Do you ever change your process to keep things fresh?
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Nick Layton
- Posts: 781
- Joined: Sat Jun 17, 2006 1:20 am
Re: Do you ever change your process to keep things fresh?
My process of writing and arranging is always the same. But if I'm not inspired I have been known to do things like completely rearrange my studio, ie change where the desk and computer are, move stuff around, etc.
That way there is a feeling of "new" and that will work sometimes.
Another thing I might do if I'm stuck is use my imagination and/or try and change my mindset a bit about what I'm doing. I'll tell myself stuff like "ok, for this tune I want something heavy and very Sabbath like,
so let me find a tempo and a drum groove that sets the right mood. Then I'll start working on my best Sabbath riff ideas which usually end up sounding nothing like Sabbath, but I often get something useable.
I think there is something to be said for building momentum, especially if you are writing an album, not just a song. Once you get the ball rolling it can keep rolling if you stay working consistently.
Stephen King said this in his book 'On Writing'--"There is a muse, but he's not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy dust all over your type writer or computer station." In other words, there's no replacing sitting your ass down in a chair and getting to work, inspiration be damned.
By the way, I highly recommend On Writing for any of you creative guys. Even though he's talking about writing books the wisdom shared applies to any creative endeavor, including songwriting.
That way there is a feeling of "new" and that will work sometimes.
Another thing I might do if I'm stuck is use my imagination and/or try and change my mindset a bit about what I'm doing. I'll tell myself stuff like "ok, for this tune I want something heavy and very Sabbath like,
so let me find a tempo and a drum groove that sets the right mood. Then I'll start working on my best Sabbath riff ideas which usually end up sounding nothing like Sabbath, but I often get something useable.
I think there is something to be said for building momentum, especially if you are writing an album, not just a song. Once you get the ball rolling it can keep rolling if you stay working consistently.
Stephen King said this in his book 'On Writing'--"There is a muse, but he's not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy dust all over your type writer or computer station." In other words, there's no replacing sitting your ass down in a chair and getting to work, inspiration be damned.
By the way, I highly recommend On Writing for any of you creative guys. Even though he's talking about writing books the wisdom shared applies to any creative endeavor, including songwriting.
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Dinosaur David B
- Posts: 18623
- Joined: Tue Nov 16, 2004 5:21 pm
Re: Do you ever change your process to keep things fresh?
Thanks for all the replies.
I’ve implemented two significant changes to my process on this album.
One I mentioned on another thread. Changing how I’m getting my guitar sounds. I have recorded 90% of this album with the same guitar and two amps. What I’ve changed around this time was the virtual cabs and mics. And I’ve done a lot of that. But not so much that I think you’re going to hear any dramatic song-to-song changes. That was actually the point. I wanted more song-to-song sonic continuity for this album, but I didn’t want the same exact sound on the left and right side rhythms. I still wanted some harmonic complexity rather than what you get on, say, an Accept album.
But the bigger thing I changed was how I approached composing and tracking my solos. I’d always worked out my solos ahead of recording them. I’d make a recording of just the solo section’s backing track, and over a matter of days or weeks, compose what I wanted to play in that section. Throughout FEINTS and the first Last Chance album, I usually worked my solos out during my lunch breaks at work. I only recorded them once I knew exactly what I was going to play from start to finish.
For this new album, I did the prep work of recording the solo backing sections, intending to write the solos as I always had, but I found myself avoiding digging into the work. I’d let both my calluses soften and my chops get stale, so I put off facing that figurative, and literal music. I also had a niggling concern that I’d left it all on the field on the debut album. That I’d already played every lick I knew on the first album and that I had nothing new left to play or say with my solos. FWIW, repeating oneself ad-nauseam is something I've heard many of our heroes complain about.
Logically, I knew I should just ignore that bit of self doubt -- even though I still feel it. All of my favorite players repeat their pet licks all the time. Of course, I would, too. You don't really have to play anything new. You just want to play something GOOD. But I was procrastinating.
