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I initially put this topic up under my blog, but I actually think it should have been on a forum, as I'm interested in hearing from others. The topic is about creativity and how we all set out to write and perform our music. There are so many talented musicians here, and I love reading in uploads how a song was put together, or how someone was inspired by a piece of music they heard, or how a poem set someone else's mind working for a melody, or how a personal experience inspired certain lyrics.
So I'm going to just quickly put up some of the comments that were posted on the blog, as well as a snippet of my own intro text, which went as follows:
Having put up quite a few pieces recently, I was thinking about creativity and how something happens. I enjoy other artistic pursuits: drawing and writing, for instance, but making music is always the one that comes the most naturally. I haven't drawn anything in quite a few years, and when writing (fiction) I can find any number of excuses not to sit down in front of the computer and to get that first novel finished! But, with music, it's a very different story.
The reason I sometimes put up pieces in quick succession is because my head is spinning with tunes and arrangements and ideas, and I've got to get them down and out of my system. I've thought about holding on to them and spacing them out, but there always seem to be other tunes waiting to be born, so by holding on all I'd be doing is creating a backlog. Unlike with writing fiction, I never fear that the musical muse might escape me if I get too much out of my system. Something new is always there in the background, and it's been like that since I can remember. |
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Aug 05, 2012 | 2:59 pm |
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from @KennethLavrsen:
When I was a kid I was a drummer. Before I ever got a kit I would happer with sticks on my bed (kick drum) and a tripod stool with a thin cover that sounded more like a snare. I remember my madras foam rubber becoming powder and the stool falling apart. I got a real kit and played a few years but gave up on this as I caught interest in electronics and became an electrical engineer and radio amateur.
My love for music continued but as an active listener. Both by buying what is now 1000s of records and CDs and going to concerts, and any theater with music and song.
It is only a 16-17 months ago I got Garageband for my iPad and got the interest again. And only one year since I got my Mac and started in Garageband and very quickly Logic
For me the creative part is what ticks me. I hardly ever attempt cover versions. I like to realize other peoples original songs like I have done with Stan. But I too love to start with empty screen in Logic or on the iPad and just "let it happen"
With my own compositions I have no idea where I will go when I start. Often it is a synth sound. Or a simple figure done on an exotic instrument that triggers an idea. And then I just let it happen.
I am self taught in all I do and still lousy on the keys. So I will use all sorts of ways to play chords. I have created many of my songs by playing with software that can suggest chords or just play them. And once I had some chords I found sounded nice the melody just comes to me.
I don't know where the melody comes from. It just comes from out of the blue and into my fingers. Often I have 4 melodies and either have to use them or throw a few away. Sometimes I save a version of one and then the same progression ends up as two very different songs. |
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Aug 05, 2012 | 3:00 pm |
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from @soulima:
I always find it interesting learning how other people create music, and of course, there is no 'correct' way, only the way that works best for you.
Every piece of music posted here created by me is done via musical notation. I create a 'virtual' score using my score editing software. The score editor has built in samples, and if I enter a tuba note that is a G#1, with a mute, staccato, mf,and 'brassy' - the software will sound that exact sample in the musical notation,exactly where I want it in the score.
I don't use a piano or anything to compose. I interact with the software. I'm lucky in that I have university training in ear training and I have developed relative pitch. I can figure out chords or melodies that I am hearing in my inner ear, and I notate them.
It's a slow process, but ever the perfectionist - that's how I do it! |
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Aug 05, 2012 | 3:01 pm |
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from @videoscore:
Fascinating read! I once had a side discussion with Pharmakeus about lyric writing. He, like Stan, is quite prolific and has his own way of writing. He hears the words in the music and then assembles them, which is what I do for the few songs that I have written lyrics too (yes it takes a long time for me to get out what I want to say).
Writing music on the other hand is much easier and faster. I identify with Ihussain here. Songs float everywhere but especially when I am half asleep. That is when I hear gorgeous music. I often get up and try to write down a little to serve as a new song base.
The actually writing process I do with an onboard sequencer rather than software. For me that is like punching the record button without having to set up anything, boot any app, just pure spontaneity. I will often put together much of a song just on the sequencer before resorting to software for final recording (used to be Mixcraft for my PC but now I am using Logic Pro, but really just scratching the surface of it).
The actual writing is very much influenced by audio feedback - picking a different instrument can create a very different song. Mostly, though, I start with piano and then morph out to other voices. Drums are something I really like now that I have a decent keyboard - in fact if one listened to my songs chronologically one could pick out where I switched to the new keyboard very easily. Again, acoustic feedback helps drive the writing. Now I love percussion and my songs reflect it. |
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Aug 05, 2012 | 3:02 pm |
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from @KCsGroove:
Always interested in how other people make their music. I was surprised to read that soulima purely writes down notes without hearing. I can't read notes, had a bit of pianotraining when I was ten but forgot all about it...
I do it all by ear, although I know all about chordstructure like minor, major, dim , etc
I compose songs on a piano or on a guitar, lately I've been playing with some old friends and so more guitartunes appear.
