The problem with musical structure

[FernieCanto]

This is a sort of rant/advice request, from a (self-entitled) musician to fellow musicians and non-musicians as well.

I'm stuck on a rut. I think I burnt all the fuel I had for cathartic, emotional, tonally-conservative and well behaved music with Making Amends and Builders of Worlds, and if I tried to make one more piece of work in that same trend, I would massively disappoint myself. I wouldn't bear being "cute" forever. So I need to change, and I know how and why I need to change, and I'm trying to put my effort in it. Trying, mind you. I'm having trouble.

See, structuring a piece of music is hard. My stuff may sound very complex on surface, but if you look at it enough, it's laughably banal. Making Amends is just a series of finished songs stitched together, and Builders of Worlds is just a small collection of musical ideas fleshed out to exhaustion. I think the structure of those albums work because the music moves slowly. But what about when the music moves fast?

The music I want to make right now needs to move fast, but it also has to make sense. I want it to keep forwards momentum, so I can play around with contrasts and different sounds playing off each other and bouncing to new places. I also want to avoid loops and constant rhythms (except for some specific instances, which I haven't even written out yet). The problem is that the stuff I've written so far doesn't seem to have much sense to it. I wrote a chunk of music, played it back a few days later, and had utterly no idea of what the hell I was trying to achieve. This shocked me to no end, and now I'm stuck on a rut of doubting even my capacity to make music, and thinking that my past "triumphs" (?) were just the result of sheer luck.

Does anyone have even the basic idea of how to overcome those problems? I have considered sketching out the structure of the music graphically, but I'm not very comfortable with that; maybe for lack of practice. Besides, what looks okay might not necessarily sound good. Right now, it just hit me that writing out textually what I want could be an alternative, but I never tried this before. Could there be some kind of exercise or technique that could reduce my problems? I'm avoiding anything too formal, because I'm already playing with sufficiently formal stuff and I need some spontaneity to counter all that.

I wrote all that in a very stream-of-consciousness way, so I'm sorry if it's confusing; but any ideas here would really help. Thank you all in advance.

[Cupz]

For now all I can recommend is, and I say this all the time on twoism, that you try to listen what the song itself wants to be, not frantically push it towards what you want it to be just because it should fit the vagueish theme in your mind. Its almost like raising kids, where you teach them things by opening up and showing who you are, but what they are going to be when they grow up is up to them. Later when you have enough music you will select what translates what you are going for and you'll have to kill the other darlings or recycle them into something new. Thats the part that isn't like raising kids at all. Don't make songs with an album in mind and the album will find you instead. Unless you are writing a soundtrack for a film or whatever.

I'll have to think about this some more. An mp3 example and more elaborate description of where you are and what you want sonically might help.

[Negamuse]

Dont laugh, I had a go at making breakcore a while back. And I had the same problem. What I found worked was instead of doing it a layer at a time that stretched the whole track I'd do a couple of measures at a time but finishing all the tracks before moving on and only refer back to the last couple. Broke the structure up a lot cos quite often Id forget where id gone before. Also Id do it all at half speed and then speed it up.

Edit: now I reread your comment this is probably the opposite of what you meant. But fuck it. What Cupz says about not forcing things is spot on.

[FernieCanto]

Edit: now I reread your comment this is probably the opposite of what you meant.

Are you sure? I think you're pretty much in line with my problem. I guess I worded it confusingly, then. You gave some interesting hints; and now that I think of it, breakcore is not a very distant reference for me at this point. Finishing whole chunks of music instead of complete layers could be an interesting strategy; at the moment, I'm kind of in a compromise between both, and that may be killing it for me. Also, halving the speed could give interesting results too. Gotta try that.

For now all I can recommend is, and I say this all the time on twoism, that you try to listen what the song itself wants to be, not frantically push it towards what you want it to be just because it should fit the vagueish theme in your mind.

I actually agree, and this has happened more than once in my musical forays. I don't think this is a problem in this specific situation; the song does have a direction of its own, and I can see more or less its "arc", you know. The problem is in the details. The whole forest looks fine, but when I zoom in to a single tree, it fails. Besides, the things I imagine in my head don't always translate well to actual sound. I'm trying not to be forceful with my ideas, though there are a few core elements that I don't want to sacrifice, otherwise I might as well just scrap the whole project (call me insane, but twelve-tone serialism is involved).

An mp3 example and more elaborate description of where you are and what you want sonically might help.

Yeah, I could think of that. I thought of talking about this issue without presenting the example itself because, this way, more people could contribute without feeling constrained. For example, the breakcore example was very rich, and maybe it wouldn't have appeared if I had given an audio bit.

Anyways, I'm already thankful for your posts. That may give me a bit of juice to keep pushing a little further on.

[swindeorin]

Sleazy said Coil was a reflection on music and what people could do without being musically trained. You dont need structure at all, you will find your way and the feeling will come into it and how you want it to come out, not through structure but through experimentation. I have tried a lot of things, breakcore, noise, neo-folk, post-rock, general synth stuff on a cs-80 emulator and i have to say, the time spent experimenting shows you that all will be okay if you enjoy the process.

[Torn n Frayed]

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2015/ ... more-65469

Some thoughts from the mind of Eno..

[Lens Larque]

more twirling conga line stuff

[SampleScience]

When I'm stuck like you, I listen to videos on YouTube of artist making their tracks. Some of them have a really "loose" way of making music, I was particularly inspired by Legowelt production techniques:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGCxBVu1-sE

There's a lot to learn from SeamLessR, even if you don't produce dubstep and drumstep.

[FernieCanto]

It's been two months, and I think I managed to overcome my concerns. I think most of my worries came from a very disproportionate internal pressure to produce and make progress, and fear of not getting things right. When we're afraid of our own capabilities, I think even the most minor problems can cause a huge negative effect.

Turns out I didn't need any dirty tricks to solve the problem of structure. Mostly it came from repeated listening and trying to find any spots where the music seemed to want to breathe; in one particular, very problematic instance, I needed only to reduce the tempo and soften things up with a more melodic, lyrical passage. I think, in the end, it's the sonic result that really matters; it's no use sketching it on paper if I can't actually hear what's going on. Also, tightening up the arrangements of individual parts before trying to tie them together helps; something that sounds too skeletal may not give a proper idea of how the dynamics and textures of the music are shifting, so something that sounds bumbling and awkward can have a powerful impression with a proper arrangement... and vice versa.
I think I already have a final draft of the composition, and now I just have to fix the arrangements, do the recording and the mixing, and I'll finally have something concrete to show.

[Peacock Tail]

If you ever get in a rut, work with other people. Their approaches and ideas will innovate. Just the smallest thing can take you in a brand new direction.

[FernieCanto]

So this is the result of the last couple of months of work.

It's only one track out of a planned six, but it's already something. I suspect that was the most difficult track to write, anyway, as it serves as a sort of prelude for what's about to come.