Did you enjoy making music when you started?

[stoersignal]

love it or leave it

[Tone Deft]

love it or leave it

seriously.

why bother to make music if you don't like doing it? life's too short to have hobbies you hate, move on go have fun. NOBODY will be impressed if you write a song, you have to do it for yourself.


hell yeah I had fun. as a teenager learning to play guitar I could only play for 20 minutes before the pain in my fingers was too much. hours and hours of Am-Dm-Em arpeggios (the saddest chord progression ever, perfect for a brooding teenager.) I swore that if I could only transition into an F major faster I'd be the happiest person alive. the sensation of hearing your favorite song in the room, looking down and seeing that it's coming from your own fingers is pretty amazing.

[Machinesworking]

I have been trying every day for an hour or two but and have sometimes felt like I am making progress but in general I can't say I find this fun.

I really don't get this? You either love writing music or you don't. If you hate the process of learning a new musical tool from the start then you're doing the wrong thing as a hobby, entertainment or possible career.

The question I would ask back at you is why are you trying to learn to write in Live if it isn't fun for you?
Do you play a traditional instrument? Have you written songs before? Why do you want to write? - If you play a traditional instrument then your problem is probably simple, you feel somewhat accomplished in music etc. and learning something new makes you feel stupid, which makes you hate doing it. If that's the case stop fucking whining, man up and learn the program. - If you don't play a traditional instrument and have never written music before in your life, then stop right now. The last thing the world needs is another lazy musician.

Lastly if you're compelled to write from some inner desire that burns at you, realize that it's not "fun", it's not like watching a movie or listening to music; although as has been mentioned already, when you do create something that sounds close to what you hear in your head, it's a great feeling.

[synnack]

hah. oh man. I forgot about this thing.

[Angstrom]

hah. oh man. I forgot about this thing.

Booooooo Booowiiipp Fffiiisshhhh Booooooooo



DEMO SYNSONICS DRUMS - MATTEL ELECTRONICS - 1981
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKtMPkgrUKo


happy days

... actually I missed out an image of my "effects rack" , so you can get a complete idea of my sound in 1983

the "realistic" branding was presumably intended ironically. I laughed hard when audiodamage created a VST emulation of this. I hated it at the time.

[i3igTripplets]

I recently bought Ableton and I have no experience of doing this before hand. I have been trying every day for an hour or two but and have sometimes felt like I am making progress but in general I can't say I find this fun. I am determined not to give up and have been reading up, using tutorials etc.

I am wondering if any others have felt like this when starting out? I find that I am constantly forgetting how to do things I did before and that I have actually gone backwards in terms of making music since I got the program! Does anyone have any advice on how the best approaches to starting out?

make shit-- lots of it! AND SAVE IT - call it anything.

if you made a great drum beat and cant get a decent sound on top of it... save it (i'll do this and call it SEQ - [whatever]" and I have good drum beats ready to go when I start new projects).

download drum samples, lots of them, single hits and loops.

thats a couple things that keep me going and having fun. I believe keith richards, or someone quoted in his book said 'crap makes the best fertilizer' so don't be afraid to make shit. Take a break here and there too, you'll be surprised at how much you actually do remember and how quickly you can recall it.

[gjm]

.... If you hate the process of learning a new musical tool from the start then you're doing the wrong thing as a hobby, entertainment or possible career.

Just to add to this, another way to think of it is that Live is the wrong program for the OP, perhaps better times can be had with different software. Some people get it quickly, others don't.

[Tone Deft]

make shit-- lots of it! AND SAVE IT - call it anything.

if you made a great drum beat and cant get a decent sound on top of it... save it (i'll do this and call it SEQ - [whatever]" and I have good drum beats ready to go when I start new projects).

download drum samples, lots of them, single hits and loops.

thats a couple things that keep me going and having fun. I believe keith richards, or someone quoted in his book said 'crap makes the best fertilizer' so don't be afraid to make shit. Take a break here and there too, you'll be surprised at how much you actually do remember and how quickly you can recall it.

great advice. my criteria is that I want to make songs that I like. I have no intention of sharing or getting them off my hard drive. I squeezed out enough shits to fertilize all of Africa before I made the first song I liked. it's a great feeling but it's not guaranteed.

sometimes I run the TV through Live and goof off with effects. too tired or unmotivated to make tunes but want to have a little fun.

[synnack]

hah. oh man. I forgot about this thing.

Booooooo Booowiiipp Fffiiisshhhh Booooooooo



DEMO SYNSONICS DRUMS - MATTEL ELECTRONICS - 1981
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKtMPkgrUKo


happy days

... actually I missed out an image of my "effects rack" , so you can get a complete idea of my sound in 1983

the "realistic" branding was presumably intended ironically. I laughed hard when audiodamage created a VST emulation of this. I hated it at the time.

