Creating music without listening to others music
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@dukongp100 Mar 2022
In the approach to making music… do you need music to inspire you to make your own? Or does something else inspire you away from music?
By this I mean someone’s philosophy, manifesto, self preservation, whatever it may be. An argument one may have seen could be “creating art in a vacuum” .
I see debate between writers who say “read a lot to be a great writer / read as much as you write, out needs an in” as an argument or few, but it doesn’t consider the overall health or experiences of a person, whether they are able or want to read, and also divides from those who may actually find inspiration elsewhere to write.
What do people think?
I’d like to spend less time listening to music online and more creating. I think there may be an interesting development if I were to seek my inspiration from life other than the act of listening purposefully to music specifically to gain the i dpi ration to create music.
How would one learn to. Trust the inner creative voice to create, over seeking novelty in the new, and instead seek novel in the self guided approach ?? -
@nadine Mar 2022
I write the best songs when I stop listening to music for months. Last year, I only listened to my and my friends music. I did not buy any professional recording and have no idea what my favourite bands did. I still think that my music is throwing all my favourite songs into a bowl of soup.
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@datsch Mar 2022
My music is inspired by wildflowers, specifically my walks in the countryside to find them, and the hopefully artistic photographs I take of them. So botany and photography -- and poetry, too.
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@dasbinky Mar 2022
For what it’s worth, every time I ever read an interview with a professional artist, whether it’s a musician, author, filmmaker, etc., they seem talk about how voraciously they consume the work of other artists in their medium. And other media. Professional creators seems to pay attention to what’s going on in their world.
You own mileage may vary. I feel like my writing gets better when I’m listening a lot to a wider variety of artists. -
@wylddandelyon Mar 2022
I think you need both. You need to fill up on life to have things to say, and you need experiences of music to inform your choices about what music will express what you have to say.
It can sometimes help to take vacations from consuming other people's art, but that's not the same as not participating in a creative community either directly in a participatory fashion (like here in FAWM) directly in life (attending concerts) or indirectly (listening to the radio or recorded music), but I don't think most people get any benefit from trying to make good art in a vacuum. -
@kiffa Mar 2022
I don't know if I think there's any such thing as "creating art in a vacuum". You can try as hard as you can to shut out outside influences, but you can't forget everything you've ever seen and heard prior to that, and I think that little things tend to step forward out of the recesses of the mind, sometimes without you even realizing it. I recently realized that a lot of the stuff that I recorded back around 1989-1990 (when I was a late teen) was reminiscent of Black Flag. I didn't even *listen* to Black Flag, or punk music in general, my brother did. But inspiration is a weird thing, and you never know where it's going to come from.
I would never consciously deprive myself of music for any length of time in order to try to effect some desired result, that just sounds like masochism to me lol. I need to listen to music on a regular basis for my general well-being. I get inspired by other people's work and I'm not afraid to be influenced by it, as long as I'm not blatantly ripping someone off note for note. But many of my song ideas come to me when I'm out for a walk and not listening to anything at all. -
@mahtowin Mar 2022
@datsch I enjoined your songs so much! Such a suprising and poetical work!
There is so much that inspires me. I listened a lot to some fellows here and also to my fav musicians at the moment: Kate Bush and Mark Hollis. Sigur Ros, too. Their music does a lot with myself. Aspecialy the lyrics of Bush, but also the song structure and the arrangement of Hollis and Sigur Ros.
Those are musicians who are lightyears away from my skills. But the feeling I get by listening brings out the wish to do something similar.
I usualy do my lyrics first and then I add the sound. The poems I use in my spoken word tunes are always made by myself and they grew through my daily writing inspired by my life and my thoughts and my own experience.
So to me its both: inspiration comes from inside and outside and it depends on eachbother. -
@dukongp100 Mar 2022
Interesting points. I think there could be value in working ‘in a vacuum’. Ofc it is t entirely possible I agree. Though I’d like to think it’s still worth trying. I mean I don’t know how it’d go, but it’d be a learning experience! All outside influence won’t be controllable, nor do I believe it so. I’m talking specifically listening to music for inspiration.
Considering, how else can I get the inspiration to make music, without having to discover anything else purposefully ? I can get it through, movies, visual art, magazines, written media of any kind. I’m capable of using my previous influences and songbank I have in my head and recall from memory. And even my previous music. There’s also merit in reducing things that are causing damage in one’s life, and I’d say music is doing that. As I’m seeking new music and missing out on sleep. So therefore this will already reduce the impact on my body, freeing up time and energy to create music, what I’m saying is, I’m wanting ways to make this possible, so I listen to less music. May not be the best analogy, but others have mentioned here absorbing media on how to do stuff, but not actually using that knowledge to create. And then there’s trusting in myself, knowing I have the ability to practice, get better within what I already know and can do.