Decembers are always a dead time of year for me at work and I usually take the last two weeks of the year off. With all that free time, I figured December 2023 would be a good time to get back in the saddle and start writing and recording my guitar solos.
For whatever reason, I just didn’t have it in me to work out the solos ahead of time. That felt SO stale. Did I really need to spend those weeks in advance exhausting every possible idea ahead of time? Or could I — by this time in my playing journey — sharpen my focus enough to walk into a session (or ten) with nothing, and walk out with a finished solo? And trust my gut that the results achieved this way equaled or bettered my past work? All that matters is being happy with the results — not how long it took you to get them.
What would happen if I tried to channel my emotions and ideas in the moment rather than doing all that preliminary work? I figured why not find out? So I just pulled the first song in the DAW, plugged in, and went for it.
Composing on-the-fly like that isn’t as immediately efficient as going in with everything worked out in advance, but it may be more expedient in the long run. I had to do the same work either way, but instead of working things out over weeks on my lunch breaks, I’d condensed that process down to a few hours.
It didn’t come immediately or easily. I was still composing the solo, as I’d always done, but for the first time, I was doing so in real time. I found the first four bars easily enough, but I had no idea where it was going next, or how it would end. I just attacked the solo, phrase by phrase, and after a couple of hours, I had it. And I liked how it came out.
The new approach had the added benefit of feeling fresh to me. As I’d discovered while spending more time on my cab and mic choices, fresh was something I REALLY seemed to be subconsciously looking for.
Finishing the first solo that way gave me the confidence to start tracking the other solos this way, too. Another thing I discovered was that working this way lets me work out of sequence if I choose to. That is, I don’t have to start with a solo’s entrance and end with the exit.
If for example, I have an idea how the solo should end, I could record that part first and then figure out the entrance later. I could skip around as inspiration struck. Or if I recorded a bit for bars 4-8, I could also just move that bit to bars 8-12 and see if it worked better there (another form of comping). I don’t know that I’ll always work this way, but if you find yourself stuck on one part, it’s nice to be able to move to another — doing so can help you get unstuck.
I can say, though, if you haven’t worked it all out to where you’re happy with it ahead of recording, it’s very important to go back a day or two later and listen to what you recorded and see if you’re still happy with it. Then do that again in a week or two. I’ve already found that sometimes it's fine, and sometimes, you’ll want to go back and re do some portions of it.
So I’ve done most of the solos on the album this way. I’m still kind of stuck on the solo for the last song. I have a solo drafted, but I’m not happy with all of it yet. Sometimes it feels like I’m soloing by the numbers, or by formula, rather than that it's flowing naturally. I'm really trying to avoid that, and if I sense that happening, I go back and re work it.
I guess I won't really know if this new approach to the solos worked better or worse than my old way until I've sat with the songs longer. Usually when we start mixing the song, hearing it over and over again, if something bothers me, I'll know, and I'll revise it.
I’ve implemented two significant changes to my process on this album.
One I mentioned on another thread. Changing how I’m getting my guitar sounds. I have recorded 90% of this album with the same guitar and two amps. What I’ve changed around this time was the virtual cabs and mics. And I’ve done a lot of that. But not so much that I think you’re going to hear any dramatic song-to-song changes. That was actually the point. I wanted more song-to-song sonic continuity for this album, but I didn’t want the same exact sound on the left and right side rhythms. I still wanted some harmonic complexity rather than what you get on, say, an Accept album.
But the bigger thing I changed was how I approached composing and tracking my solos. I’d always worked out my solos ahead of recording them. I’d make a recording of just the solo section’s backing track, and over a matter of days or weeks, compose what I wanted to play in that section. Throughout FEINTS and the first Last Chance album, I usually worked my solos out during my lunch breaks at work. I only recorded them once I knew exactly what I was going to play from start to finish.
For this new album, I did the prep work of recording the solo backing sections, intending to write the solos as I always had, but I found myself avoiding digging into the work. I’d let both my calluses soften and my chops get stale, so I put off facing that figurative, and literal music. I also had a niggling concern that I’d left it all on the field on the debut album. That I’d already played every lick I knew on the first album and that I had nothing new left to play or say with my solos. FWIW, repeating oneself ad-nauseam is something I've heard many of our heroes complain about.