Actually I remember this thing too. As I recall you could connect the mic out to the line in and create some crazy noise out of the feedback loop it created.

[Angstrom]

Actually I remember this thing too. As I recall you could connect the mic out to the line in and create some crazy noise out of the feedback loop it created.

Yep and distorted like crazy, I'd record that feed-back distortion onto the fourtrack tape, flip the tape backwards to get reverse distorted delays of horribly out of time analogue Mattel drumming!

[debrice]

By Tonedeft.
seriously.

why bother to make music if you don't like doing it? life's too short to have hobbies you hate, move on go have fun.

I don't want to quit because I want to make music. I am talking and asking about the feeling of having this fluctuation in progress. I have made some bit's that I think sound good and that feeling is great.

Last week I felt like I was starting to understand things much better but when I wrote last night I felt like the last few days had gone backwards. Let's hope the next few days are better.

I'm just interested to know if people have been in the same boat as me...

[Tone Deft]

ahhh...

for the bedroom musicians out there yes, I think it definitely goes in cycles. I've gone months without feeling inspired or productive and have periods of sitting down and making nothing but complete shit. don't be critical of yourself, don't set expectations, just relax and let it flow.

for the instrument players out there my advice is to never put your instrument in a case, leave it out next to your favorite chair and make a list of ALL the songs you know. when you wanna play but feel uninspired, grab the instrument, pick a spot on the list and just play. before you know it an hour's gone by and you've had proper practice for the night.

one thing that helped me a TON was getting good tools together. I spent an entire summer making my own library of drum loops from the All The Breaks sample set. ever since then coming up with better songs has been easier. at times I spent days setting up BCR presets to have a fun session with.

bad non-car analogy... it's like a chef prepping his mise en place before a shift. take the time to get a clean, well organized, sane work space. prep all the ingredients from fresh ingredients beforehand, sharpen the knives, check the stock room for supplies, whatever, I'm not a chef, I just watch reality cooking shows.

a term I like is "set yourself up for success."

my $0.02...

[balonny]

Huh, just saw this post, and liked it..
WHY? Well because you can see how different people tend to jump in and assist, it was worth reading it and really so many useful tips and advises.
As someone who's also starting to work and learn more and more about LIVE on daily basis, I came to realize not every day is the same, not every tutorial is, not every person is (thank god for that, lol)..
I tend to have some fun in addition to continuous flow of tutorials and love to just shut them all down and simply play with LIVE, it brings also some creative ideas Well that's how I see it anyway and it works fine.
Also, over the past 2 weeks I've got more than 25 Gb of Loops, Kits, Samples...you name it, seems like a nice sound library to start playing with.
Good thing is, do something in LIVE every day, don't leave it alone in that PC, get up in the morning and open it right after you brush your teeth, keep it open when you have a coffee, and always get back to it without pressing yourself to learn something right now, it's pace you need to develop a pace that suits you and that won't be frustrating but instead part of your daily routine and life all-together.
Hope it helps!!
Cheers!!

[stoersignal]

Huh, just saw this post, and liked it..
WHY? Well because you can see how different people tend to jump in and assist, it was worth reading it and really so many useful tips and advises.
As someone who's also starting to work and learn more and more about LIVE on daily basis, I came to realize not every day is the same, not every tutorial is, not every person is (thank god for that, lol)..
I tend to have some fun in addition to continuous flow of tutorials and love to just shut them all down and simply play with LIVE, it brings also some creative ideas Well that's how I see it anyway and it works fine.
Also, over the past 2 weeks I've got more than 25 Gb of Loops, Kits, Samples...you name it, seems like a nice sound library to start playing with.
Good thing is, do something in LIVE every day, don't leave it alone in that PC, get up in the morning and open it right after you brush your teeth, keep it open when you have a coffee, and always get back to it without pressing yourself to learn something right now, it's pace you need to develop a pace that suits you and that won't be frustrating but instead part of your daily routine and life all-together.
Hope it helps!!
Cheers!!

that`s it!!
i`m teaching live since a little bit more than 1 year. i have some students who are doing nothing from one session to the next and i always tell them that makes no sense. others make so big steps every week, that its just amazing. when i started (i made acoustic music before) with live i was addicted from the first moment and so it is til now.
i`m wondering whats their intention to make music? is it because they want to get famous? i don`t know. but one thing i know: you never will be happy or successfull with your music when you do it without passion!! i guess if its no fun at the beginning just leave it