Starting a piece but never finishing it...

[BoxDJ]

I have a terrible tendancy of starting a song in Ableton and never finishing it. I always have trouble with where the song should go. Any advice? Maybe I'm being to critical and maybe I've listen to it too many times...

[crofter]

that's the easy bit, I do it all the time, don't know what the answer is though

[oblique strategies]

I had to make peace some time ago with the realization that there will always be work left undone. There is a positive way of looking at it: you have more ideas than you could ever actualize. Everyone has to find their own balance between work finished & work unfinished.

That said, it can be helpful to examine your methods of working: perhaps you need more time away from the piece. Other times you need to discipline yourself to just finish something no matter what, so you can let it rest in peace, so to say. But that ends up more about craft than art.

You may benefit from working on multiple pieces at the same time, preferably in different genres. This helps keep things fresh. If you work primarily with beats, take some time off & create some ambient music. If your work is highly structured, do some improvisation.

Play a real instrument: it keeps you involved with music but it's quite a different experience than left-brain computer production.

I'm sure many more ideas can come to mind...

Also there is the dreaded loss of the muse. This is really no fun. There are times when you have to just wait it out. I've had it happen to me & it was a critical time of examination & asking myself just what I was doing, & ultimately who I was. Fortunately it broke, & I became revitalized & began to work again. More importantly, I became inspired to work again.

C'est la vie.

[Rave]

If arrangement is the issue play it along side a similar track and try to mimic what it does to a certain degree.

I need to start doing this more as I think this would improve my work flow.

[anybody human]

I went to a lecture by Ill Gates and he talked about daytime & nighttime sessions. Write, arrange, mix in the day, save fun stuff like sound design or trying out a new plugin for nighttime. Save sounds you make at night so that you're building your library while toying around. Get work done during the day.

I've never been able to do this cos sound design and writing go hand in hand for me, but he had a lot of interesting ideas about workflow. I rarely finish songs btw.

[anybody human]

Transitions, "middle 8"/changes, intros/endings, and most of all lyrics if they're involved are the biggest things I struggle with. Sometimes it helps to knock out the easy things first, add a fill there or fix a certain part or sound. Sometimes changing one thing affects my perception of another, bigger thing.

I agree with Oblique Strategies, the muse always comes back. Music always returns to you, sometimes you have to rest. Scott Walker says he just waits for songs to come, Portishead took 4 years making Third. On the other hand, in more traditional genres like dance music it's common to have a set workflow and depending on the project or work you're doing time and productivity are important.

I wish I finished more tracks but the process is the thing I really enjoy.

[mihai]

just add stuff to the track even if you don't come up with any "good ideas". toss in chords, leads, drums, effects, pads, other stuff, etc. and then listen to the project the next day if you get tired of it for the moment. something is bound to work well.

[Tarekith]

Some arrangement ideas to keep you from getting stuck in the initial loop phase:

http://tarekith.com/assets/arranging.html

Sometimes you just need to work through a song to completion to get a handle on the workflow. Gotta just force youself to finish.

[SubFunk]

Sometimes you just need to work through a song to completion to get a handle on the workflow. Gotta just force youself to finish.

+100.000.000

just think to yourself if you want to take it serious or not, once you answer that for yourself, either let it slip like you used to or force yourself to finish in little time, give yourself maximum 14 days or something for a track to start with, not matter if you have work or family commitments or any other excuses.

and don't try to make it perfect, there is not such a a thing, every track after you finish it, could have be done better.

every, always...!!! finish it and chuck it out, next track... and so on.

[oblique strategies]

force yourself to finish in little time, give yourself maximum 14 days or something for a track to start with, not matter if you have work or family commitments or any other excuses.

Deadlines are powerful voodoo, even if they are self-imposed & ultimately arbitrary.

[Emissary]

this is the major downfall of live in my opinion (even though its really my downfall). Its just so damned easy and fun to start and create a song in session mode, that when it come to actually arranging it and working out the builds and drops and fills and everything it suddenly become as massive chore in comparison. I would like to see this overcome somehow in a new version. Dont ask me how though. I have gone to writing just in arrangement view for now though so i at least have some kind of song after a few hours work. Structure is just as important as the sonic palette and melodies.

[sunaivod]

I've had this problem for years, nowadays If I start a track I just begin with making the main chords + beats
and moving those sounds/chords back and forward in the composition and place different (lead?) sounds on those chords and also
trying to change those chords to make it fit with those new lead sounds. Keeps it fun for me + keeps the whole track in the right scale.
Throw in some interesting drumloops for skething out a whole composition and replace those drumloops with selfmade beats if you feel you got a
song going on, it keeps you motivated to fill out the whole composition. Cheerz

[twisted-space]

I'm not entirely sure that I've ever finished a piece.

[SubFunk]

I'm not entirely sure that I've ever finished a piece.

that is the problem, in a way you can say this about everything you or someone else creates... it is never finished because it can always be done better...

afterwards.

that is why you have to simply put an end to it. and then move on to the next one...

how do you think 95% of all artists feel about there first record or track they ever published, well they mostly thing it's total rubbish, because they progressed in the meantime, it doesn't matter, what counts is to have it OUT! and do more...

[oblique strategies]

I'm not entirely sure that I've ever finished a piece.

“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”
~Leonardo da Vinci