Book Club!
My coworker, Hannah Mimi and I are reading Making Music Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers. We want to make more music so part of the book club is coming up with assignments.
The first assignment is creating a song from a Catalog of Attributes.
Assignment 1: Catalog of Attributes
Pick a song that you are inspired by.
Listen to the track, really listen to it with your full attention and take down notes about it.
- BPM - Sound elements (instruments) - Harmony (what notes can you hear assuming you can hear & distinguish notes) - Melody (what notes can you hear assuming you can hear & distinguish notes) - Rhythm (the beats) - Form (breakdown of the song structure)
Once you have all your notes, throw that inspo song away. Then take a day to chill out and when you return, make something just based on the notes you took. The notes are your guidelines and it’s ok if they aren’t very specific, it’s all about making something new.
A note about “Cheating”
Nothing is considered cheating! Looking up tutorials about how the song is made is completely acceptable as is sampling from the song. Use samples, use loops, use prewritten midi melodies. Do what you gotta do.
I can’t tell notes apart from listening to things. I’ve been making music for 3 months and I’m not good at this. I looked up the melody online to see the key it was in and what it’s overall structure looked like. I also looked up the BPM cause I didn’t want to sit around tapping in Ableton to try to figure it out.
There is no cheating when you’re learning.
Also don’t forget to save your project on Splice.