I keep kicking something around.

I've often thought I would learn a ton from "job shadowing" people's music writing process, even for a few minutes. In the absence of being able to do so, sharing practical ideas and tips that you use regularly might be the next best thing.

I ask this because I've often felt like my own workflow / writing process in a given session is super inefficient and slow. I still spend a lot of time making very small incremental changes, listening and relistening, perhaps focusing on the wrong details -- all to the effect that it prevents me from actually getting to where I'd like to arrive. I'm guessing someone here feels similar.

I don't think there is such a thing as a "right" process, since how you write is a function of many things (like your experience, skill, interests, musical ideas, influences, creative flow, personality or even how much sleep you got last night), but I do think we might all have cool things to share that could benefit others. This isn't about doing more in OHBs (although that'd be a fun biproduct!) so much as it is about improving as a writer in general. I've learned something new every time I've asked something similar. I hope others could also learn some cool stuff.

--
What are things you'd share that could be helpful with regard to writing in general or your specific workflow? General principles you try to follow? Specific techniques?

Nothing's too big or small, I'm curious to hear what you've got to share!

Thanks for sharing!

the handful of times i've watched people i know stream their music making process, i've found it really cool and valuable! i agree there is plenty to learn from this. due to the anonymity of xhbs it might be frowned upon to stream one of those publicly, but i wouldn't mind doing so privately sometime as long as you don't then vote on the resulting entry. or maybe i could just stream working on a major sometime :thonk:

i am almost always writing whole phrases or sections on one instrument first to get the idea down and then adding whatever i feel is necessary after. often it's the chordal part, but sometimes it's a cool melody or cool bassline or some drums to start; whatever i feel is The Good Idea that gets me started. usually also i liveplay things and then tweak it. pretty much no matter the program i'm using MIDI input for as much as i can, lol... in trackers it isn't usually "live recorded" (though that's nice in MPT sometimes) but i much prefer the piano keyboard to the computer one, and i still usually generate ideas by playing the piano with edit-mode off (or in MPT's instruments pane)

i am really not afraid to try fucking something up and then spam the undo button to get back to where i was if it doesn't work. i assume most people do this? but i am pretty aggressive about it

perhaps because of the liveplaying thing i try to get each instrument as set-up as possible before proceeding to write its part. so, instrument envelopes, effects, etc. i don't usually do them all at once though, i start digging for additional sounds based on whatever i feel the need for

what i did once was to record myself during the ohb and post the video after

defmech i love that! perhaps if more BotBrs uploaded "OHB logs" they could be compiled on a lyceum page & sorted by format - would be a great resource for noobs intimidated by OHBs.

that's a great idea roz!

thanks! :D

also kilowatt i relate hard to that experience of getting fixated on getting a few specific details perfect and running down the clock that way while the overall structure suffers. it’s only human to get stuck in tunnel vision like that.

Tunnel vision is a great way to put it. Super helpful thoughts dami, that's the exact kind of stuff I'm wondering about! And thanks defmech, that's really cool!

my workflow is...kinda unique? i usually start with a chords before going into drumbeat, bass, and finally phrases. that's probably why most of my songs are super uninteresting or messy composition-wise at times - i'm putting WAY too much time into chords, which i do realize is a huge mistake

it's super interesting seeing this ohb log by defmec; i might do this for one in the future, actually. i wouldn't mind roz's idea, in fact i wholeheartedly agree with it and the purpose it's tryna serve!

sincx posted some recordings of full ohb doings before and so did i (but i think my stuff is not available anymore whoops)

my workflow between ohbs (and other time-restricted contests) differs from stuff where i actually have a lot of time. for the latter i do listen more than i compose in a session usually. i listen to what i already did over and over and append small bits at the end depending on what feels right to me in that moment.
of course there are exceptions to this, but mostly its that pattern.

my ohb workflow is following a basic well optimized pattern. i shld record it again sometime.
ofc those optimized patterns kinda translate to bigger projects too sometimes, especially for getting a base structure of song elements going, but ya.

