Who drills me the ideas in my head?

ChrisWerner · Post by **ChrisWerner** » Fri May 16, 2003 2:12 pm

I make music since over 10 years now and ask me one question more and more.

From where we/I get our ideas for a new music track ?
Of course we have something that says us "hey this is good music" and I´am sure when you like a special style or track you try to find a way to get the same mood into your tracks, consciously or unconsciously. But I won´t accept this answer.

For my part, I must be in a special mood to make music. It must be quite around me and I must feel something I can´t explain, maybe I feel the ideas or I live to see the mood. Sometimes I must sensitize myself to reach such moment when all senses are activated for only one thing.
I can´t sit down and make music every day or when I want it but sometimes an idea hit me like a thunder a tree. I stop everything and go into my studio. If I haven´t brought the idea to a track I don´t stop, let me say I feel the special moment and I won´t loose it. Oh dear my poor girfriend.
I must act and I must proceed until the idea is out of my head.

But what suggests me those moments, why I lock my door for days and don´t stop until I fall into my studio couch, have few hours of sleep and when I wake up I go on with my recordings. Then another moment set in, I got the feeling that says "it´s done".

I´am sure you asked the same question to yourselfs. What are your thoughts, what is happening to us, from where we get our ideas?

I´m curious about to read your thoughts.

Post by **garyb** » Fri May 16, 2003 9:25 pm

the same place all good ideas(birds,bacteria,chaos,atomic nucleii,thinking humans etc.)come from.

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Fri May 16, 2003 9:42 pm

I know I'm making it too simple, but in a sence it is, my answer is: EXPERIENCE!

Nestor · Post by **Nestor** » Fri May 16, 2003 9:45 pm

Here you have a long, long conversation we have had long ago, it has a lot of information and very interesting tips, I strongly recomend for you to read this carefully. Cheers

http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... forum=7&19

paulrmartin · Post by **paulrmartin** » Sat May 17, 2003 12:32 pm

From where I get our ideas for a new music track ?..

Inspiration comes with either the task I have to accomplish(i.e. composing for something specific, TV show, etc.) or just plain listening to the noises inside my head. How those noises are organised is, to me, the real compositional process.

These noises are never the same, never at the same intensity, always changing. Perhaps that is why you have heard so many styles coming from me in the Music threads.

There are many esoteric explanations to inspiration such as God-given gifts and so on. I believe that something inside me has a need to be let out and composing is my outlet whether I write jazz-fusion, electronic or orchestral music.

Enough pseudo-intellectual bullshit for today...

Herr Voigt · Post by **Herr Voigt** » Sat May 17, 2003 5:00 pm

The sources of my ideas?
Good lyrics.
A certain situation.
Certain people.
Stepping through good sounds.
Listening to a music that I want to change or to make better.
Experience. Listening to classical music!

And then sometimes comes one tone, another tone, a third and I try that they match together.
After a few hours a new song or track is born.
I like it, that we can't explain the whole proceeding of creating music. Something remains in the dark.

Omb · Post by **Omb** » Tue May 20, 2003 9:20 pm

hello everyone.
since i was an 8 year old and my mother took
me to a violin builder that he could say if i have a good hearing so i could play a violin.
well , i played the violin for 9 years and it was a very hard instrument to play with hours of stragling myself and the violin to play everything right.
after this 9 years i got tired of clasical music and especially from violin so i stoped playing and i was almost 17 .
i finish high school at the age of 18 and went to the army for 3 .
all of this time after i quit playying i had a voices in may had that i couldnt explain
where they come from and whay .
one day i'v been in a club and try for the first time extazy ,and booom , everything start to come back to me .
since then i used drags for a while until it was too mutch and i bought my first computer and start composing myself.
quietness is the most important thing that i need to make music.
i'v noticed that only in the days that im alone without any contact with the outside world i make the best music.

like simon and garffinkel sad in their song:
"echo with the sound of silence"

have fun where ever you are .

