Does your music represent your mood or a mood you are trying to create?

anickt

@LinearLineman said:
Yes, it would be great if everyone who posted here also posted a piece of what they do (except me, of course, the musical loudmouth).

I am grateful that this forum attracts thoughtful, feeling, people who are able to express their ideas cogently and with great and often sweet energy. The voices are like the instruments in a symphony, varied, strung out or high strung, windy or breezy, tinkly or throbbing, reedy, wiry, horny, cacophonous, harmonious. Me, I’m a banger... a symphonic afterthought.

I do it now cause we have wonderful, sound expanding, inexpensive, algorithmic, touch friendly tools that make it a lot easier than composers of old had it. I do it because of a love for improvising and making something out of nothing. Because, at 72, amidst a plague and a plague of years, my world has grown smaller and music has become larger. I do it out of habit in the middle of the night. I do it because I can. I do it with green eggs and ham.

You know, you can have fresh eggs and ham delivered...

ecamburn

@LinearLineman said:
Yes, it would be great if everyone who posted here also posted a piece of what they do (except me, of course, the musical loudmouth).

https://atm0spher1c.bandcamp.com/track/fading-away

From an ep released in July

Ailerom

Does your music represent your mood or a mood you are trying to create? No

But since a very young age I have had music in my head and I just feel good when I create something tangible from those ideas. Plus pretty much everything I do and think seems to tie into music. It's just a very natural part of who I am so it makes sense I suppose that the ideas I have come out as music.

AudioGus

Music is like a cigarette dipped in chocolate fudge thats actually good for me.

LinearLineman

Thank you @ecamburn. Perfect for this thread.

kinkujin

@LinearLineman You continue to slay me!

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

LinearLineman

Yes, @Max23, I am older than the guano mountains of Kuala Lampur.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

JeffChasteen

@LinearLineman said:
Because, at 72, amidst a plague and a plague of years, my world has grown smaller and music has become larger.

That is just so beautifully expressed.

Tarekith

When I make music I am 100% trying to transport the listener to a head space I am creating for them. Vibe, tempo, physicality (ala sense of space via certain reverbs or delays) are all things I use to sort of pull people into the weird and twisted world I am creating for them. A lot of good music out there is 1 dimensional to me (great musically but flat sounding), I'm trying to create not just the sounds but the space and sense of otherworldliness that good music reminds me of. Where you can close your eyes and feel you are tranported almost physically to another place when you listen to it. The sort of profound moment that you always remember anytime you hear that song.

Also, I hope it doesn't suck.

http://tarekith.com/mp3s/Tarekith-Sanctum.m4a

RUST( i )K

@LinearLineman said:
Yes, it would be great if everyone who posted here also posted a piece of what they do (except me, of course, the musical loudmouth).

I am grateful that this forum attracts thoughtful, feeling, people who are able to express their ideas cogently and with great and often sweet energy. The voices are like the instruments in a symphony, varied, strung out or high strung, windy or breezy, tinkly or throbbing, reedy, wiry, horny, cacophonous, harmonious. Me, I’m a banger... a symphonic afterthought.

I do it now cause we have wonderful, sound expanding, inexpensive, algorithmic, touch friendly tools that make it a lot easier than composers of old had it. I do it because of a love for improvising and making something out of nothing. Because, at 72, amidst a plague and a plague of years, my world has grown smaller and music has become larger. I do it out of habit in the middle of the night. I do it because I can. I do it with green eggs and ham.

Thank you for sharing this. I appreciate your thoughts very much.

RUST( i )K

@sippy_cup said:
“In the moment” creativity is fleeting. I often just end up tinkering for hours and recording the session and cutting out the interesting bits.

The music and sound design i have done for money is rarely original sounding. Clients give me strict parameters for what they desire. Ad agencies want what’s cool now, not unique niche sounding music.

My original genre bending work is often applauded by friends and colleagues but rarely gets out of that circle and I’m not keen on “making it” or getting trapped in that loop of sending demos to labels.

This is another great perspective. Good enough for another thread.

