Not exactly helpful, but when I saw this last night I immediately thought of this thread:

Do you need a prod?
Do you need a little darkness to get you going?
Let me be as urgent as a knife, then,
and remind you of Keats,
so single of purpose and thinking,
for a while,
he had a lifetime.

- Mary Oliver

I don't know what any of that has to do with anything,

MoreSpaceEcho wrote: Tue Apr 05, 2022 12:09 pm I don't know what any of that has to do with anything,

This is kinda my response to 90% of things people say in general lately.

I've always wondered exactly how my dad does it. He's a painter, hasn't had a day job in close to fifty years. He wakes up every morning, he goes out to the studio, and he paints. Then he stops. Then he does it again the next day. Fucking baffling to me.

I just spent 11 months working on a project (rock album). Here's how I was successful, but bear in mind this is for formulaic pop/rock. Here's my keys:

No matter what, I practiced drums pretty much everyday, going over basic rudiments for about 10-15 minutes. Once I hit 10-15 minutes I usually would stop for the day. If I wasn't gonna do songwriting on a particular day I'd still do 10 minutes on drums, though. It was always a routine of double and triple paradiddles and fills, triplets I've learned... like a warm up/practice routine.

I never record to a click. I come up with song parts by hitting record on the DAW with the vocal mic on and guitar plugged in...and just freestyling what I come up with. Take a break for 15 minutes, listen to playback, figure it out... Once I have at least two song parts (Usually like 3-4, maybe even 5), I arrange it into a form, using a reference sheet. Pen on paper that then goes onto a music stand that faces my drum set.

The reference sheet accounts for 8-beat measures. So it's basically shapes that account for "verse, chorus, bridge, post-chorus," ...whatever. And that's what I look at as I lay down the drums for a song, again... no click.

Once the drums are laid down, it's basically just tracking guitar, bass, vocals and that's it. I try to put myself in the mindset of whatever instrument I'm playing by pretending I'm on stage as the member of the band playing that instrument. Like, "Ok I'm the bass player, how would I rock out to this song?" And that's how I'll track it.

Some other stuff I've done and found helpful, was to use this method and record full covers of songs I know pretty well, so that I get an idea of how I will sound when I try to emulate that style.

Of course, this is a workflow for pop/rock and doesn't apply to all styles of music in general, and I've also left out nearly all the compositional asides, but this may be helpful for someone out there so... that's how I do it.

^ I suspect that I'm probably not far off from this. I just need time. Or maybe I just need to think that I have time, and I'll just do it.

Damn.

jfv wrote: Tue Apr 12, 2022 7:10 pm ^ I suspect that I'm probably not far off from this. I just need time. Or maybe I just need to think that I have time, and I'll just do it.

Damn.

Another key I left out... I always had the mics setup 24/7.
Over the 11 months at any given moment all I had to do to start tracking drums was just hit "Record."

The mics/interface were set up in such a way that if I had an idea, I was able to immediately capture it, on any instrument... including drums.

A_Man_Who_Tries wrote: Mon Dec 20, 2021 2:39 pm

tommy wrote: Mon Dec 20, 2021 2:19 pm You are correct on both counts. I need to find a collaborator that hears something he/she likes and runs with it. I'm super good at writing a part and terrible at taking it somewhere else. Conversely, I'm pretty good at layering parts on top of existing things as well. I can start something and finish something. It's the middle framework part I get hung up on.

If my laptop ever gets out of surgery, and you're partial to a long-distance collab with a musically-challenged DAW/sample-based imbecile, I'd fancy a slice of this.

While this isn't what I was initially talking about (my bandmate has those "riffs than need to be songs") - I did throw up some songs that need vocals. Most of these I recorded during the pandemic using instruments that are not my primary one. Then I added some guitar last.

Feel free to take a stab at any of these if vocals are your thing. I'll probably eventually get around to writing lyrics for the one called january Cava, because I wrote that one earlier with a very specific encounter in mind.

My laptop didn't get out of surgery, plus current homelessness hinders getting on with too much, but I will listen to this and, if anything chimes, I'll try and get something done next month.