Logically, I knew I should just ignore that bit of self doubt -- even though I still feel it. All of my favorite players repeat their pet licks all the time. Of course, I would, too. You don't really have to play anything new. You just want to play something GOOD. But I was procrastinating.
Decembers are always a dead time of year for me at work and I usually take the last two weeks of the year off. With all that free time, I figured December 2023 would be a good time to get back in the saddle and start writing and recording my guitar solos.
For whatever reason, I just didn’t have it in me to work out the solos ahead of time. That felt SO stale. Did I really need to spend those weeks in advance exhausting every possible idea ahead of time? Or could I — by this time in my playing journey — sharpen my focus enough to walk into a session (or ten) with nothing, and walk out with a finished solo? And trust my gut that the results achieved this way equaled or bettered my past work? All that matters is being happy with the results — not how long it took you to get them.
What would happen if I tried to channel my emotions and ideas in the moment rather than doing all that preliminary work? I figured why not find out? So I just pulled the first song in the DAW, plugged in, and went for it.
Composing on-the-fly like that isn’t as immediately efficient as going in with everything worked out in advance, but it may be more expedient in the long run. I had to do the same work either way, but instead of working things out over weeks on my lunch breaks, I’d condensed that process down to a few hours.
It didn’t come immediately or easily. I was still composing the solo, as I’d always done, but for the first time, I was doing so in real time. I found the first four bars easily enough, but I had no idea where it was going next, or how it would end. I just attacked the solo, phrase by phrase, and after a couple of hours, I had it. And I liked how it came out.
The new approach had the added benefit of feeling fresh to me. As I’d discovered while spending more time on my cab and mic choices, fresh was something I REALLY seemed to be subconsciously looking for.
Finishing the first solo that way gave me the confidence to start tracking the other solos this way, too. Another thing I discovered was that working this way lets me work out of sequence if I choose to. That is, I don’t have to start with a solo’s entrance and end with the exit.
If for example, I have an idea how the solo should end, I could record that part first and then figure out the entrance later. I could skip around as inspiration struck. Or if I recorded a bit for bars 4-8, I could also just move that bit to bars 8-12 and see if it worked better there (another form of comping). I don’t know that I’ll always work this way, but if you find yourself stuck on one part, it’s nice to be able to move to another — doing so can help you get unstuck.
I can say, though, if you haven’t worked it all out to where you’re happy with it ahead of recording, it’s very important to go back a day or two later and listen to what you recorded and see if you’re still happy with it. Then do that again in a week or two. I’ve already found that sometimes it's fine, and sometimes, you’ll want to go back and re do some portions of it.
So I’ve done most of the solos on the album this way. I’m still kind of stuck on the solo for the last song. I have a solo drafted, but I’m not happy with all of it yet. Sometimes it feels like I’m soloing by the numbers, or by formula, rather than that it's flowing naturally. I'm really trying to avoid that, and if I sense that happening, I go back and re work it.
I guess I won't really know if this new approach to the solos worked better or worse than my old way until I've sat with the songs longer. Usually when we start mixing the song, hearing it over and over again, if something bothers me, I'll know, and I'll revise it.
It's not a restring until I'm bleeding.
Re: Do you ever change your process to keep things fresh?
Those sound like good ideas. My guess with the solo approach is that you'll still wind up happier with them in the longer term and even if you wind up replacing a bit here or there, the overall experience will have paid off just in getting more enjoyment out of the process. What you're describing is probably my most preferred approach to doing solos. In my experience, it's the closest thing you can pack into a reasonable amount of time that is similar naturally developing a solo over a bunch of band rehearsals and gigs. The upside is getting inspired performances because you're capturing the idea while it's still fresh and exciting. The downside might be needing to work through an idea a bunch in order to get good execution in the moment. What I've found for myself is that in the long run I'm less happy with a tortured, over-rehearsed performance than I am with something off that I came up with in the moment that I maybe needed to simplify or spend a little time getting under my fingers.