also, my writing flow changes dynamically every 6-9 months or so.
i wld say in most but not all cases i do bass first, chords next, drums, lead elements. it usually shows in my modules because its often just that stuff from left to right, channel-wise

make music that changes a ton, so you’re not tempted to just do a loop and add a bunch of melodies over it.
If the music is supposed to be very unrepetitive, focus on getting that (probably on a few bar) section just how you like it. The next section, different from the last, is a clean slate! Then go back through and fix transitions and mixing, etc.
(I started using this workflow when I started creating music inspired by Cryptovolans, his music doesn’t really have repeating sections.)

re: recording my ohb work
this is something I’ve myself been curious about for a long time too, but I never got to recording anything bc working while recording is really quite psychologically different, I think… I’ll definitely try recording the next time I do an ohb (in a format and bitpack where i feel comfortable enough!)

Nard is making me feel pretty called out ngl :P

friends i have created a new lyceum page: XHB Vlogs. for now it is in construct manifest state and has only one example but i have some more bookmarked to add later, also please feel free to add your own!

ed. i have now listed several XHB vlogs thanks to BotBrs' great contributions and have de-construct-manifest-ed the page!!

also thanks to lumby for setting up the table!

Thanks a ton for putting that out roz!

Sometimes, I temporarily use only NES tones to focus on the writing.

Then worry about the instrument choices later.

Also, less likely to get stuck if you have the foundation of the song, from start to finish, in your head (more or less, at least).

Damn do I wish this thread were about writing-writing, as in story writing. I have a lot of to say there, but as for music... man idk it just happens

Writing-writing would be less likely to be the theme of this thread, given that the writing category in botb no longer exists (afaik, as a result of everyone writing obscene fanfics of fellow botbrs and people getting offended).

Apparently, this was in 2009, though.

@Blue Christmas I am a fan of storytelling and writing of that nature but haven’t really engaged that creative muscle for a few years. Botb sort of reminded me of NanoWrimo when I first joined (did that challenge once)

But now that I think about it, there are a lot of principles that are similar between different creative work. Thanks for all the thoughts people! This is good stuff

@Tex i for one am advocating for a text format.

unlisted atm on YouTube. share at will! if these are any good I may do more. sound levels rough at times, mb mild nsfw? unpolished. a few "shit"s and "fuck"s in an hour of live mic XHB

Jan 16 2023 ym2151

fm; built an electric piano on damifortune bitpack request. also a kick drum, an FM bell; used Furnace

Jan 11 2023 MSGS MIDI

DefMech bitpack wanted 0 (1) acou piano, 39 (40) synth bass, 109 (110) bagpipe, 118 (119) synth drum; used OpenMPT, Audacity, Domino. first ever shot at live feed

i am a supreme enjoyer of cabbage radio!! 🥬📻

thanks so much for your contribution cabbidge!!

ed. also i just made a new thread for XHB vlog discussion so this one can stay on-topic.

make tracker music by sharting onto the keyboard then typing on the keys with feces on them, rinse and repeat

AHAHA

GOOD thred

my workflow process is to do nothing for 4 months until my brain conjures out of thin air a really banger chune

In my way of doing things, (at least in limited time scenarios like OHBs) I will usually think of an abstract music concept and slap it down into my tracker/music tool. I start with a base like a melody, chords, or drum beat, and then extrapolate off that. I then might add some flourishes and maybe a key change or something like that to spice things up.
Other times my process is just as simple as putting down some notes that sound really nice to me and building from there.

I don't know how to describe my process perfectly since I kind of just "do it" but I hope this explanation is good enough.

I whistle a lot

Oops I wrote a long comment because I'm at work doing nothing, hopefully someone will find it insightful though (^^;;

I typically write with one of two methods:

One I think of as the soundtrack method, where I revert to what I did as a kid and just sing something made up based on the scenario which I play or act out in my head or sometimes with actual toys on my desk. (The exception of course being if I'm actually soundtracking something, in which case I'm humming along with an actual visual.) This can be as complicated as really trying to make a song and planning what types of instrumentation and form etc or as simple as making stupid guitar noises and drum fills with my mouth that I'll have to turn into real guitar noises and drum fills in the near future.
In this method my ability to visualize a song in my head often exceeds my capacity to write it before it's forgotten of course, due to a mixture of where the holes in my "music theory" knowledge** and the limited recall of my brain once I start writing other things out and hearing them played back to me. In this case, priority goes to whatever is going to give the song its feel and I must assume I'll figure out the finer details in the future.

