Creativity - looking beyond. (From DanceFair 2015)
Introduction
Hi. I’m Audiofreq while I’mprimarily known as a hardstyle producer, I make music in many genres.
Today I would like to talk to you about something that most producers don’t often talk about.Something that I feel is noticeable lacking in the whirlwind of today’s ultra-clean music productions - and thats more creative music.
I think a few of you were expecting something along the lines of a previous presentation that I haddone talking about distortion and hardstyle kick drums, or perhaps wanting to know how I make atrack from start to finish but I feel that as a collective we need to focus on something other that thefiner points of technical production.
I will still address these things in a few short sentences though - 'Get really good monitoring, in a properly treated acoustical environment (and I’m not talking about an Auralex foam pack) so you can hear things properly. Collect less plugins and know the tools you have inside and out. Reference your mixes religiously and train your ears’. Thats all you need to get on the path to more technically amazing productions.
I know its not in-depth and its quite broad, but that sums up most of what I have learnt in the past 2 years.
What I want to talk about however, I feel is more deep, more abstract and in my opinion more important.
Generic Clone 3.0
Its undeniable that there is more music being produced in this day an age, than there has been in the previous centuries combined. The fact is, now that computers have almost caught up with the speed of our imaginations, and are available cheaply with plugins and sample packs that are of high quality, that now 12 year old producers can pump out a pretty standard track. But what that means is that there are more and more standard tracks being pumped out faster than ever. A good example would be Epic from Sandro Silva and Quintino. For the record, I actually really like the track when it first came out, and perhaps the first few clones that were inspired from it too, namely Animals from Martin Garrix - and yes, I like that one too. But almost immediately, thanks to technology and the speed of which people can produce music these days, there were countless clones of these tracks, and while I single out these examples it most certainly didn’t start or stop there. Its something that we do. When Le7els was released, there were hundreds of house tunes with little floaty riffs, after Wake Me Up became a hit, suddenly there were more country music/ house music clones.
While its easy to pick on those who start and trends though, people are really aiming at the wrong targets. Don't blame trend setters for setting a new trend. Blame the sheep that follow them.
I don’t want this to seem like its a criticism of the music industry however, I actually think its a challenge for people, for us, to step up our game.
So what I want to talk about isn’t about being technical or how to build a track in 10 minutes. I want to talk about creativity, and how bring out the best creative beast inside of you.
Creativity
The biggest problem, I feel with up and coming artists is not their technical forte or musicality, but instead their lack of identity. I’m acutely aware that while I was getting to grips with the hardstyle genre before I was established, I went through the same thing we all do - I copied my heroes and tried to make music like what inspired me.
It should be noted, that human beings do indeed learn through imitation. When we start learning maths or language in school, we copy what the teacher puts up on the board. We work through mass printed textbooks, watch the same educational films in class so we can soak in basic knowledge. The same thing extends to any field when learning - we copy and repeat with the purpose of understanding. But copying and repeating shouldn’t be the final goal.
You don’t become a solid, creative and well respected artist by chasing someone else’s spotlight.
The world doesn’t need the next Noisecontrollers, Wildstylez, or Frontliner. The world needs you, but the best you. I know labels and promoters are always looking for the next hype, and thats cool, that is part of how the industry works, but as an artist you don’t properly grow and develop by being the next whatever.
I call this artistic maturity - something that only happens when you have the maturity to stop trying to copy the people around you and have the boldness to be yourself and find your own voice.
For the more technical side of things, there are more youtube tutorials on how to re-create whatever sound you desire than I can shake a stick at and like I said before I’m not here to talk about that. It is an essential part of being an artist, but shouldn’t be the focus and should only be thought of as part of developing your own skill so that when you have an idea, you can dive into the process and create a result quickly.
If you want to be truly great and creative, respected and remembered, you need to pave your own musical path once you have honed in your skill. Develop your artist maturity.
In short, be different. Make music that gets attention. If you want to impress people, give them something that is impressive.
What made the great artists, the greats?
What does at 17th century dutch artist have to do with todays generation of electronic music producers? Well simply put he was an artist in a scene where there were many other artists trying to get ahead but for the most part we remember him and his art and while his contemporaries a much less well known.
He actually wasn’t crazy different from his peers, he was a renaissance artist like many others but he’s famous because he took a slightly different approach from his peers. He didn’t invent the idea of painting a still life scene, but he took the idea of using light and shadow to highlight certain things in a scene, from an italian, and then applied it to a less romanticised, less perfect somewhat chaotic scene with some refining. In short, he did something different that made him stand out from the rest.
