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finish songs in 2021
this is my #1 goal for music time.
it has been for a while.
i’ve been tinkering around for a long time, not finishing jams like i used to, trying every new app, beginning a jam session, then another, then another.....
it’s far too easy to just open a host, load some audio units and start jamming , while this is fun and i enjoy it...i need to finish some songs and actually challenge myself to grow in my music adventure.
i’m not saying i’m going to become a full time musician or build an audience of people who want to hear anything i make, but for me i want to be able to press play and listen to the stuff i’ve been working on
i think the only way to do this is to force myself to not have more than 2 “jam sessions” going at a time. i think one can be a fun session and the other can be the focus session.
i don’t want to limit myself to a particular number of apps, that never works and just makes me think about all the apps i’m not using...so rather than that i’m going to select 3 of my favorite synths and always try to build around those and maybe i’ll find they are all i need but not limited to them alone.
i’m open to any other suggestions that work for you guys to help you get to the finishing point of a track.
mostly i think it will take discipline , dedication and focus. i am not doing jamuary every day because that is what i have been doing for years already haha ill post a couple of em but my goal of june! have 3 songs that i’m happy with, but 6 would be better!
Comments
Have to admit I recognise a lot of what you say. I think it's about the instant gratification and low mental energy required to just play around with synths etc versus the concerted effort it requires to finish something off. For me it's going to be about treating it more like a project, which means planning and prioritisation. I'm not going to stop capturing ideas as they arise because I don't want to lose anything with potential but I'm going to try and be more systematic and work on one thing at once. I think that's the real answer. I do thing restricting yourself to a limited range of plug-ins is also important in order to achieve the right balance between (potentially endless) experimentation and getting stuff finished. The 80-20 rule definitely applies here!
Maybe you need to ask yourself why is it that you have been avoiding doing this already?
Could it be that you are a bit of a perfectionist and unless something is sounding top notch then it wouldn’t be good enough for your song? One of the problems arising from being a perfectionist is that feeling of perpetual failure as things are often coming up short of the high standards that have been set - and this can create a negative psychological factor with procrastination creeping in.
What does a ‘song’ mean anyway to you? What is it you are trying to do? Are you wanting an intro : verse : verse : chorus : verse : verse : chorus : middle eight etc - or does the arrangement not matter? Are you wanting sophisticated drums, bass line, melody, vocals, lyrics? Sometimes keeping it simple is the key. I think if you can be specific about what you are trying to achieve then that could be helpful.
You could perhaps try switching styles to maybe some genre of techno. Get a nice jam going with some vocal samples then continuously repeat with subtle changes, additional effects and track mutes, then after a while mix in another and fade it out. Hey Presto! Now you’ve got a giant song 😀
Put your mind to it and you’ll get there. I used to have this problem, but now I’ve released 10 albums in under 2 years. Plus lots of stuff with my original band from the 90’s.
Push yourself, there’s nothing to lose!
absolutely @charalew , the low energy and just fun of jamming with no pressure to have to finish is a great thing within itself, a nice little dompamine hit! i think that feeling is increased when you have that finished piece as well so i need to get there! capturing ideas should never stop, i’m sure i’ll keep that up but i have a lot right now that i want to try to unfold! good word man!
@robosardine i think that’sa great question to ask, and you def hit home there. i think i’m looking at it to seriously trying to be a perfectionist when really i don’t think any artist is ever perfectly satisfied with their art, they always see something else to keep working on and improving, i think the best way to do that is finish a piece, and try to work on those things in the next one... but that absolutely is a giant hold back. like you said... it keeps the procrastination train moving at full speed! i need to lower my expectations and let the music floooow and then call it complete
@DefRobot thanks man! i am glad youre making progress and got out of the constant loop of making loops! appreciate the encouragement!!
@reasOne - my approach in the past is to bring some of the demos or jams back to life. I would invite friends to help finish a track. To add a different element and/or emotion. If collaboration isn’t in the cards, try to only work on 2 tracks until one is finished before starting another.
