Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers

2020·8.31 MB·english

by  Dennis DeSantis

Making Music
74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music
Producers
Dennis DeSantis
For Alison and Cecilia, who inspire everything I do.
Preface
What is this book?
For many artists, nothing inspires more existential terror than actually
making art. The fear that we’re not good enough or that we don’t know
enough results in untold numbers of creative crises and potential
masterpieces that never get realized.
Electronic musicians used to be able to hide behind clunky, emerging
technology as an excuse for inaction. But musicians today live in a
golden age of tools and technology. A ninety-nine-cent smartphone app
can give you the functionality of a million-dollar recording studio. A
new song can be shared with the world as soon as it’s finished. Tutorials
for every sound design or music production technique can be found
through a Google search. All of these developments have served to level
the playing field for musicians, making it possible for a bedroom
producer to create music at a level that used to be possible only for
major-label artists.
But despite all of this, making music is still hard. Why?
Making Music was written both to answer this question and to offer
ways to make it easier. It presents a systematic, concrete set of patterns
that you can use when making music in order to move forward.
Each pattern is presented in the following way:
>> A problem is stated. A problem is a roadblock that stops you from making progress with a
particular piece of music. The problems in this book are real-world situations—you’ll likely
recognize many of them as things that have held you back in the past. A problem might appear at
the beginning (e.g., you don’t know how to start), in the middle (e.g., you’ve created lots of
material but don’t know how to organize it), or near the end (e.g., you keep making changes and
can’t decide how to finish).
> The problem is explained in more detail via examples and (sometimes) references to other
patterns.
>> A solution is provided. A solution is a concrete instruction or small set of instructions that will
solve the stated problem. Like the problems, the solutions are also real; if you apply the solution,
the problem will be solved. Note that this requires you to actually do the solution; in most cases,
reading it won’t be enough to move you forward. Making Music can show you the way, but you
still need to do the work.
> The solution is explained in more detail via examples and (sometimes) references to other
patterns.
Who is this book for?
If you make original music using computers and you’ve ever found
yourself struggling to complete your musical projects, Making Music
was written for you. While many of the patterns discussed here can
probably be modified or directly applied to other types of music-making
(such as composing for rock bands or string quartets), the goal of this
book is to solve the specific problems that people have when working
with machines, rather than with instruments or other people.
While no prior skills are really necessary to make use of this book, I’ve
written it assuming you have a basic understanding of at least one digital
audio workstation (DAW) or similar music production environment. No
specific tool is required, and the problems and solutions discussed
aren’t specific to the workflow of any particular piece of technology. A
basic understanding of the fundamentals of music—chords, scales, and
concepts of rhythm—is useful but not a prerequisite.
Although it may not always be obvious, the patterns are all general
enough that they can be used by musicians working with any genre of
electronic music, from commercial dance music to the avant-garde.
Although some of the explanations used refer to actual genres or even
specific examples of music, I encourage you to read “around” these
descriptions in order to get at the essence of the pattern so that you can
apply it to your own work.
Who’s the author?
I am a musician with a background in a variety of different worlds. I
studied classical composition, music theory, and percussion, although
these days I primarily write electronic music in the direction of house
and techno. I grew up just outside of Detroit, and all of the amazing
music that came from and through that city was a big influence in my
early musical development. Although this book aims to be as genre-
neutral as possible, it’s very much written from my personal perspective
—the things I talk about here are a reflection of things I actually think
about and employ in my own music.
How to use this book
Think of Making Music as something like a travel guide. There’s no
explicit order to the patterns, although things tend to be loosely grouped
by concept. You can read and experiment with the various patterns as
