Mario taught me how to finish music

Haha, this was great. I can totally relate! Very good points.
I used to be paralyzed with possibilities like how to finish the, part, song etc. as well as with some dellusional race for perfection. Now, I aim to be more fluid and as soon as I come up with something I like, I stick to it. Every finished idea is like a step closer to better one.

In the age of the remix, what better way could there be to put down an idea, come back to it sometime and have another go at it. The worst possible outcome, as exhibited in your livestream "A track from scratch" when you realise the improv you did just now without the subconscious pressure of recording, was better than anything you could come up with when the red light was on.

ear blind - love it, I'll be using that in my vocabulary from now on

The chef comparison is perfect! I keep trying to make great pasta, but end up boiling water forever🤣😭

When I was young, playing improvisational music. we would learn if you make a mistake play it again. then everyone thinks you did it on purpose as part of your improvisation. The happy little accidents where your fingers are faster than your brain.

I can relate a bit to this, in terms of drawing a cartoon for my college paper. I was forced to do as many as five comic strips a week. I had no choice but to finish, because of deadlines. Was I great at it? No. Did I get better because I was forced to complete ideas, however flawed? Hell, yes.

Perfect practice makes perfect
-Da13thsun

Thank you for your videos! Your classical background going into electronic music production is similar to my own path, so we’ve experienced similar struggles. Thank you for making these videos!

Finishing music is also just knowing when it's time to abandon the song. I know this because it took me 9 years to finish my "latest" (it came out a year ago) album.

The stakes and steaks cost a lot less to realize a music composition sucks after going through the process of it compared to cooking high quality steaks and realizing your cooking of the steak sucks. How you like the sound of them steaks?

‘We have Venus theory at home’

People don't finish their tracks because actually they don't like the song right from the beginning, BUT they made too much effort in production, that it's very difficult to admit that within the time they spent on it, basically they just practiced. But did not compose.

Laziness, procrastination, and poor health routines. Those are the answers for why you can't complete projects. And they're universal. They apply to any kind of project.

Bold of you to assume that I have a friend..
But I enjoyed the rest of this content, subscribed.

Where is that community to join for track reviews? Is it your Patreon channel?

I find that every track goes through an ugly duckling phase, so a lot of it has to do with believing in yourself to get it done in the end. I actually push myself to finish every idea. Even if I end up abandoning the main hook halfway through there will be something in every project worth developing further.

what of I have a hard time even starting. I open ableton... have no clue the direction I want to take. mess around a little and close it. other times I have an idea, no clue how to execute it and just give up.

which synthesizer would you choose? Korg MS-20FS or Moog Matriarch? I have Polybrute and Moog Subsequent 37. But I don't have enough tool to create leads and rough sounds. Can you advise something else? Thank you!

Nice video, nice format, thanks to u :)

It's mostly a shortage of time in my full agenda to do so. At least, overhere it is.

Jeff Mills - Techno God - said that you should make 50 songs, but only release the best 1.

Great content as always. Cheers

Good video - one of the secrets to success in any creative endeavor is "Fail Fast". In terms of the topic of this video, it means wrapping up a track in a reasonable amount of time even if it's not very good. (Hint: you don't have to release it). Almost every highly creative person I've gotten to know well doesn't have more good ideas than anyone else. They just close out the bad ones more quickly.

Hey don't sell yourself short, I think you've got a lot more value than just helping beginners! I'm not the only one here who likes your music and enjoys hearing well thought out and articulate takes on things, even if we've already heard them. Keep em coming 😁🤲

I've taught that "Practice Makes Probable". If you can play a passage 10 out of 10 times without a mistake, you'll probably do that in your performance too. If, however, you practice something iteratively incorrectly, then you'll probably perform it incorrectly.

Ultimately, practicing well is about giving us better odds of succeeding in whatever goal we've set, whether it be to have an excellent performance or just to master a new skill.

bravo

This is top tier advice, and should be taken very seriously by anyone viewing. Thank you, you're making the most useful music content on YT and I look forward to your next video :)

I realize that my process is different. i always start with the music in my head and never improvise. I can stop making music for days and one day i wake up with a whole piece of music in my mind and i just go to the computer and put it into reality. I can't compose without having the music in my head, or i do "flat" things. I often do not finish it but i wait to have the ending coming in my mind. Can take time. I have to fulfill me of inspiration before it finally comes. A party with friends, a walk in the forest, etc. But composing from scratch, i can't, or it ends beeing too much driven by the sounds and not my inspiration. And flat, not original, boring, already made 1 million times. Well, that's all for me folks, and do not forget that music must come from your heart and mind and not from your sound banks first.

This is great advice. I am a visual artist and in our training they taught us this very principle - to keep making art and stop being so precious about it. Draw constantly and throw it away. Only way to get better.

Another thought occurred to me after watching this …

In the long-run, I don’t think an artist’s oeuvre is this “zero-sum” game where your later works are great because your early ones suck. (Plus, there are some artists that have an opposite trajectory =] ). I think each piece you make should be something you absolutely wanted to make and could make with the knowledge and skill set you have. You keep doing these enough and you have a body of work you can be proud of.