You see, great artists are remembered not because they not only had a mastery of their skill, but because they were bold enough to break certain rules and do something different.
So why am I talking about all this stuff? Why am I talking about art and how is that related to electronic music? Well I hope to cement the idea that in a rat race where its becoming harder and harder to stand out and to get noticed, its becoming more and more important to be creative.
Let me give you a few guidelines just to sum up what I mean:
Creativity is playing by some rules, but breaking others. Creativity is seeing something that isn’t there, taking something from where it doesn’t normally belong and putting it somewhere else.
The brain is a processor - what goes in affects what comes out.
We are all equipped with a marvellous computer, despite what people might think of you and you of them, we all have a brain. But like a computer, what goes into it, affects what comes out of it. So at its very basic, the music you listen to will affect the music you make. So it stands to reason that if you want your music to stand out, to seek out outstanding music. Now I’m not saying that you should just find the latest radio hits so that you too can make radio music, not that there’s anything wrong with being on the radio. What I’m saying is that thats not a healthy habit if you want to find your own voice and develop your own identity.
Instead, be hungry for new stimulation so that brain can digest it and influence your music.
I have developed a habit of collecting movie soundtracks for every movie I like. We all know that movies are intense visual and sonic experiences so it stands to absorb as much of that as you can. If a particular cue from a scene makes you feel a certain way, pull it apart and figure out why it makes you feel that way - reverse engineer it. Is it the timbre of the strings? Is it a low almost sub sonic rumble? Perhaps its the intentional dissonance from a distorted guitar or the strum of a harp with lots of room reverb?
Lets say you’re skimming through the radio and you hear a cool track that you like, don’t just get the track, get the entire artists back catalogue. Find what inspires them, and listen to that too. Keep digging and be hungry for more influences and experiences. Collect, absorb and assimilate.
Do the same for all the media you consume. Games, TV shows, hell even comics. And don’t just take the easy road of lifting samples or an intro theme - thats not really anything new, thats not seeing something that isn’t there, in fact, its a bit tired. Rework a quote into a set of lyrics, steal chords and write a new riff around it, develop your own theme for a famous character or show.
Embrace different genres
Its actually a bit of a challenge to stay open minded and comes from a conscious decision to keep your mind open to new things. We human beings are strange in the sense that we like the familiar but we also crave new experiences and sensations. Force yourself to listen all the way through an album of a band you don’t like. Go to a party of a music style that you don’t understand and get really drunk. Try to understand a genre of music in the context that it comes from. Listen to new podcasts that you wouldn’t normally think of.
Even if you don’t like what you hear or experience, you will absorb that and it will teach you more about your own music and where you want to go.
Sometimes instead of trying to figure out what you like or what you want to say in your music, it helps to figure out what you don’t like and what you don’t want to do.
The brain is a muscle - train it, but also give it rest.
Being creative doesn’t mean you have to know everything about everything. In fact, you should feel as if you know nothing and be hungry to learn as much as you can about different approaches and from different perspectives. There’s nothing wrong with looking at youtube tutorials for stuff that you feel you should know. That kind of attitude will in fact hold you back. I see it as just another way of learning, and we never stop learning.
Set days aside from reverse engineering other peoples tracks and sounds. Spend a whole day perfecting a screech, but a really cool one. Start off with imitating something you like and then twisting it into something different, something that makes you say wow. In the process you will also learn how your own tools work. Doing these on a regular basis will train your brain and your ears.
Then take a break.
What studies have shown is that while the brain is capable of solving very intricate and complex problems. It actually does is best work when its not consciously attacking the problem. Its a bit like a defrag process on Windows. Those ‘eureka! I have it moments’ don’t come when you’re bashing your head against the wall. More often than not, they come out of the blue and often when you’re focused on something completely different. Daydreaming is actually quite a useful tool when it comes to searching for inspiration.
So take a break. An hour, a day, a week, even a month. In that time, stimulate yourself with new experiences instead of just slogging away churning out yet-another-tune. Deliberately breaking the process when you’re running out of steam instead of powering on is actually quite a useful tool to keep yourself fresh.
Remember, the brain is an organ and our organs get tired from doing too much work. When you train at the gym, you need time to recover. When you drink too much, you need time to recover, when you produce too much, guess what - you need time to recover.