Sort of simply put- making music and either making MUSIC YOU ARE GOOD AT MAKING AND GET GUARANTEED PRODUCTION BUT NOT SATISFYING YOUR SOUL VS ATTEMPTS OUTSIDE ONES STRONG SUIT IN AN ATTEMPT TO HAVE A BREAK THRU IN SOMETHING THAT VIBRATES THE SOUL OR PSYCHE.

dobbs

aka making music to satisfy others vs yourself?

drez

I do not come to the table with ideas of what to write. I get some free time sitting and waiting for something, or an urge, but it’s not because I have a specific song idea in mind. I just open an app and start going. I think it’s because I don’t want to limit myself before I even start. Sometimes the end result is worth pursuing, sometimes not. And time has no meaning. Here are two examples:

Pathways took me several months to finish. I started with an idea of from a kit in NS2 and the first section snowballed from there. I thought about figuring out more on the waveshaper to try and smash it...then how to control the smashing. Which led to automation and filtering, etc. But after the first section was done, I stopped because I was ready to not listen to it anymore. So I didn’t work on it for a month. The next section was after I was preset surfing on the analog’ish patches in Obsidian. Same scenario...worked for awhile and then quit for a month or two. I don’t really care about making anything sound homogeneous from end to end, only in finding whatever creative thing my brain wants to do and let it do its thing. By the last section I had finally felt like it just needed a spark so I found this amazing throbby Obsidian patch and that triggered the last section. Got it done in a day...after a couple months of not working on it.

A Day Off is on the complete other end of the spectrum. I started sampling the room at a coffee shop in BM3 because I had never done that before, and started mangling background sounds into their own synth with the built in sampler or dumping a minute or so of people rustling about and talking into Soundfruuze and that was explosively inspiring. Each section was basically exploring a new piece of BM3 and a new technology. The whole thing was start to finish in about 6 hours.

This is just how it works for me. I don’t put a time limit, or try to write a song like x. I just go until my mind doesn’t want to do it anymore or I’ve got other things going on. And the end result honestly doesn’t matter. I don’t care if it fits within some arbitrary spectrum of music types or genres. The purpose is to let my mind have fun for awhile and stretch its legs. It gets to do what it wants to for a change without me making it do boring things all the time. The end result isn’t important as much as the time I let my mind go. Nothing is a waste of time and time is something I don’t take away from the process by rushing or trying to finish something because my learned behavior is I’ve got to finish this.

No I don’t. It will finish itself.

LinearLineman

@Tarekith, I see what you mean. Great depth, soundstaging and clarity. I never really thought about presenting music with that mindset. Totally above my pay grade!

@drez, great sound choices and production. Good to hear your stuff!

SpookyZoo

I imagine it must do on some level, but it's not a conscious chisel.

@Tarekith Fantastic approach and that tune is great. I wish I had just an inkling of the skills required to even consider beyond getting a track to sound good on just one simple level.

DatGood

@RUST( i )K said:
Why do you sit down to make music everyday?

Not everyday. But I noodle every week. Escape-ism

What is your point?

Creative Expression. I'm a photographer by profession and need something else creative.

The gear?

iPad / Mono Station / Neutron (arriving in a week) / Keystep and other controllers.

The genre of music?

Mostly House, Hip-Hop, Electro, but also Dancehall, Reggae, Soca, Ambient (lately)

Cuz you going to be famous?

LOL Yeah fvcking right. Prob famous on my street.

Cuz you want to get away from your wife?

What if... I am the wife? HMMMMMMM?

What makes your musical self tick?

Influences, movie scenes. My surroundings... I live amongst much diversity in the Caribbean ... and in my life generally.

Why do you do this?

Because I like creativity and technology, and these worlds merge here in music.
But also I'm currently away from my family for months. Due to the pandemic's border restrictions, I've been unable to be with my daughter since March. This puts a serious downer on anyone and this is where music helps, but also beginning to show in what I create.
To the original question in the thread's title... I initially aimed to create a mood, but lately my sonic creations have been a representation of my current mood.

LinearLineman

@DatGood, I liked Time Sink. Can you post the whole track?

u0421793

This turned out exactly the mood I was aiming for, and it was released this time last year (Halloween). Extraordinary

RUST( i )K

@dobbs said:
aka making music to satisfy others vs yourself?

Yup

Or tryin to make "it big"....various wats to interpret

RUST( i )K

@DatGood said:

@RUST( i )K said:
Why do you sit down to make music everyday?

Not everyday. But I noodle every week. Escape-ism

What is your point?

Creative Expression. I'm a photographer by profession and need something else creative.

The gear?

iPad / Mono Station / Neutron (arriving in a week) / Keystep and other controllers.

The genre of music?