But it al starts with a groove.
Usually I build up a groove in EZdrummer and start playing on a guitar, bass or piano. Slowly I add other instruments and put it on the shelf. I always work on a few songs , working on one and on another. Slowly developing them.. The mood of the song dictates the words
The lyrics is always the hardest part for me, since I'm not a native speaker ( I'll do a song in dutch one day, LOl)
I find it harder to make music to lyrics than the other way around ( I did a few pieces for Stan)
It is strange but I can totally relate to your story about the other artforms.
I'm a trained visual artist, I teach partime in 3d modeling and animation and in painting, but I hardly make work for myself these days, I can express myself so much better in music |
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Aug 05, 2012 | 3:03 pm |
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from @AngeloA:
I find myself always fighting between the draw of Poetry and the fire of music, and sometimes they mesh and at others they drive me to shut everything off and walk away.
But I can never stay away too long and to me I prefer the simple interface of MixCraft as it allows me to create whatever I want however I want to.
I like to use the virtual keyboard and also my guitar but most of the stuff I do is by transforming loops into what they were never meant to be, to me Loops are the Alphabet, I can compose poetry from them just as I would put together verse and prose from simple words.
I feel very motivated to create more and more. |
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Aug 05, 2012 | 3:04 pm |
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from @Vixen:
cos I am not a musician I dont even hear a tune when I write lyrics...which can be frustrating in the extreme because I cannot give anyone creating a backing for me any idea what I want...I can only tell them what I dont want...this can really test a friendship I can tell you!!
It would be so much easier if I heard a melody whilst writing...for those who have tried and failed to get inside my head, its not a place even I feel comfortable in at times
If anyone has any suggestions as to how I can open the locked piece of my brain that stores melodies please let me know |
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Aug 05, 2012 | 3:05 pm |
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from @Ramon42:
With me it all started around the age of 14, all three of my best high school buddies knew how to play instruments with the exception of me. One day we were going to start up a band and one of my friends said "I'll play keyboard, Michael the electric guitar, Louie bass and Ramon you can clap your hands" ouch!!! A few weeks later my dad purchased a Baldwin Discoverer keyboard and with it I would get 10 free lessons. I think I only went to half of them! lol!!! Too boring for me, the instructor must of been in his early nineties. Well now I am paying for it because I don't know anything about notes, chords, minors, majors, etc.....I pretty much sit in front of the keyboard and depending on the first few keys I play I know instantly if there is something there or not. If there is I continue, sometimes it just comes to me like a river overflowing like a song I made for my sister who passed away earlier this year, other times it's several days like my latest "Tobago Sunset" . The one I am working on now I feel I have taken another step forward because I have discovered so many chords. I need to work on an ending before I upload it. |
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Aug 05, 2012 | 3:07 pm |
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from @LunaBleu:
I'm not a current musician. I have played several instruments in my life. I do not understand the complexities of virtual instruments. But words...ah ever since I was able to put them on paper or leaves or walls, I have been writing poetry and recently learning the rhythm of lyrics. Some pieces of music just tell me the words. Other times words flow to the music in my head. That is often when I record just my voice so anyone who wants can create music if they are so inclined. I do not think poetic lyrics is an oxymoron. I also do not think any one formula fits all music except perhaps classical. Today you can break, change tempo and the entire feeling of a song if it works. Music is pliable and so are words. Creation is such a wonderful feeling. |
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Aug 05, 2012 | 3:08 pm |
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from @jonsmjohnson:
Melody comes from life. Melody is your minds interpretation of life. Lyrics come from your soul. So does Rhythm. Structure is your creative persona. Creation is purpose. Purpose is satisfying. |
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Aug 05, 2012 | 3:09 pm |
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Iqbal, this is a wonderful thread! Especially since I know the music of all who have posted responses to your initial post - actually, all but one and I am going to go listen to that person's music when I finish this. 
My first love was poetry - I wrote poetry every day from the time I could pick up a pencil through until I was in my 30's. I still write poems from time to time but mostly, these days, it's song lyrics first and foremost. Often, when I write a song, it's in my head - comes out almost fully formed. I think that there is a lot of stuff going on at the subconscious level before that happens.
But, most often, I improvise something to a piece of music I've made (or that someone sends me) and that improvisation becomes the final song or is polished into the final song. Once in a long while, I'll do a song which someone else has written.
Since I've been here at iComp, I've done a fair number of covers of 'famous' songs - before that, I never really did that (except, of course, when I was singing jazz standards back in the day). It's kind of fun to reinterpret songs everyone knows and/or to turn people on to artists they don't already know by covering one of their songs.
When I was studying opera, I also studied piano and composition. I already knew how to read music (I'd played french horn - first chair - for many years through school) but needed some training in composition and orchestration. At that time, I started composing instrumental music as well as writing songs.