Wait a second, other genres? What about hardstyle?
Origins of hardstyle.
I think when you better understand the past, you can better plan for the future. Hardstyle was always a genre of mixed influences. It was officially labeled in 2002, but even before then as it was slowly taking shape it had influences from techno, hard trance, jump and was all put together by Dutch hardcore DJs looking for a softer sound! They took some of the harder elements of existing club and festival music and played it just that little bit faster. It was literally the harder side of electronic dance music of the day!
Ultimately, hardstyle was born as a
When you understand the guidelines, have more freedom!
Everything is a remix - don’t be afraid to steal, just be smart about it.
‘If you want to make an apple pie something from scratch, you must first invent the universe.’ - Carl Sagan.
If you haven’t already watched this really interesting web series, do it - www.everythingisaremix.info - I found it both enlightening, challenged but also quite liberating. At the very heart of the message is the idea that nothing is truly original. Going back to Rembrandt, his idea of shading and lighting was taken from an italian painter called Caravaggio. He essentially remixed an idea in visual art form.
Stealing influences is ok, its healthy, its how we create. But take them from people wouldn’t expect or aren’t really looking at, and transform them. Put some effort in.
Reference something popular from the distant past, re-interpret something underrated, or even something over rated but forgotten. There’s nothing wrong with taking these influences. The art of today builds on the foundation of the past.
T. S. Eliot once said - “If you see a great master, you will always find that he used what was good in his predecessors, and that it was this which made him great.” or to put it another way - “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”
What a fantastic quote and is particularly true of many memorable works. There are countless examples in the dance music scene Noisecontrollers’s 2009 hit ‘Attack Again’ came from DJ Panda ‘Its a dream’ a german hard trance track from 1996. Technoboy’s Ti Sento takes from an old 80’s italo-dance track, ‘Hard Creation - I will have that power’ comes from a track from Sting called Russians which itself is taken from a 1934 Russian Film called ‘Lieutenant Kije - Romance’
Now I’m not saying that every track you do should always reference something from the past, but rather feel free to steal - but be clever and creative about it!
Set limitations (chance dance music theory)
There comes a time when an artists has mastered their discipline to the point where there are less and less challenges in that field. Often art is a puzzle with the final work being the completed assembly - a problem that is being solved.
One way to overcome the issue of ‘no problem’, is to introduce rules and constraints to create stimulation - a frame work for the artist to utilise and explore.
To further this concept, I have devised a method of ‘constrained randomness’ to lay down rules, to create a problem to be solved for artist stimulation. As such I have elected to use several oddly shaped dice with each object responding to a different facet of an artistic work:
Emotion - Divided into 4 basic emotions
Expression - How this emotion can be expressed
Influences - any regional flavours to attach
Genre - a specific selection of chosen genres.
When I don’t have any ideas, I roll the dice and work within those constraints. By pre-selecting a mood and several attributes of the music before even laying down the first note, it can give direction for samples, inspiration for lyrics and themes and help your music stand out from others.
I call this ‘Chance Dance Music’ be the separate parameters are left up to chance. I’ve included an example table below for some ideas on how to set up your own decision matrix.
For example, according to the table below - if I were to roll the following: 2 7 3 5 - that would correspond to the following results - Sad + Blind Choice + African / Tribal + Drumstep.
This can be extrapolated to: Sad Tribal influenced Drumstep with sounds chosen blindly. Not really impossible to imagine now is it? Now you can jump on youtube to look for samples, watch african films, and continue hunting for more influences and inspiration.
Now I’m not saying this is for everyone or even that you should do this, but this is an example of how to introduce limitations to help stimulate ideas in the studio.
Where does inspiration come from?
Like I said before the brain is machine - the input affects the output. So this is why its important to actively seek new experiences. Or experiences outside your normal every day sphere of existence. It could be as simple as going to the beach, or watching the sun rise or set over the mountains. Now there are some artists where that is enough and a new song will come to them all in one go like a fax from the devine gods of music, but I’m not one of them and that usually isn’t enough. But during those experiences, its good practise to stop, and listen to whats going on inside your head. That time of reflection and stillness can often bring clarity - that space, that time daydreaming a little can bring spontaneous moments of inspiration and ideas.
And even if nothing comes from those experiences right away, keep those emotions you experience in your memory so that you can refer to them later down the line when you are working on a track that might benefit from those emotions.