Acceptance that I do have it in me to apply the knowledge I have and work on my craft. Which is where I agree with taking breaks from it, as also mentioned here. That I can go back to consuming media at any time should I wish.
Interesting point re both are dependant on each other. In and out. I’d like to find out whether I can find a way to lessen what goes in and find more time to create. Replacing the music, with say, experiencing life, going about my day, spending time with friends. I’m bar music is playing. But I’m not actively seeking that bar music as the inspiration, it’s the living life part. -
@hmorg Mar 2022
I've never purposefully listened to music for inspiration, myself, but I do get inspired when listening to music every now and then. But as I do pretty much all my listening in full albums, if I get inspired during one it's difficult to hold on to that idea until the end of the album. What I often do, though, is noodle around on a guitar or a bass while watching tv. Then if I get an idea, I can play it over and over and hopefully still remember it when the show/movie/whatever is over. And this wasn't really pertinent to the question.
Like many people have said in this thread, I don't think there is a single correct way to do things. You try out different things and find out what works for you. Or maybe sometimes something works for you that didn't work before, or vice versa. And I'd say that is part of what keeps music so interesting, aside from the life experiences and influences of the people who write music, their method of writing varies wildly. -
@levesinet Mar 2022
"In the approach to making music… do you need music to inspire you to make your own?"
Yes but sometimes it's a delayed effect, so it's not so obvious. However, sometimes I have listened to the best tracks I can remember for the purpose of getting inspired to create something of my own within days, yes.
"Or does something else inspire you away from music?"
I'm most happy when I run into lyrics or poetry that give me vivid impressions that translate into musical ideas. For me, ideally music is based on impressions/gestalts and it is through-composed with transitions between those impressions/gestalts. And the harmonies and orchestration etc. are semiotically driven as in movie soundtracks; this is crucial especially if there's no lyrics. Good music means something (extramusical).
To keep the music going one needs contrasts. Night vs day, slow vs fast, gentle vs aggressive, liquid vs solid, stable vs turbulent...
Like strolling through a Japanese garden. Creating the infinite within a finite space. A Japanese stroll garden. So the gardener has planned it so that one walking through the garden sees different colors, different forms, different plays between light and shadow during different times of the day. So you walk through it once. Maybe it was in the morning in springtime. Next time you get different impressions because it's afternoon and summer and no wind. And you stop and look at different angles than last time.
Music is a bit different, of course. A composition or track is rather fixed. The composer has to think about how to get the ideal combination of colors and forms in a fixed sequence. How much music can I fit in, say, 3 minutes? That's what I call an arrangement.
So I'm inspired by musical harmonies, orchestral timbres, sometimes rhythms. Or how some choice wording in lyrics or poetry invoke those kinds of musical phenomena. Or, more rarely, by some experience in nature, involving the season, time of day, maybe presence of water, birds... Gestal -
@levesinet Mar 2022
...Gestalts.
What does not inspire me is lyrics about what people think or how people quarrel with each other. Lyrics with little reference to visual things. So unmusical. People say stupid things, people think stupid things, things that are often untrue. People lie. Whereas music doesn't lie. A sunrise doesn't lie. The bubbling of a creek doesn't lie. These things are eternal. They make music that stands the test of time.
I don't listen to other people's music a lot these days.
"creating art in a vacuum"
Never. That reminds me of the Second Viennese School. It cut off its roots from centuries old traditions. It lacks semiotics and it is extremely unpopular. Rather, I'd say, resonating more and more with one's own previous creations relative to music created by others, especially once one manages to become one's favorite composer. I really mean that. Like cooking at home - ideally you become proficient enough to be able to make food that you yourself like more than food prepared by other chefs, even by master chefs. It is matter of taste and what you need at that particular point in time. On the other hand, there are many outstanding chefs and tricks and ingredients you are still unaware of. Which is really nice because sometimes you can still learn new things from others, even long after you become your own favorite composer. Which may take a lot of time.