I listen to my earlier stuff and I do notice a difference with what I did back then compared to what I do now. But at the same time, I made it all with a certain honesty and sincerity where it was only me who could realise this. Yeah I may have done things that you probably “shouldn’t do”. But that was my headspace at the time and, even then, I still think I did something pretty good.

Until we meet for that overdue drink … cheers =]

Your zeal and goodness in nature is why I subscribed to ye in the first place, and why, after this, I shall be a returner to you!

In the past 5 years I saved about 500 Ableton projects, but only finished like 3 songs. In the past 8 months I've gone through about 400 projects and made about 150 more fleshed out, 2-4 min long and fully mastered demos. Most of them are still far from being good, how ever I can't even describe how much I improved in arrangement, decision making and mastering by just "finishing" those demos.

Venus Theory clone?

My particular problem: the "magnum opus" affliction. I'm trying to get unstuck of this idea that whatever i'm working on must be the be-all, end-all of creative work. My greatest example of how to approach things better is Legowelt (Danny Wolfers). That guy understands the art of "winging it" (with sufficient quality), not getting stuck in paralyzing perfectionism, and having fun in the process. If only I were good at practicing what I preach... ;-)

Good advice for computer app programming, too imho (iteration, time limits)—-thanks

wokest bloke in the synth hood

Thanks for the insight on perfection not really existing. A few years ago I made my first EP and the concept was just that every track needed to have a mistake or error that I kept in. Recording takes meant that I had to keep them at some volume. It was a freeing experience because I was just edging away from perfection with every track. Striving for perfection is sometimes done in reverse if that makes sense.

Hey, I just randomly picked your latest video to let you know that I'm really enjoying Respirate...
It sounds great.
Loving having it on while I write (screenplays).

Hope you're having an inspired day.

that chef has only used 10 or 11 different cooking methods in 200,000 years of evolution, according to my cookery Bible from school, (not counting microwaves or A.I., its an old book)

nice video

If you ever find yourself at a loss for video topics, I'd love to hear your take on "coming up with a 'B' part". I write a lot of basic A-B-A-B-C-B-B songs (in theory, anyway), and I always struggle with writing a chorus/B part that is different enough to feel like a different part, but thematically similar enough to feel like it belongs to the same song. Usually I'll write something and feel like "this is cool, but it should probably be its own song". Anyone else in the same boat? If anyone has any advice, I'm all ears.

My biggest challenge is actually to find form. I love listening to various genres, and I end up inspired to write a song or two in one genre, then I get bored and move forward to the next one.
In modern industry behaviour like this is killing the momentum.

Another thing. I perform techno live, but I cant push myself to wrap all my loops into full tracks.
Things that I produce for Spotify are suitable for listening rather than dancing, so I cant perform majority of them live on local events, where promoters want me to play in specific genre boundaries.

In general, my biggest struggle is to find form that doesn't become boring for me and is inspiring at the same time.

Good stuff, thanks! I'm currently in the midst of trying to finish an old passion project before it falls by the wayside. I figure that even if I'm not super happy with all the results at this point, I can definitely use the practice getting tracks from 80% to the 'done' pile.

Recently I tried getting into AI music generation in search of more inspiration outside of my typical workflow. Did a lot of research and found some that were getting great reviews. Purchased all the premium features of them all (most seemed to be just for an open copyright ownership) and got to doing the generating and tweaking parameters of them. Saved ones I liked and brought them into my DAW to work with.... Hated it. Instead of seeing if they could help inspire me, they ended up just being generic rhythms anyone with basic music knowledge could do, not really anything formed, almost as much "music creation" as a metronome does. Lol. Sometimes I get jealous of people that dont know music theory because their creations are so untypical its fantastic. They aren't tied down to putting a quarter note here or a crescendo there. They just do what sounds good, and it does.

Better with a 90% then a 95% that is never released.

Great video, thank you🎹

Useful episode for sure! We’ve all been there. I appreciate the attention paid here to the many nuances involved.

I had one track that I just couldn't seem to finish.
I had the intro, the beginning, I had the "peak" of the song, but I just couldn't finish the rest. It was never good enough, it was never as good as whatever perfect abstract idea I had in my head.

After around 3 months I decided "fuck it, I'm finishing this track" and I just put my mind to it. No matter what, a finished product was gonna come out at the end of this process.
In the span of a few hours, I finished it. I wasn't super happy with the results at the time but I was happy I managed to produce something nonetheless.

Looking back now, I think it's one of my best tracks :)

Sometimes forcing yourself to go forward and accept the "imperfect" can unlock a whole lot of potential instead of getting stuck listening to the same loop endlessly.
I still struggle with this but it works.

I'm grateful to artists who talk about their process. It demystifies things & reminds me that everyone approaches problems differently--it's ok to be weird 😊