Omb-One Man Ban.

wayne · Post by **wayne** » Wed May 21, 2003 2:07 am

I think musicians are like modular synths - feed signal in one side and, depending on what modules they have, (and if they're connected) stuff comes out the other.

we're just modulating a strong musical timeline flow, or something

somehow i can't get used to the idea that it originates within any particular person.

Gordon Gekko · Post by **Gordon Gekko** » Wed May 21, 2003 3:48 am

Yeah well some of the modules are fried or need to be rerouted cuz i ain't seem to be getting anything acceptable out these days

wayne · Post by **wayne** » Wed May 21, 2003 4:57 am

perhaps a firm tap on the side of the unit?

[ This Message was edited by: wayne on 2003-05-21 05:59 ]

kensuguro · Post by **kensuguro** » Wed May 21, 2003 5:23 am

where the juices come from..
Everyone probably has a different approach, here's mine.

My juice starts flowing when:
There's a very strong need for me to act. (like a failing project)
I've found a new trick
I feel very content about everything in life.
There's something I need to jot down. (an emotion perhaps)

The first and second situation is kind of an exception in that, my juices flow to get the project done, or to develop and test the new trick. Otherwise, music, or any work I do is sort of like a way of organizing my mind. It's like a picture of my mental state. A certain image, emotion, thought, etc. might be very dominant in my mind at that certain moment, and that will be translated into the resulting form of work.

To me, composing is just like writing. Being creative is just like writing. So, I have short notes, short jokes, essays, paragraphs, huge organized reports.. etc. The need comes from simply wanting to jot down something for further use, or at times to tell yourself or someone else a message..

The types of messages I try to portray roughly follow a pattern tho. It's usually, "hey, this is really, REALLY, bad taste", or "look through the world with these glasses", or "I've figures out how to do THIS. Wow!", "here's a mental picture to gaze at".. I think you can tell from most of my tunes.

Exactly "when" the inspiration occures is kind of vague.. usually, its some sort of pattern match with what I'm experiencing at the moment, compared to something else that I've experienced or know from the past. The pattern matching is a very general one which resembles more of a chain of thoughts that go a bit too far.
Like "I've got nothing to do today-> my friends are all busy-> wasn't like this before-> everybody seemed to have time for each other back then-> back then, my dad was alive-> I would have called my dad-> my dad's dead-> there are some things in the past that's worth bringing back-> the past has already passed-> I wished I could go home-> perhaps these good feeling of the past is what people call "home"-> a spiritual form of "home"-> a spiritual form of "homecoming"
So, that was the general line of thought that brought the Finland project to life. It turns out that in a matter of few minutes, I've gone from "I've got nothing to do today" to "heck, I've got LOTS to do for the next 6 months!". It's a long trail of thought that takes strange corners here and there... but most of the time, its sort of like that.

Recently tho, I've found that I'm becoming more and more able to write down a couple of thoughts (composing guidelines), save it for later, and then, later bring it to life. That's kind of handy.

[ This Message was edited by: kensuguro on 2003-05-21 06:43 ]

[ This Message was edited by: kensuguro on 2003-05-21 06:45 ]

Gordon Gekko · Post by **Gordon Gekko** » Wed May 21, 2003 6:33 am

I don't know, often i have to hit a very low level of self estime to get something going. It's like a dose of humility; whenever i feel confident after doing something that isn't bad and before tackling a new idea it never fails, reality sets in and i realise that song writing isn't easy... then i work until i'm down on my knees and about to throw myself off a bridge because everything i try to do only gets things worse, swear, quit the project, spit on the walls, yell at my neighbors, tell my friends to go fuck themselves, burn down a supermarket

and then woops, that little spark happens and lets me turn the shit into something other than noise... iish, maybe i should stop, not many friends left

paulrmartin · Post by **paulrmartin** » Wed May 21, 2003 1:20 pm

Wayne, I love your analogy. Very well put