For many years I looked at works by Ravel (and Debussy) in awe. Like way above works of mere mortals. But then I began to see the influence of Alkan in the piano works, how Ravel had built upon other people's works. And when I looked at some musical scores I finally saw patterns that I hadn't recognized before. Seeing those patterns demystified even the most awesome musical creations. You learn the principles and you grab them and rush to create more of that awesomeness. -
@timfatchen Mar 2022
It's a difficult one. I don't listen to current music much at all. The last album I actually bought (last year) was Mean Mary James on banjo (and how many banjo pieces have you heard from me, hey?). I do listen to a lot in FAWM &50/90, obviously, and that keeps my mind wide wide open. And I listen to a lot on rotation, downloads from earlier FAWMs as far back as 2014 when I started seriously listening. But it's not for creating music that I listen.
Because I had a SERIOUS classical music education, I don't listen to much classical anymore. Why? It's all on tap in my memory, turns on at a moment's notice. So does pop/rock/folk from my formative years, let's say 1964 to 1985. Sometimes I can't turn the memory volume down at all...
And I guess, in a real sense, my own music tends to be schizoid, between Fling Tadpole and myself. It's actually useful. I can indulge in nonsense, satire and general lyrical viciousness, or serious, gentle and kindly vocal work as it comes.
But the music I personally strive for, it's the natural world and I have a lifetime of memory to draw on there, not to mention current experiences. There's both a Flying Tadpole song and a lovely bit of ambient music coming from two water cruises a few weeks apart. (Water in all forms, yes.)
But I spent a significant part of my life, on and off, in remote and I mean REMOTE and lonely places, usually desert or rangeland, but sometimes deep forests too. Occasionally accompanied, often solo. Both the sweep of the land and the minutiae of what's immediately at one's feet come through. And I guess that's the biggest influence/inspiration on the music. -
@levesinet Mar 2022
@timfatchen
Natural world, yes. And that reminds me of:
"I prefer the simple notes of an Egyptian shepherd’s pipe, for he collaborates with the landscape and hears harmonies unknown to your treatises. Musicians listen only to the music written by cunning hands, never to that which is in nature’s script. To see the sun rise is more profitable than to hear the Pastoral Symphony."
-Mr Croche -
@timfatchen Mar 2022
@levesinet I'd have to take issue with Mr Croche! There are many sunrises and I've seen a larger proportion of them than most (!), but only one Pastoral Symphony (which I suspect will be the last piece of music in my head as I fade away!)
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@elainedimasi Mar 2022
@dukongp100 I am one of the "yes" answers, I am inspired to make music by music, and it allows terrifically interesting, specific quests in why things work.
This week I listened to something from a pile of CDs I haven't touched in a long while and on the Cornflake Girls EP from Tori Amos the song "Honey" caught my ear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-xiDBJfLEY
It is built from piano, bass, strings, synths, and a chiming guitar that in places almost could be what a harpsichord would play. No drums. So I am wondering, what do I have to do as a composer to get this pop/rock pulse without drums?
And I think back to a video from 8 Bit Music Theory about how to write drum parts, and the three layers he breaks a groove down into:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoMmVlAvjmM
And I try but don't quite succeed in making an analogy work between the approaches.
And it sends me over to @timfatchen to say Hey Tim! My classical schooling is just about nonexistent; what did I miss, what is the canon, the "how a symphonic composer creates a pulse 101"? A pulse in inner voices, an ostinato to drive it, syncopation in the lyrical parts to move it forward or hold it back? What scores should I take a peek at?
Anyway this is how inspiration works for my music. -
@elainedimasi Mar 2022
@levesinet interesting that you bring up that mode where one is one's own favorite composer. I have some close collaborators who I know rather well, and I can tell that they are their own favorite composer, and I also know that the path that brought them here gave them a HUGE amount of specific knowledge of others' songs, and of how other musicians have done things - more knowledge than I have (and I can be my own favorite composer sometimes as well). :-)
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@timfatchen Mar 2022
@elainedimasi you're asking me, the world's most incompetent rhythm section?? I admit I'm not quite my own favourite composer, I'm still officially a third-ranker which suits me fine (no false modesty here!). Also, bear in mind that the piano which is my inbuilt and now wholly reflexive instrument is, at heart, a percussive instrument, with only two things that matter and can be physically controlled: how hard the hammer hits that string, and how long that string is allowed to sound undamped. EVERYTHING else comes from those two. But being essentially percussive, and old-fashioned rote learning of time and rhythm ( >>ONE<<-two-three-FOUR-five-six) and all the ear training (Time: duple? triple? simple? compound? 2/4 or 4/4? the training goes on. And on. And on.) hardwires the rhythms in. Then all the fiddling--waltzes, mazurkas, Spanish elements, syncopation. Yeah yeah, none of this is any help to you.
