Sunday, December 02, 2007

I got a great way to create melodies. CHECK IT OUT...

Ok, heres what i do now when im stuck. I walk away and literally walk from my pc/keyboards. I go for a walk and try singing the melodies and i come up with thm this way.

I use the line I will always love you and manipulate it in a thousand ways with emphasis on holds and pauses, like this for ex.

I (pause pause pause)will always(hold) love you(hold)
I will always(long pause)love you
I(pause)will(pause)always(pause)love(hold)you(hold)
I will always love(pause)you(hold)
and etc.

of course you can throw in any line you want
I(pause)am an american(pause) gang(pause)star
I am an american(pause) gangster
and etc.

Play around with this, and im serious when i say WALK AWAY FROM YOUR INSTRUNMENT, once you got a good catchy melody in your head, trust me, you wont forget it, it will eat at you, then go to your jeys and bang that ish out.

Okay i sure hope this helped some, this has greatly helped me out especially during times of beat block
_______________________________________

The Inspiration Bank

Hey all,

Here's a trick that I've used for a while that really helps me out. As a music maker, I often find myself being inspired by ideas i hear in other people's work. As a musician, being receptive to this sort of observation is critical to maintaining a fresh sound and truly refining your production and composing skills. The only problem is that its difficult to keep all of the things that have inspired you in your mind at all times; good ideas are only useful if you have them at the right times.

The trick that I've devised for getting around this inspiration bottleneck is to use the computer to keep a cache of ideas for me. When I hear a section of a song i really appreciate and would like to use as an idea for a future project, I load that section into an audio editor, cut out that loop and save it in a Inspiration Bank folder. to make browsing easier, I have mine divided into such categories as:

Breakdowns
Introductions
Grooves
Basslines
Riffs
Transitions
Chord Progressions
Sound Selection/ Instrumentation
etc.

when I find myself needing inspiration in any of these areas, I have my ideas already lined up and ready to help me out. As an additional tip, I suggest spending at least 1 hour every week adding stuff to this bank. One of the best parts of this technique is that by copying and saving things that inspire you, your bank will truly come to reflect your own production style and values.

Please let me know your thoughts

-Lodger