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3. Set Your Goals. Organize.
Even if you just scribble it on a post-it, you should have some sort of schedule for yourself over the available timeframe. As an example, we might actually write down something like this: Saturday 10:00am - Instrumentation/get patch choices/sample banks try experimenting with new stuff if needed, one hour MAX for now 12:00pm - Lay down basic (but tight) rhythm tracks (record all tracks from start to finish) 2:00pm - Build main theme/melody line throughout 4:00pm – Accompaniment tracks 6:00pm - Start improving arrangement if time Sunday 8:00 am - Breakfast! Listen to work in progress over coffee and Sunday Paper 8:15 – Noon - Fix problem areas, build new tracks, improve arrangement Noon - 2:00 - Do something else! Get away from this project 2:00 – 6:00pm - Button it up, polish loose ends, whip the whole thing into shape 6:00-7:00pm - Dinner, get away 7:00- 8:00pm - Any final problems, fix! 8:00-10:00pm - Mix and master, generate the file sleep on it! Next weekend: GO OUT! Of course, you can't stick to your schedule 100%; it's almost impossible to predict your problems and how the overall creative flow will go. But the important thing is that the schedule always shows what remains to be done on the project, and keeps you hopefully from spending too much time on any one detail. Any creative person worth her salt knows all too well the phenomenon of sitting there all day, committed to spending whatever time it takes to get something right. But here you don't have that luxury. If you're writing the great American symphony on your own time and you don't care how long it takes, then yes, you can fuss over every little thing. But in this sort of scenario, one of your biggest challenges is knowing when it's time to move on and tackle something else. Your schedule should force you to not spend too much time in any one place. 4. Build the framework from start to finish. A very common problem for composers is having a great beginning to a piece but nowhere to go after that. It's happened to us all: you have a terrific idea for a tune, possibly even the defining theme and you can't get it out of your head! So you compose it, polish it up and it's wonderful. But it's probably only the intro or the first verse, and if it's now Sunday afternoon what do you do? We've found it's difficult to get a good complete piece quickly if you're composing in chunks: You'll get good polished, discrete moments of inspiration, but odds are good they won't come together well as a whole piece. Worse, you'll be feeling pressure to produce each new element at the same level of detail as the last one, and not be thinking about how the piece flows as a whole. The problem is, at this point you're composing "defensively" - not paying attention to what you have, but rather what you need to fill in. Eventually, you'll end up frustrated and maybe even uninspired. And you can't possibly be at your best when uninspired. In our opinion, a more effective approach under tough deadlines is this: try to lay down tracks from start to finish, no matter how terrible or sparse it may all seem at first. Don't overdevelop specific parts too early; Get the feel first, even if it's one instrument that defines the mood. Make it up on the fly, and cut/paste your favorite repeating lines if you have to. You can always go back and rearrange things later. Of course you may decide you want to fix "bum" notes right away. That's fine. But the key here is getting a feel for the piece as a whole and getting the framework laid in there. It may drive you crazy to have loose, unpolished tracks everywhere. But in the long run, you're guaranteed to save time vs. the "write a chunk, write another chunk" method. And as you modify each track, you'll be able to explore concepts creatively as you go, having your completed musical backdrop behind you. Also, it can be very inspiring from a compositional standpoint to play along with complete tracks you've already created. It will feel a little like jamming with musicians! It should be exciting, and you will probably think up better and better ideas as you hear your work slowly molding into finished shape. |
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