Sometimes its also very healthy to ask yourself this simple question ‘what if....?’ During these moments its also very important to never talk yourself down and explore things.
Be forgiving of yourself. It is completely worthless to negative self talk while writing. It is important to differentiate good ideas from bad, but never shut down the entire creative process.
Creating identity, becoming individual
In line with what I spoke about earlier - one of the most important things and often overlooked aspects of producing music is creating identity. Here are some tips that I’ve picked up along the way that will help you.
Create as much character as possible. Be it using unusual wavetables in your leads, to distorting sounds in a particular way, make you sounds a little different from the rest so that your sound is your sound and identifiable.
Use as many ‘unique’ elements as possible.
Develop, reference, tweak every section for at least a day. IF you spend a full solid work day (8-10hours) on perfecting each section of your track, you’re gonna have something spectacular.
Identity, quality & character are more important than speed or quantity. Its very easy to feel compelled to rush through a track and get it out there as quick as possible. Never force the music, perfect as much as you can while keeping some shreds of your sanity so that your track stands out. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Its better to have one track that is perfect and unique than 10 that are sloppy, have been rushed and sound the same.
Come up with original ideas or steal them cleverly. We’ve talked about this!
Don’t be afraid of complex automation. Develop as much as possible. Movement is good. Be more creative with FX and don’t be lazy
All of these are self explanatory - don’t be lazy. Be clever, but not lazy.
Go with the first approach and then come up with another 3, pick the best one. This is music, there is no right or wrong so its always subjective. But you can always coax more out of yourself. Push yourself so that you can get the best.
Stay focused on one thing at a time. Don’t be rushed, relax, good things will happen in time, the magic cannot be forced.
Screw layering (but not clever voicing), screw CPU usage. You can always bounce down/freeze stuff to save your CPU when its crying. Do that to whole parts of the projects in fact, in doing so you will create stems for future use.
Expand your ideas - vocalise and write down.
One of the most useful tools that I’ve bought myself in the last few years isn’t a new synth or plugin or chair or whatever. Its actually something far more rudimentary and basic but seems to be forgotten. Its the humble pen and writing pad.
It really helps to write down your ideas and expand on them on something physical like a pen and paper. Perhaps its the tactile sensation of the whole writing experience, but being able to flesh out things on paper, you help give your ideas form. You don’t need to construct a full length novel explaining every intricate element of the track in a linear fashion. You can create a mind-map of words to convey an emotion or experience, or ideas that you think would work in your track that you’ve heard in others.
Keeping a log of small ideas that you’ve had gives you something to reference and look over when you have writers block, or helps you hold onto your inspiration while you quickly rush to the studio.
Maximising your time.
Not all the time in the studio needs to be spend on writing a new track. You should divide your sessions up into specific tasks so that you can become more efficient.
Think of it this way - pretend you’re a cave man and you want to go hunting. Your meal is out there somewhere, but you need to chase it and be ready. Build your arsenal and toolkit so you can chase that idea down and nail it right quickly. If you, the caveman, spend too long chasing an idea and don’t get it pinned down quickly, you're gonna be far too tired.
Have dedicated days of sound design for different elements - perhaps spend a day, week, month on solely one element or group of elements to build up your library. Usually when I decide its time for a new kick, I take out a few days to make as many variations as possible. Same thing with plucks, growls, screeches and lead sounds.
Spend a whole day hunting for random samples from youtube or chopping up cool phrases from that giant acapella torrent you got the other day (don’t lie, I know you’ve done it)
Refine those sounds, perfect your techniques, create little sketches and organise them for future reference. Categorise stuff and label everything well and clearly. Don’t just label your files ‘good kikk arjawherajw.wav’ put the date in the file name, the key, even your references in the file description so that you can grab it quickly when you need it.
Even if you spend 3 months in this preparation phase before you lay down your first track, those 3 months will be very well invested.
Another thing to remember is that inspiration often comes from ‘play time’ and not always work time. Never be afraid to set aside an hour, two or a day to play with your tools, a new synth or some technique you saw on youtube. Studies have shown that ‘play time’ breeds creative results and can lead to inspiration. But remember that not all your time is play time, when there are no limitations with our time, we end up being wasteful with it because we are still human beings.
Be prepared for when inspiration strikes.
