You are what you listen to, or How to write actual music

Listen to as much different music as possible. Constantly. Continuously. Actual music today, as a rule, makes people with a very wide outlook. About 20 years ago, the situation was completely different, but now any song is an explosive mixture from different directions, whether you like it or not.

A clear example is cloud rap. You can not love this genre, but thanks to him at the concerts completely different people united: those who love rock and alternative, and fans of emo music, and adherents of techno and drum and n-bass, and the rappers themselves.

In the playlist of the same person you can find radically different compositions. Pronounced subcultures disappeared. The outlook of listeners is constantly growing, which cannot be said about musicians.

It’s a paradox, but people involved in music specifically limit themselves to expressive means. It is difficult to explain why this is happening - it can be in a certain conservatism and slowness of perception, a manifestation of a sense of elitism (we play only hard rock!) During the struggle for musical purity or the indifference of the creators themselves to any changes. Such musicians write uninteresting and not diverse music and wait for it to shoot. Do not shoot - it is irrelevant.

Do not shoot - it is irrelevant

Listen to different music, even the one that you do not like. Highlight all the interesting that you hear in it.

There are many examples when a performer listened to a fashionable musician, copied his work and got short-term popularity. The trouble is that the person did not add anything of his own, and without development any success quickly goes away. It's funny, but in order to write an interesting instrumental and avoid excessive influence (read - mindless copying), it is much more effective to listen not to other performers of the same genre, but to be inspired by diametrically opposite styles. Tested in practice.

To write actual music, you need to live for today.

How to write actual music when there is no willingness to change around you? Do not break away from reality. Listen to popular music, be inspired by what is happening in the world, study various sources. All elements of culture and life are connected, and this is the only way to write actual music.

As a sound producer and sound producer, I have long ceased to divide music into genres, moving to a more universal division into “Like / Dislike”. Every day I listen to a lot of different music that I don’t like, and I do it in order to find some interesting tricks and learn how to apply them in material of another kind. Any style of music has an interesting background and internal "kitchen" from which you can learn a lot of new things.

See for yourself. Virtually all modern music is kept on one classic drum machine Roland TR-808, and synthesizers of the 1970-1980s (see 6 legendary keyboards and their virtual counterparts ), considered to be the craft of geeks in the spirit of Kraftwerk, became an integral part of any arrangement. Once samples were used only in electronics and hip-hop, and today they are used everywhere.

In 2010, Clams Casino created the first cloud rap tracks.

Today, the producer MUST be versatile inspired and flexible, versed in completely opposite musical trends. This does not mean that you should not have your own style. On the contrary: your style will be influenced by other producers and musicians. You are what you are listening to. The wider your range of perception, the faster you will grow, the more likely you will write interesting music. This is the secret of how to write actual music.

Take your favorite song and look for information, how it was made, who was the first and in which music used the effects that you hear in the song (see Studio tricks of popular songs and albums ). Surely, such details will surprise you, open up a layer of new music.

Listen to iTunes Charts, drop into the abyss of YouTube and VKontakte VKontakte read highly specialized resources . Listen, listen, listen and develop. Do not be a hypocrite - the music will change sooner or later without you, and at this moment it is better to be on board the ship of change than to wave to him from the shore.

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How to write actual music when there is no willingness to change around you?