But I tell you what, you could do worse than run a forced diet of Gilbert & Sullivan to pick up up how Sullivan got his beats going, in response to Gilbert's spectacularly rhythmic writing. Bear in mind that's what the US musical theatre gurus did, and interwove jazz with that tradition in the '30s and '40s. (Forget Viennese operetta, its influence died--sorry @arthurrossi !!) And it's worth reading Rimsky-Korsakoff on orchestration. Smart to do it with aural help but I can no longer find Garritan's interactive version on line...the wretched Finale people (makemusic.com) appear to have sunk it. -
@timfatchen Mar 2022
@elainedimasi I flag this Ruddigore https://youtu.be/uEjVPtfk47A because it has a small pit orchestra and superd diction and timing from the singers, who willnot overwhelm you with operatic!
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@elainedimasi Mar 2022
@timfatchen awesome thanks!
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@timfatchen Mar 2022
@elainedimasi I should ahve added, the "expression", timing, rhythm in a piano is all in the phrasing: hammer hit that string deadbeat--establishes the beat (hence in bass usually), delays in hitting string to give rhythmic tension, sustained for a little longer to give both sweep and more anticipation, and so on. Hell, i don't know! it ends up built-in. This is why I don't make a good physical teacher at all, at all...
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@dukongp100 Mar 2022
I saw mentioned about being your own favourite composer, and wanted to chip in… I am uneducated enough to consider myself a composer, however a music maker is more apt. But this is still to say, that I like the statement. I’m still not my favourite music maker, but I feel like it’s a logical reaching point to get to within my musical exploration. Where I am confident enough to say I’m good, and can back up with the actions. I feel there can be a place for this self confidence. No idea if I will get there, I’ll see where my musical chops take me :) but an interesting statement yes !
A lot of great points brought up in the thread elsewhere too.
I like the Second Viennese School, I ended up looking into that and found out that it’s something I’ve researched before in 12 tone music. And I’ve found a new interesting piano piece by Allen Berg. A few years ago I wished to find a nice balance between resolve and atonal, and overlooked Berg. So now I have another avenue to explore for inspiration. So in a way, I’m finding inspiration through looking up about him and his life, and his approach.
Demystifying the works of the greats ( or in my case my favourite musicians ) is an excellent way to see how things were done.
In the past, instead of looking up online, “ what makes this band so good “ I’ve typed in things that bring up results such as “ band is overrated “ or “ band fake “ and found some rather interesting, even if extremely passionate view on why this band is not real enough, or tasteless. I’ve found sometimes there to be one or two comments ( negative I might add, which is something I found hard to take in first until I used this technique ) that plainly explain in summization what they do e.g. “ their music is just an accumulation of all the bad things about alternative rock, throwing in fake profound lyrics and each song has to have a pentatonic solo “
I’ve found this just as demystifying, as I then look up the good -
@dukongp100 Mar 2022
( comment got cut off! ) I cannot fully remember but I think I was going to say that by knowing what patterns people pick up for it being bad, I can turn it around in perspective and seek the benefits for that perspective, I consider it a logic flip, in a way :)
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@berni1954 Mar 2022
I can map periods in my life into "Input" and "Output" phases. During "Input" phases I listen to a lot of music by others and get inspired by them. During "Output" phrases (usually when I have been in a touring band or theatre company) I am usually so busy that I don't listen to any new music at all. Hence there are lots of famous bands I have never heard a single thing by, because they peaked while I was in an "output" phase.
FAWM Is special - the format forces me to both be in an "Output" and "Input" phase at the same time. It's exhausting, but very satisfying.
I have been enjoying the slower pace of MALM - near total "Input". Fellow FAWMERS (and especially collaborators) have certainly inspired me to test the waters of areas of song I had rarely ventured into. Visca el FAWM! (Long Live FAWM) -
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@dukongp100 Mar 2022
FAWM and 5090 are great for both listening and making music, I agree it's satisfying !!
The take on input and output is interesting - while I don't have any commitments to output within a performing role, this does apply to when I create and improvise. I seem to be in input mode at the moment. In that frame of thinking, I like the idea that input and output are flowing, and come and go through neccesity and chance. I wish to reduce the negative inputs that get in the way of my health, and increase the positive inputs ( such as FAWM/5090, every day life experiences and travel etc while the negative inputs being internet taken to excess, mindless browsing online )
Seems the problem I'm highlighting is excessive input of the negative and finding the positive inputs more nourishing.
So in this sense, the vacuum doesn't exist. Because there is always going to be the need for input from somewhere, even from self made creations.