Finally, once you have some completed work. Upload to bandcamp for name your price and see what happens. Ask some friends to remix it for cross promotion and then start prepping for the next release.
brAp on!
I would make some comment regarding "Finishing songs? What sorcery is that?"
But i'm in that vibe too, maybe i'll even try FAWM this year, to get a song every 4 days maybe (trying to be realistic).
Jamming is always fun, but whenever I try to make something it's either too busy or inconsistent, mainly because I have huge time distance between productive sessions with my tracks. So I scratched all I recorded for an EP, just keeping the tempos / structure and chord progressions and gonna start again.
What i'll do is record and sequence just the drums for all songs. Then the ambience noise, pads or rhythmic melodies. Then bass. Then leads. And then the final bleeps and blops before doing final mix adjustments. Did a trial run for fun and seems to work for me...
This is something I always did and always ended up frustrated. I'm trying to keep 3-5 core apps, but not limited to them. I think it's good for consistency and not being undecisive with all we have, but also keeping the door open for that shiny new app we got last sale
I'm in the same boat. Great advice from everyone! I started creating specific sessions just for experimenting and having fun with the one million apps that I have lol. There's no expectation to complete a song in these sessions and it helps alleviate the guilt of not using some apps that I bought.
This year, I will only have one song on the go and finish it before starting a new one because I realized that's when I start getting unproductive.
@reasOne I also suffer from the same syndrome. I think in my case it is where a composition is either just to hard / complex to get my head round or finishes up not inspiring me. I have about 4 on the go that I hope to finish in the next couple of months but I am sure something else will come along instead.
Definitely need to finish more this year. I should probably should do: Finish It February. 😆
I could ramble about defining 'finished' but will skip that and say that working on groups of tracks together seems to be the best way for me to 'finish' individuals. Here is kind of what the overall process looks like...
1.) (2 months) I make a bunch of sketches. These are usually a minute long or so each and I do not go back to work more on old ones in this stage. I just linearly save the latest master bounce of each sketch on a track in a DAW (Like Cubasis) and just keep stacking them up consecutively next to each other as an index of what I have made. I just number them. 01, 02, 03 etc and get to about 40-50 or so over a few months, not spending too much time or pain on any of them. None are sacred and this stage is intended to be pure joy without lingering too long on any of them.
2.) (2 days) At the end of stage 1 I group these sketches by theme/flavor/taste. Usually three groups emerge, one of which is more or less a trashcan for total misfits. Of the three groups one stands out as the strongest impulse and is picked to be worked on.
Now the beauty here is that the group of selected tracks not only have their own thing going on collectively but individually each track helps to inform the other tracks in the group, either in terms of production, tone, ideas etc.
3.) (2-3 weeks) After having listened to all the selected sketches in stage 2 I then work on the chosen group which is intended to be a cohesive unit. Here I take a quick pass more or less chronologically in order from lowest to highest number. This keeps me focused on a clear goa to map out and really be critical of what feels required for each track, while always listening to the group as a whole. Sometimes I pick a different instrument or change the octave something is in etc and I always go through each preset just to see what FX are doing what and get a sense for what is contributing and effecting the mixes. Toggling Oscillators on/off etc etc. Since stage 1 is so open and free this stage is kind of like the 'getting to re-know you phase' of what actually went into the track to begin with, either by me or from the presets I am using. In this stage I am also building out each track to be more or less the length that I want, even if it is a bit loopy or needs something later.
4.) (2+ months) With that out of the way things return to a state that feels kind of like step 1 again but with healthy boundaries. I can be all over the place now but within the nine or so tracks selected. Feeling a little burned or bored on one track? Not for long, hop to another, at any time in fact! Tired of drums? Boom! Work on pads or glitch fx etc. Here I am also constantly updating the master index file where I can listen to all of the tracks together. Hopping around the entire group instantly is a must here. Sometimes I will do temp 'mastering' on a master track here just to get a sense for what I should be doing on the actual mix etc.