Mostly House, Hip-Hop, Electro, but also Dancehall, Reggae, Soca, Ambient (lately)

Cuz you going to be famous?

LOL Yeah fvcking right. Prob famous on my street.

Cuz you want to get away from your wife?

What if... I am the wife? HMMMMMMM?

What makes your musical self tick?

Influences, movie scenes. My surroundings... I live amongst much diversity in the Caribbean ... and in my life generally.

Why do you do this?

Because I like creativity and technology, and these worlds merge here in music.
But also I'm currently away from my family for months. Due to the pandemic's border restrictions, I've been unable to be with my daughter since March. This puts a serious downer on anyone and this is where music helps, but also beginning to show in what I create.
To the original question in the thread's title... I initially aimed to create a mood, but lately my sonic creations have been a representation of my current mood.

Thank you for the answer.

That is terrible.

I have a friend whose children are stuck out of country.

Appreciate your feedback!

BEST

jolico

anickt

@drez said:
I do not come to the table with ideas of what to write. I get some free time sitting and waiting for something, or an urge, but it’s not because I have a specific song idea in mind. I just open an app and start going. I think it’s because I don’t want to limit myself before I even start. Sometimes the end result is worth pursuing, sometimes not. And time has no meaning. Here are two examples:

Pathways took me several months to finish. I started with an idea of from a kit in NS2 and the first section snowballed from there. I thought about figuring out more on the waveshaper to try and smash it...then how to control the smashing. Which led to automation and filtering, etc. But after the first section was done, I stopped because I was ready to not listen to it anymore. So I didn’t work on it for a month. The next section was after I was preset surfing on the analog’ish patches in Obsidian. Same scenario...worked for awhile and then quit for a month or two. I don’t really care about making anything sound homogeneous from end to end, only in finding whatever creative thing my brain wants to do and let it do its thing. By the last section I had finally felt like it just needed a spark so I found this amazing throbby Obsidian patch and that triggered the last section. Got it done in a day...after a couple months of not working on it.

A Day Off is on the complete other end of the spectrum. I started sampling the room at a coffee shop in BM3 because I had never done that before, and started mangling background sounds into their own synth with the built in sampler or dumping a minute or so of people rustling about and talking into Soundfruuze and that was explosively inspiring. Each section was basically exploring a new piece of BM3 and a new technology. The whole thing was start to finish in about 6 hours.

This is just how it works for me. I don’t put a time limit, or try to write a song like x. I just go until my mind doesn’t want to do it anymore or I’ve got other things going on. And the end result honestly doesn’t matter. I don’t care if it fits within some arbitrary spectrum of music types or genres. The purpose is to let my mind have fun for awhile and stretch its legs. It gets to do what it wants to for a change without me making it do boring things all the time. The end result isn’t important as much as the time I let my mind go. Nothing is a waste of time and time is something I don’t take away from the process by rushing or trying to finish something because my learned behavior is I’ve got to finish this.

No I don’t. It will finish itself.

Very nice work @drez but I must say the beginning of Pathways has a bit of resemblance to something I’m working on now that I started pre-COVID-19! 😮 It does go in a completely different direction though! 😎👍🏼

drez

@anickt said:

@drez said:
I do not come to the table with ideas of what to write. I get some free time sitting and waiting for something, or an urge, but it’s not because I have a specific song idea in mind. I just open an app and start going. I think it’s because I don’t want to limit myself before I even start. Sometimes the end result is worth pursuing, sometimes not. And time has no meaning. Here are two examples:

Pathways took me several months to finish. I started with an idea of from a kit in NS2 and the first section snowballed from there. I thought about figuring out more on the waveshaper to try and smash it...then how to control the smashing. Which led to automation and filtering, etc. But after the first section was done, I stopped because I was ready to not listen to it anymore. So I didn’t work on it for a month. The next section was after I was preset surfing on the analog’ish patches in Obsidian. Same scenario...worked for awhile and then quit for a month or two. I don’t really care about making anything sound homogeneous from end to end, only in finding whatever creative thing my brain wants to do and let it do its thing. By the last section I had finally felt like it just needed a spark so I found this amazing throbby Obsidian patch and that triggered the last section. Got it done in a day...after a couple months of not working on it.

A Day Off is on the complete other end of the spectrum. I started sampling the room at a coffee shop in BM3 because I had never done that before, and started mangling background sounds into their own synth with the built in sampler or dumping a minute or so of people rustling about and talking into Soundfruuze and that was explosively inspiring. Each section was basically exploring a new piece of BM3 and a new technology. The whole thing was start to finish in about 6 hours.