I lived in Hong Kong for a year (studied Chinese for 6 years altogether) and, while I was there, I learned how to play the ErHu (a two-stringed violin which sits on your lap) and the PiPa (a flute). I also learned a lot about Chinese opera and the Chinese musical scale (which is different from the West).
I spent many years playing drums when I was young (congas and traps both) and that comes in handy when I want to do percussion (though I no longer have actual drums on hand - I have electronic ones and, of course, sampled ones that I can play using my keyboard).
I use a lot of virtual instruments - most of the time I improvise with them rather than having something in mind to play before I sit down. Improvisation is at the center of pretty much everything I do.
Oh, and I also draw and paint, do printmaking (I carve stamps which I collage with - over 2500 of them to date!), sculpt, and do photography. I used to be a graphic artist for a living and, later on, a photographer and videographer. But, I'm more or less retired now and do all of these things for fun and/or to teach and/or lead workshops/salons.
I've been doing mail art for 30 years or so and my mail art name is Carla Cryptic.
I truly believe that creativity comes in bundles in many people. If you like to make one kind of thing, you often also like making other kinds of things. I love it when I find out an actor I love also sings beautifully and/or a musician I love is a painter, etcetera.
I resonate to so much of what everyone else has said also! |
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Aug 05, 2012 | 7:08 pm |
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I sure am wordy! Did I mention, I also write fiction and essays? loll |
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Aug 05, 2012 | 7:09 pm |
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Most of my stuff comes out of a melody that pops in my head, occasionally with a snatch of lyric or two, maybe some rhyming couplet or a turn of phrase that fits the tune perfectly, but usually it's the melody first.
Okay, sometimes I hear the full harmonies with the melody.
Once I work out a tune in my head (and often if I can get to Garageband or have my iPhone handy so that I can sing the tune and therefore not lose it -- so many songs lost... oh so many...) I usually grab my acoustic guitar and work out the chords based on the harmonies I can hear with the melody.
Usually by this point I've decided, "Hey, this song sounds like [whatever]", either a specific song or a genre or album, which then suggests an arrangement. I will then grab that song, or a bunch of songs from that genre or era or album or whatever and listen to them a metric f*ckton to get an understanding of how they they sounded, how they were put together, how they were produced. In other words, I give myself a crash course in the particular genre I want to emulate.
"But John," you ask, "why don't you just arrange it however it sounds good to you? Why do you always do pastiches of other songs or genres?" Why, that's simple! Because when I do, they sound like that stuff anyway! So why not stand on the shoulders of those who came before and learn from them?
So once I know the sound I want to emulate, I set about by emulating that sound. While that sounds deceptively simple, it's not -- a lot of research goes into each and every track I do, and not just from a "they used this so I'll do that, too" standpoint. It's more of a "Brian Wilson used a theramin a bunch and it would be perfect for this track at this point... since I don't have one, how can I simulate that sound in Logic? Time to hit Youtube and Google" standpoint.
But the key -- always the key -- is the melody comes first, and often hand in hand with the vocal harmonies. I then try to match the lyrics with the music and try to make them... well, "worthy", I guess is the right word. The songs where I'm utterly dissatisfied with the lyrics are the ones I never post on iComp. (Okay, I hold some others in reserve "for a rainy day" as well, but for the most part, you guys don't get to hear what I consider crap output from me.) |
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Aug 07, 2012 | 10:05 pm |
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thank you all for your great contributions. I did respond to the early ones on my blog entry, but I just wanted to say again how astonished I am that John (@soulima) notates directly using a program, rather than playing the notes via a keyboard. I can understand that by doing this John is able to require specific and detailed dynamics and playing styles on a note, but I can only imagine how long this would take to do in a whole piece - some of John's pieces are incredibly complex, with so many fast notes and playing styles. I'm just in awe! I used to use a simple notation program called Noteworthy Composer, before I moved to the Mac, so I can understand to some extent what is being done, but I remember that being quite slow and I would think twice before notating anything that I thought of as have trills and flounces!
@AngeloA, like Carla, you have a poet's heart, and that is interesting, as I know how useless I am myself at writing lyrics. I tried in my teens, and soon gave up after having come up with trite and dull rhymes and a completely non-lyric style of writing! And I love that you can take a loop and turn it into something completely different! The tempation with a loop is usually to leave it as it is - that would be me, not knowing really how to manipulate them.
@Vixen - that's interesting, that you don't hear a tune when you write the lyrics. Do you hear a rhythm, maybe, or a sense of flow? Or is it quite freeform? I wonder how @DonnaMarilyn does it as well, as I've set music to two of Donna's pieces, and both had this inherent musicality to them, the syllables seemed to know where they had to "fit" if they were to be turned into a song. I've no idea how Donna does this - perhaps there is a ghost tune that she has when writing? and I'm intrigued how that compares to the tune I end up writing? |
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Aug 08, 2012 | 4:14 am |
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for me the words are a guide only, once I hear a tune I think will suit then I adapt the rhythm/cadence of the words to the music |
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Aug 08, 2012 | 6:48 am |
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