The other is the groove method, where I start with either drums and bass or drums and chords and start to build from there.

Both are highly improvisatory processes, as I like to react to my own work. This is why I typically write with such weird time signatures. I'm sorta prone to feeling a groove in a "weird" time or thinking of melodies that lie outside 3 or 4 feel, but beyond that it's as if my body wants to move in a new path or some sort of arcane mathematics beyond my comprehension desire some sort of balance I can't perceive but feel and understand implicitly. The reaction process is also how things like stop/starts, anticipation, tempo changes, key changes, and especially drum part writing come in.

Both methods btw work together, some songs are mostly or entirely one or the other but other times it's more of a working relationship between the two.


XHB have taught me a lot about not being too precious and also about executing ideas when I have them, as I used to be the type to envision a better world for my music but be too this or that to execute the idea. Of course the XHB writing process is itself a different one from just writing without limitation, but it teaches the ability to plan while I work and to ignore the "what if it was better? why didn't you do something else instead??" voice when it's being a hinderance instead of a motivator. The drive to become better can be harnessed by taking action and focusing all of your attention on one small thing at a time, which I actually learned from working on my marksmanship of all things. Instead of thinking "stance, grip, form, sight picture, trigger actuation, am I flinching, etc etc" I just focus on what my index finger is up to. Did it do the right thing? Did it have a problem I can learn from? How can I make it better? With only one thing to think about, I can actually see the results of what working on just that one thing is and how it's factoring in to the bigger picture.
To bring it back to music from the self-improvement and skill building perspective, I can pick one element or idea or synth or voice role etc that I'd like to focus on/include and immediately see the results, see if I'm shitty at it, etc. I guess I could add this as an additional mode of writing I might call the "novelty method", because I essentially build the song around that one technique I want to work on or idea I want to explore.

In the context of BotB there can be the strong need to make sure you still present something up to your competitive standard, but it's important to remember that none of us are the best songwriter on earth (no one is in fact, and to prove this you can make a joke response about how your fav is the best composer and watch people disagree with you heh) and I'm pretty sure most if not all of us just want to grow and experience new things and help each other out.


Anyway, I am not enough of an authority on the matter to be typing this much, but I appreciate having the opportunity to organize my thoughts (and to pretend I didn't lay down the music teaching sword a few months ago)


**By this I basically meant I can 'hear' a chord and not always know what it is so I may spend longer than someone more proficient with that trying to figure out the voicing and what chord it even is. To overcome this I usually prioritize an interval, like if I hear a major seventh I can either think of how many chords have that spacing or I just leave those there and plonk some other notes in between until it sounds right.

There's a lot of good stuff to unpack here in this thread. I've been appreciating what everybody has to share.

bgo, really interesting insights. I really related to the visualization piece and haven't heard of many others talk about a process like this. Another botbr described something similar to me once. Using physical objects even to assist with that? Super cool! I think I tend to write stuff that feels the most authentic to me when I visualize a scene playing in my head as I write. So I often try to tell a story in songs with varying degrees of success, and I end up likely overusing fx and certain musical elements because it's how I try to communicate what I'm visualizing with how the scene plays out.

Thanks for the thoughts! This has been really valuable for me. And I continue to watch all the vlog uploads and have loved it.

random notes plugins
singing random things
staring at a wall for 5 minutes listening to white noise
mashing the buttons on my computer, if something sounds good or intresting i use it lol
if smth sounds too similar to a existing thing or one of my previous works, i just change the rhythm up. usually works well, but if the change is too jarring i just try changing the notes. "maybe they will go up this time instead of down."
either way i feel like a fraud cuz all the stuff i do sounds the same HAH!!!
hope this helps in some way :3

spam notes til it work