This is just how it works for me. I don’t put a time limit, or try to write a song like x. I just go until my mind doesn’t want to do it anymore or I’ve got other things going on. And the end result honestly doesn’t matter. I don’t care if it fits within some arbitrary spectrum of music types or genres. The purpose is to let my mind have fun for awhile and stretch its legs. It gets to do what it wants to for a change without me making it do boring things all the time. The end result isn’t important as much as the time I let my mind go. Nothing is a waste of time and time is something I don’t take away from the process by rushing or trying to finish something because my learned behavior is I’ve got to finish this.

No I don’t. It will finish itself.

Very nice work @drez but I must say the beginning of Pathways has a bit of resemblance to something I’m working on now that I started pre-COVID-19! 😮 It does go in a completely different direction though! 😎👍🏼

Nothing wrong with a song going a different direction 😛

kinkujin

I’m all over the place. Very restless musically - so I have no modus operandi. One day I’ll be banging on the glass using BeatMaker, the next I’m plunked down in front of the computer composing in a more thoughtful manner, and the next just exploring presets on a hardware synth.

I don’t really bridge the gap between those ways of approaching music making and am trying to decide if I should. I tend to place pressure on myself to “get something done” when the truth is no one but me cares whether I do this or not. But, the tyranny of imposed deadlines does sometimes help to spur one to complete a project(s), if you have one.

At times I feel like I take a more Darwinesque approach to my musical exploration - picking up rocks and seeing what is underneath and then talking about it endlessly, turning it about in my mind. Rather than a more conquering approach of let’s take this land in the name of! ... and actually having a finished piece at the end of it. I do battle in the mind.

DatGood

@LinearLineman said:
@DatGood, I liked Time Sink. Can you post the whole track?

Thanks so much. The entire finished track can be streamed via iTunes/Spotify/Amazon etc . The scrappy iOS-only version is posted somewhere on my IG, but it's not as polished.

@RUST( i )K said:
I have a friend whose children are stuck out of country.

Oh my! What country are they stuck in/out of?

echoopera

I always try to start from a place of “Beginners Mind” and allow the waves of creativity to carry me to where my Spirit wants to go. I generally never pre-plan and search for a Chord or Melody which strikes a sense of AHA in mean and then i allow it to unfold as a new discovery for my ears.

Here’s a track i did the other night which abides by these principles:
. Allow the body and mind to relax
. Sketch out notes until something resonates with mood at the moment
. Follow the sound and tone where it leads you
. Assemble it into a groove of some sort
. Allow it to be captured for that session for what it is—a moment to experience Spirit unfolding and being birthed into existence

Well that’s the hope anyhow 😬

LinearLineman

@echoopera said:
I always try to start from a place of “Beginners Mind” and allow the waves of creativity to carry me to where my Spirit wants to go. I generally never pre-plan and search for a Chord or Melody which strikes a sense of AHA in mean and then i allow it to unfold as a new discovery for my ears.

Here’s a track i did the other night which abides by these principles:
. Allow the body and mind to relax
. Sketch out notes until something resonates with mood at the moment
. Follow the sound and tone where it leads you
. Assemble it into a groove of some sort
. Allow it to be captured for that session for what it is—a moment to experience Spirit unfolding and being birthed into existence

Well that’s the hope anyhow 😬

EX-fucking-ACTLY!

reasOne

@ecamburn said:

@LinearLineman said:
Yes, it would be great if everyone who posted here also posted a piece of what they do (except me, of course, the musical loudmouth).

https://atm0spher1c.bandcamp.com/track/fading-away

From an ep released in July

@Tarekith said:
When I make music I am 100% trying to transport the listener to a head space I am creating for them. Vibe, tempo, physicality (ala sense of space via certain reverbs or delays) are all things I use to sort of pull people into the weird and twisted world I am creating for them. A lot of good music out there is 1 dimensional to me (great musically but flat sounding), I'm trying to create not just the sounds but the space and sense of otherworldliness that good music reminds me of. Where you can close your eyes and feel you are tranported almost physically to another place when you listen to it. The sort of profound moment that you always remember anytime you hear that song.

Also, I hope it doesn't suck.

http://tarekith.com/mp3s/Tarekith-Sanctum.m4a

these are really durn nice!!!!