Anyway, once a track needs to serve the overall collective it makes decision making easier and as long as I do not elevate any one track too soon as the darling of the bunch and keep it in my mind that any of them could rise up, or start to inform the others, then the better the overall process and result becomes.
Cool process @AudioGus I do #1 already, but need to back to pick and improve the gems worth polishing.
There's some great advice by everybody and what I can add myself is that the best way to finish songs is...to finish songs
) Well that was helpful, wasn't it? Nah, I'm also speaking about the forced deadline thing. I used to be just in the same boat as many, being too much of a perfectionist, taking days, weeks, months to edit something until I didn't know what it was about in the beginning or thinking it's definitely not good enough, it's definitely not good enough...
But then last January I found out about the Weekly Beats challenge which is about making a song every week and posting it up. As a happy coincidence also at that time I was studying generative patterns in VCV (that would be miRack in the iOS world plus the amazing other generative sequencers) so I though "you know what, at the very least I can dump whatever modular experiments I happen to make every week". So I joined in and for the first weeks this is indeed what it was. I was following online tutorials, did some experimenting on those concepts and eventually something would emerge up as a song of sorts. I did the first week, and the second and the third....and it became a habit. This is VITAL!
It didn't matter that they weren't amazing things, nor that they only got one or two comments (positive, still). It mattered that deep inside the pesky mind the mechanism had slowly started to click. This is the big secret and all there is in fact. Get a good start, no matter how. Just finish the first 5 or 6 and then you'll be on the right track.
Because what happened week after week is that not only I WANTED to finish the track but also I started to bring my own style, to lessen the degree of machine generative stuff (although I still frequently use it as a layer) and improvise on my own with instruments and synths. I dug more into sound-design, I listened more, I found more time....even if many times I used to finish the song on a Sunday rush.
And I'm happy to say that I've only missed two weeks, so last year I made 50 songs! Fifty from barely 3 or 4. Now obviously I won't say that all those 50 are worthy and equally qualitative. Maybe only 3 or 6 of them are, just as your target. But the gain is amazing. Instead of grinding at 3 songs, the fact that I can pick 3 from 50 means a whole world of difference because of all the musical experience in playing, improvising, composing, arranging, mixing and so on.
Weekly Beats is apparently happening only once every 2nd year, but there's a reddit similar community called songaweek. And obviously there's this forum to post on as well
So, TL;DR trick your mind into developing a habit. Start extremely simple, no matter your style. The simplest thing that you can do to finish something is fine! Even if it's bare-bones, think of it like instrumental studies that classical instrumentalists rehearse all the time. Repeat it several times and after a while the magic WILL happen
yo!
this forum is the best on the web!
some amazing suggestions, ideas, concepts, practices and theories in response in this thread!!
sorry i’m working 12 + hours today and then coming home to much more work so i haven’t been able to respond to .... barley getting phone time this week , but absolutely there is some gold in here!!
i think this is all going to contribute to my practice of finishing tracks and setting goals!
i know one of hold backs i have is the fear of having a finished track that is not mixed and mastered properly so that it’s worthy of releasing to the world without harsh judgment and being an inferior product.
you want your music to sound good in any format people listen in and with all the time i spend on trying to actually make music, hold down a job and take care of kids and sick parents, mastering an album to sound good just isn’t something i’ve gotten deep into.
i feel like my mixes are pretty good, but that last step is a huge fear to me...and def is a something that holds me back , cuz as i’m working, lingering in my mind is that “ well i can’t master it anyway” voice persuading me that there’s no real point to finish.
i think i’ll find a 3rd party to handle that for me and hopefully it won’t cost an arm and a leg.