The 20 Hour rule - Trimming the fat
Along with some of the other limitations that I set out before, a good one is setting up time limits. And being severe with them. One rule that I have is called the 20hr rules, and it goes a little something like this:
If I don’t have a solid layout for the track that I am 100% happy with in 20 hours of solid work in it, I abandon the track and reject the idea.
I don’t mean working 20 hours straight on the same track, but 20 hours of pure work from developing the idea, fleshing it out, collecting sounds and putting them together and turning them into something listenable.
This is independent of sound design however, unless the sound design is very specific for the track, because like I said before, you should have separate days for sound design so that when you get into the studio with an idea you have a huge palette of sounds and techniques at your disposal to help your idea take form quickly. So with that in mind, if you have properly prepared yourself and your tools for when inspiration strikes, it shouldn’t take more than 20 hours to get something that you’re happy with.
And if you’ve reached the end of those 20 hours and you’re still not happy, there’s nothing wrong with canning the project or the idea and using what you have created in parts of other tracks somewhere done the line. Nothing you create is ever a wasted effort, so never feel guilty for not finishing a track. You WILL have more ideas, better ideas in the future, so never be afraid of not finishing an idea.
Even after months of rejecting ideas, if you collect all the sounds, melodies and little bits you’ve created, you will have a huge bank of your own things for when you do eventually get that one killer concept.
How to get through writers block
One thing that I’ve found during my writers block isn’t that I’m not capable of making music, its that I don't like what I make because its not good enough. Hitting the wall that is writers block is inevitable, but there are some strategies you can employ to get out of a funk.
The first is take a break. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again.
Sometimes you’re too close to something you’re working on and it needs a few days of rest. Play a game, go on a netflix binge, break up the monotony of staring at a screen 8+ hours a day and refresh yourself.
Try working on another track in a different style, doing something completely different. If you’ve spent all week eating pizza, sushi is gonna taste divine. As a human being, you need to switch it up to keep things fresh.
Perhaps also, you are trying to force the track into something that it just doesn’t want to be. After working on a track for a while, the track itself started to come alive and have its own identity - don’t force it, let it become its own thing. Its healthy to see something all the way through even if you don’t like it once you’re done. Its always better to have a handful of finished works, even some you don’t like, that hundreds of little sketches that you do but aren’t finished.
Finally, accept that sometimes things just don’t work out. You don’t need to be 100 creative or productive 100% of the time you’re in the studio. Whats actually quite useful (and something I often forget) is to spend him building your sample library, channel strip collection, and sound design.
Some artists have very very long periods of writers block and thats ok. Music shouldn’t be forced, encouraged yes, maybe pushed a little, but not forced. Yes, sometimes we get a bit lazy and we need to push ourselves to finish something, so I’m not saying give up at the first sign of trouble, but accept that sometimes square pegs don’t always fit into round holes.
But even if you try and fail, you learn. And learning is just as important. Don’t be afraid of learning without creating or finishing.
Practical applications
So how can we turn all this theoretical stuff into a process to help us make fresh music? Lets say you’ve already spent plenty of time in preparation, and suddenly an idea strikes.
First - Define your target.
Everything is a remix, try to define what you want using reference material. Come up with a name, a theme, a concept first. Sunset party? A love song? A driving song? Be specific. Make the target as defined as possible. Are you driving? What car is it? What colour? Be specific and focus.
Second - Gather creative firepower and reference.
Using the above example,you could watch Drive, play driving games. Read a book on the subject. Watch a movie, listen to the soundtrack. Digest it. Imagine the scenario, picture the music and its scene. Collate the images and themes. Construct a story. What sticks out to you? What are you trying to capture? How will you do this musically?
Third - Tell your story. Paint a picture effectively.
You don’t need to be complicated to get your point across. Combine chords to create a feeling and twist into something unique. Convey scenes, follow the story, and images you have already created. If you are sitting in front of the studio trying to find inspiration, you will only find frustration. Have a concept before you hit the studio, be prepared.
Conclusion
Firstly, its important to acknowledge the fact that making music is now a small element of the music industry. The fact we are here at a convention inside this giant exhibition goes to show that the there is a lot more to the industry than finishing tracks, getting them released and playing shows.
At the end of the day, our music has to fulfill certain objectives. After all we are at Dancefair, and we do make and listen to dance music. So our music has to get people dancing.
But also its important to make your music stand out, for you to have identity for us as producers to be creative so that everything doesn’t end up sounding the same.
I hope that you’ve picked up a few tips on how to be more creative with your music. Thank you.