you need them in order to solve particular problems as they come up in
your own work. Sometimes the patterns will explicitly relate to others,
and I often refer to other patterns to help clarify the current one. So
while it’s not necessary to read the whole book cover to cover, doing so
will probably help you to find relationships between the various patterns
and to see them as a system, rather than as isolated examples.
How this book is organized
The patterns themselves are grouped into sections based on where in the
writing process a particular musical problem is likely to occur. These
are:
>> Problems of beginning. These are problems that prevent you from starting at all. They include
problems of inspiration, problems realizing the sounds you hear in your head, etc. The solutions
include exercises to develop better active listening and explorations of various ways of playing
with sound, harmony, melody, rhythm, and musical form.
>> Problems of progressing. These are the most common roadblocks when working and occur once
you’ve made something but are still a long way from the end. They include problems of fatigue,
problems developing and varying material, etc. The solutions include exercises to generate new
material, shape song structure, and stay in the creative flow.
>> Problems of finishing. These problems occur when you feel that almost (but not quite) everything
is in place, but you are unable to reach a satisfactory conclusion. The solutions include ideas for
creating convincing arrangements and for creating powerful endings.
Why is this book needed?
There are already many ways—books, classes, video tutorials, software
documentation, private teachers—to learn about music technology and
music production. I’m a strong supporter of all of this, and I encourage
anyone who’s interested in this book to also take advantage of these
resources. But almost all of them focus on the second half of the
equation—technology or production—rather than the first half: music.
Making Music is an attempt to help people who are comfortable with
the basics of music production at a technical level but who still find
music-making to be a difficult process (which I suspect is all of us!).
Finally…
This book will not teach you how to use a compressor, program a
synthesizer, or make a great-sounding kick drum. Those aspects of
music-making are already well covered. What it will teach you is how to
make music using those tools, with a specific emphasis on solving
musical problems, making progress, and (most importantly) finishing
what you start.
While I hope you find Making Music inspiring, I hope even more that
what inspires you is the music you make using these patterns. Making
Music is not a collection of vague aphorisms. Instead, it combines
motivational ideas about the philosophy and psychology of music-
making with hands-on tools and techniques that musicians of all kinds
can use to really get work done.
Contents
Contents
Preface
Problems of Beginning
Three Ways to Start
Catalog of Attributes
Avoidance List
Active Listening
Listening to Music You Hate
Mise en Place
Arbitrary Constraints
“Write drunk; edit sober”
Choosing a Tempo
One Part at a Time
Different Tools
Presets as Starting Points
The Tyranny of the Default
Simple Sounds
Extended Techniques
Goal-less Exploration
Procrastination and Timeboxing
Collaboration
Thinking Like an Amateur
Scraps and Sketches
Problem-Solving as Distraction
Personal Workflow
Originality vs. Quality
Process vs. Product
On Work
Problems of Progressing
Breadth Before Depth
Foreground, Middle Ground, and Background
Fuzzy Boundaries
Creating Variation 1: Mutation of Clones
Creating Variation 2: Mutation Over Generations
Creating Variation 3: Note Transformations
Implied Rhythm in Short Loops
Asynchronous or Polyrhythmic Loops
Misusing Rhythmic Tools
3+3+2 Rhythm
Programming Beats 1: On Looseness
Programming Beats 2: Linear Drumming
Programming Beats 3: Ghost Notes
Programming Beats 4: Top, Bottom, Left, Right
Bass Lines and Kick Drums as a Single Composite
Drums to Pitches and Vice Versa
Tuning Everything
Silence and Noise
Sampling the Old-Fashioned Way
Creating Melodies 1: Contour
Creating Melodies 2: Using Motives
Multiple Simultaneous Melodies
Linear Rhythm in Melodies
Sound-Color Melody
The Rhythm of Lyrics
Creating Harmony 1: The Basics
Creating Harmony 2: Beyond Triads
Voice Leading and Inversions
Parallel Harmony
Harmonic Rhythm
Repetition and Insistence
The Rhythm of Automation
Humanizing With Automation Envelopes
Maximal Density
Deliberately Bad Listening
Randomness and Responsibility
Dramatic Arc
Problems of Finishing
Arranging as a Subtractive Process
The Power of Erasing
Formal Skeletons
Common Forms 1: Elements of Song Form
Common Forms 2: Layering as Form
Short Loops as Endings
Unique Events
Three Ways to End
Rendering as Commitment
Getting Feedback