i cannot promise i’ll be able to break my mess of aum sessions / daw scribble into stems that can be realigned later as my structure is a bit of a jamble so mastering a final one mix, mix is going to have to be enough for now! i’ve seen some online services that claim to do a good job, at least good enough so i’ll look into those and then maybe an individual willing to take it on
Awesome to read about your experience with WB... and how you evolved from the doodles to full stuff
Sorry if going a tad off-topic. But do you recommend some specific tutorials? I already watched a load (of VCV stuff), but sometimes a bit curating helps
@reasOne I feel you regarding insane work hours per week. Btw, since you're considering sending someone your stuff to master, Erik Magrini (Tarekith) is a forum member and has mastering services. Just don't know if his rates are fitting your budget. Maybe drop him a message
@reasOne you sound like you are too hard on yourself. Your stuff is probably better than you think. And many people can not even perceive the difference between good and "perfect" mix.
I would say: have fun first and do not force yourself to do anything beyond (if we are talking about hobby musicians here). Record your jams and perhaps this will be better than mathematically sequencing tracks.
Music is about the feeling.
And creation is a godly thing.
Enjoy
I’m basically on the same page as you.
I’d try to get an idea in your head musically thought out a bit...before opening those distracting but amazing apps....
I think this is how the great composers have been doing it. They don’t need instruments, they can put together the whole song in their heads.
Unfortunately I have never been able to do it this way. If I close my eyes and focus I can play any existing song I already know in my head. I can ‘hear’ almost every instrument in my mind. Sometimes I used to entertain myself with this when I’m in the bed and try to get sleep.
However to compose a song using my brain only, I simply can’t do it.
I don’t know if such ability can be developed and trained at all or you need to born with this talent.
How I do it is I used to browse the sounds or tweak them and if I find an interesting one that inspires me I just start playing a bassline or a chord progression or a lead tune depending on what kind of sound I found. It’s fun, the tunes, chords, basslines come easy this way.
Once I have the concept of a chord progression for example I add the other instruments one by one. But I do it on an experimental way, play something and listen whether it sounds good or not with that particular chord progression.
So I end up with a 4 or 8 bar loop which sounds great for my ears, but the challenge is to create a verse, chorus, bridge, etc structure from the loop which is as good as the loop itself. I often feel the loop (which is the chorus usually) is great, but the rest is shit ☹️
Why all this fuss about Finnish songs? I have enough trouble writing songs in English.
To be honest, regarding VCV the most obvious is actually the best:
https://www.youtube.com/c/OmriCohen-Music/videos
Omri has a tons of tutorials coming from the early days of VCV (so up until 1.0 they're relevant for miRack as well) and they scale along nicely. In the beginning it was all about the bread & butter modules, logical workflow and creating constant, but musical variation from simple sounds, rhythms and textures (like how to use the Turing Machine, quantiser tricks, clocks etc.). Then as modules became more & more complex it did become more difficult to follow up, but if you start with the earlier ones in should be fine. After every tutorial from him I would get not only a great sounding patch but also ideas how to get further.
I share this affliction.
Things that are helping me with loopitis recently.
*Spend time in a linear DAW (NS2 is my current choice). Endlessly fiddling in AUM often results in 4 and 8 bar wonders (sad trombone). I still use AUM to generate material, but when I want to finish a song, getting in a tool that's conducive to laying a song out on a timeline is critical
*In a linear DAW, copy and paste all clips from a section, then change a few, delete some, etc. You know the drill. It works!
Thanks for the reply and the refresher. It's been long sice I watched his tutorials. Lately i've been just digging his jams. His videos are really amazing
@ecamburn agreed. And the all-in ones are great for this. Less jumping around while you build the foundations of your stuff
As @Aletheia and others mention, it's often useful to have external motivators like a "track a week" club or other social interaction that reward getting stuff done. When the pandemic hit, I started jamming on Endlesss while walking around w/ my iPhone and a pair of cheap Apple earbuds. The audio quality isn't great (I've grown to really love the lo-fi griminess of early Endlesss tracks) but I finished dozens of little song vignettes because it was so easy and I enjoyed the jams with strangers all over the world. At the end of the year, I put several of them together into three "season" tracks to create an "album" so that I can remember later what 2020 sounded like: