wrote:

I overplay my songs, get bored of them and throw them not on the back burner, but in the fireplace and wish they never come back to haunt me. Fuck my music.

Cheer up man. Your music is good!

As for the question, well, one thing I've learned over the year is to never keep things that you're not sure of. I mean, coming with new ideas isn't that hard, but coming with GOOD ideas is hard. If you keep things that are just "allright", then your songs will come back to haunt you.

danimal cannon
Offline
buffalo, NY

I overplay my songs and masturbate.  Constantly. 

I used to play D&D too.

Frostbyte
Offline
Velathnos wrote:
Heosphoros wrote:

I overplay my songs, get bored of them and throw them not on the back burner, but in the fireplace and wish they never come back to haunt me. Fuck my music.

Cheer up man. Your music is good!

As for the question, well, one thing I've learned over the year is to never keep things that you're not sure of. I mean, coming with new ideas isn't that hard, but coming with GOOD ideas is hard. If you keep things that are just "allright", then your songs will come back to haunt you.

That's a very very good point. I have a folder of old unfinished famitracker files that I hate to look through...maybe I should finally delete them so I stop looking through them haha.

kineticturtle
Offline
Matthew Joseph Payne

I never throw anything away, but I never listen to or look at any of my old ideas unless I'm stuck on something new. I often find something I can reuse.

roboctopus
Offline
Madison, Alabama

I actually just finished a track I started in LSDJ over a year ago and got frustrated with. I didn't look at until a week or so ago and remembered I really like the melodies, but the structure and everything was all wrong.  So I pulled it apart and tried the melody over different styles.  When I started, I wanted it to be this epic track--but it turned out it worked best as a disco tune.  It's not at all what it was like when I started it, but I'm happy with the end result.  So I find reconfiguring something in a different style helps me.

chunter
Offline
Brunswick, GA USA

Hitori Tori says that all his tunes are constructed from previously composed fragments:

And I once made this:
http://soundcloud.com/chunter/geocache-release-zero-mix

from this:
http://soundcloud.com/chunter/geocache-prototype-mix

But just as there is no real set pattern for where your ideas should come from (and you should be willing to mix things up all the time to keep your writing fresh) there are no rules for what to do with a revisited piece as long as you think the new piece is better.

An exercise I had to do once in school- remove one third from the song (you've written) that you like the most and record it that way.  Most people come out of the exercise liking the song better.  (Not recommended if you write like ant1, nothing personal.)

Velathnos
Offline
Montreal, Canada

I agree about everything that's been said. Just to clarify, what I meant was: never keep something that doesn't sound good in a song. Using old ideas is a common occurence, in my case at least.

8-Bit-Rex
Offline
Chepachet, Rhode Island

I find it interesting (and a little bit frustrating) when after listening to a tune after setting it aside for a week or so, there will 9 times out of 10 be  bits that produce a 'What the hell did I do here, and by the power of grayskull, why?'.  What was different a week ago that made me think 'This sounds rad!' ? 

Honestly...if you're confident in your writing, literally just setting a song aside for a bit to listen to later, and then not being lazy when listening to it again works.  I mean...it's not even a strategy really besides the whole 'Have at it again with a fresh mind.' kinda' thing.

I've always been interested in little techniques for writing music.  For example: Banging out an entire track in a hour/2hours/using just 2 channels/while grooming a panther, etc etc...

If anyone has any stuff like that they've tried before, please share it with the class.  You'll get a golden crocodile sticker which let's you pick from the candy jar at the end of the month!

e.s.c.
Offline
IL, US

I may be going back and mangling some of my old stuff in piggy tracker soon, but I usually move on, often by selling old gear so I can't play them anymore

Star Fighter Dreams
Offline
San Antonio, Texas

.......

Nevermind

Last edited by Star Fighter Dreams (Apr 8, 2011 6:33 pm)

chunter
Offline
Brunswick, GA USA

The opposite of "remove one-third of a song" is to take your favorite song and add a section to it.

You can give yourself any number of deliberate limits for creating a song, you can also make only one section or one fragment of a song and pass it to a friend to add the next bit (and so on,) or there are those gigantic module files that a dozen composers will pass around until they get sick of it or reach the pattern limit; I think I remember Brian Eno saying he had a drill where he'd make the band members exchange instruments- the key in all these drills is to make sure that you are uncomfortable in some way and that causes you to create something you wouldn't normally do.

Zef
Offline

I often throw wave channel patterns onto a pulse channel just to see what it sounds like. I've recently gone back and cleaned up several of my past songs too so I'll agree with you that they're not always finished.

4mat
Offline

I use my old tracks as sample sources for new tracks, eg Moonrock uses Anarchymenu1.mod cutup as it's main riff.

godinpants
Offline
hardcore, Australia

When I get stuck musically, I sample and chop up other peoples music and do crazy mastoid of things that are mostly me bashing about on my monome for an hour