Starting a daily music practice: the 40 Minute Music Project

[two_masks]

(Cross-posted this to the monome forums as well.)

Like many of us, I often struggle to find time for making music- or at least I feel that I'm struggling. Considering how happy music making generally makes me feel, this seems like a damn shame. So I'm taking a page from the exercise crowd and crumpling it up with the Song A Day manifesto to ditch the excuses and create a daily music practice.

I've committed to spending (at least) 40 minutes a day working on a new musical project. Being realistic, I'm shooting for a minimum of five sessions per week.

This of course does nothing to address my difficulties in finishing work, but it does get me into a creative headspace on the regular. I'm posting the results of each day's session on a tumblr blog if you'd like to follow along:

http://9gon.tumblr.com

I'm also considering screen/video recording my sessions, and potentially making the resulting stems available for download, though my focus right now is on establishing the habit, so I don't want to add too many logistical hurdles until I've got something regular going.

Has anyone else thrown themselves into a music practice of this sort? I'd love to connect!

[aioffermann]

Ever since I started working AND going to school at the same time, I've only done exactly what I want and what sounds good to me in Ableton. I don't try to make a track. I don't really aim for anything but happiness. It's been awesome.

I don't necessarily start a new project everytime. Alot of the time I'll open an old one and tweak, and then maybe start a few new instruments. Sometimes I just spend an hour on one instrument itself.

The hope is that making myself happy with Ableton with what time I do have to do it will eventually result in a shitload of material and instruments etc etc that will snowball into complete tracks without ever really stressing about it.

That being said, whenever I'm not on Ableton it kinda sucks to not have any new tracks to show people..

[UltimateOutsider]

Has anyone else thrown themselves into a music practice of this sort? I'd love to connect!

I'm doing something similar, but with less clear goals.

I've committed to a minimum of 30 minutes a day, at least 5 days a week, doing SOMETHING music related. In some cases that means re-arranging gear or troubleshooting problems, but most of the time it's learning my synths, designing patches, and sketching out new ideas. Sometimes I even complete a song!

Part 2 of the plan for 2013 is to sell/give away any gear I haven't used for over a year.

[Sage]

I've done the opposite. Instead of setting a minimum time, set a maximum time to put a song together, as far down as 10-20mins.

More fun to do with a friend though.

[la_co]

I've just decided to start working on building up my own sample library over the next couple of months. I have gigs of sounds, but I would much prefer to have a custom library. I had a pretty robust custom library built up over years, but I lost it in a HD crash last summer.

so basically everyday I'm engaging in some sound design project. whether it be creating kick drums, bouncing down arp lines, searching old youtube clips for samples or doing some ambient recordings. I'm just trying to build up a solid library of sounds which are my own. apart from the benefit of having a library of sounds which are uniquely my own, it also has workflow benefits. it means I don't have to search through gigs of samples to find something I like if I have a relatively lean sample library of stuff I've created.

the most important thing for me is to spend at least an hour EVERY night doing this. hopefully if I can get into the habit of doing this all the time, the practice will just become second nature to me.

your blog looks interesting and you've already posted up some nice results. it would be really cool to see some videos as well

[simonlb]

Ever since I started working AND going to school at the same time, I've only done exactly what I want and what sounds good to me in Ableton. I don't try to make a track. I don't really aim for anything but happiness. It's been awesome.

I don't necessarily start a new project everytime. Alot of the time I'll open an old one and tweak, and then maybe start a few new instruments. Sometimes I just spend an hour on one instrument itself.

The hope is that making myself happy with Ableton with what time I do have to do it will eventually result in a shitload of material and instruments etc etc that will snowball into complete tracks without ever really stressing about it.

I'm busy lately and kinda doing the same, well a combo of you and the OP. Since new year I've try my best to get a session every day, due to other commitments sometimes that's only been 20 minutes first thing in the morning or last thing at night, up to maybe a few hours if it's the weekend, so far there's only been one day I haven't done any music production since new year's day.

I'll either load up a previous project and mess around with structure or sounds or whatever, or try something new, or try to finish a track if I feel like it, or even just play with one synth for the whole time, just as long as I'm doing something. Like you I hope it'll eventually lead on to a wealth of usable material and some completed tracks but I'm not pressuring myself too much. So far I'm sure it's working out better than not doing any on these days when I only have 20 spare minutes and sitting on Facebook instead

[re:dream]

Like many of us, I often struggle to find time for making music- or at least I feel that I'm struggling. Considering how happy music making generally makes me feel, this seems like a damn shame. So I'm taking a page from the exercise crowd and crumpling it up with the Song A Day manifesto to ditch the excuses and create a daily music practice.

(...)
Has anyone else thrown themselves into a music practice of this sort? I'd love to connect!

I think it is awesome that you are doing this. For me, the lack of time to do music is a major source of frustration - second only to my patterns of procrastination / dicking around when I do have time.


I've been doing a simple thing. Often at the end of the day I am too tired to be creative. So these days I am simply sitting at my keyboard, learning about scales and harmonies. (I have been trained in the flute, but have no harmony and music theory). My aim is to do 20 minutes simply of finger excercises, scales, chords every day to improve my musical vocabulary and confidence. It is already showing results in that my tracks have become much more melodious... If a musical idea comes in midst of the noodling I immediately record and try to use it as the basis of a track.

I think creating a blog is a great idea, although I hope that does not eat into the music time.

[two_masks]

I can fully relate to struggling with focus, too. Far too often I've reached the end of the day feeling like I "didn't have time" for music, only to realize that I'd spent hours doing something unproductive, e.g. Facebook. A big part of my trying to form this music-making habit is an attempt to treat some of my worthless internet addiction.

I really like the idea of spending a few minutes each day on sound design, too. I've tried that a few times in the past and always ended up making songs instead of sounds, but would like to try again. I have a huge pile of worthless records I've picked up for free over the years with intentions of sampling- maybe I can commit to finding one sample per night as well?

[Evengy]

I can fully relate to struggling with focus, too. Far too often I've reached the end of the day feeling like I "didn't have time" for music, only to realize that I'd spent hours doing something unproductive, e.g. Facebook. A big part of my trying to form this music-making habit is an attempt to treat some of my worthless internet addiction.

I really like the idea of spending a few minutes each day on sound design, too. I've tried that a few times in the past and always ended up making songs instead of sounds, but would like to try again. I have a huge pile of worthless records I've picked up for free over the years with intentions of sampling- maybe I can commit to finding one sample per night as well?

maybe you can try to make a song with your own sounds. i know that problem because i saw sound design, making tracks, creating xy etc. as different tasks which i practise separately. this year i don´t wanna waste my time that much so im trying to combine them to finish more tracks and seeing all that stuff as a whole.

[re:dream]

I think I will implement the blog idea though.

Here's my link:

http://www.tumblr.com/blog/redreamsworkshop

[two_masks]

maybe you can try to make a song with your own sounds. i know that problem because i saw sound design, making tracks, creating xy etc. as different tasks which i practise separately. this year i don´t wanna waste my time that much so im trying to combine them to finish more tracks and seeing all that stuff as a whole.

It sounds like we have exactly the opposite problem: I've always mixed sound design with writing/production, which more often than not causes me to lose my creative "flow" when I get caught up in shaping my instruments. I'm experimenting now with separating the two, which--along with being meticulous about library organization--is an approach long recommended by Ill Gates ( http://illgates.com/2012/01/ill-methodo ... ow-online/ ).

[re:dream]

http://illgates.com/2012/01/ill-methodo ... ow-online/ ).

What is this? Is it worth the money? Where can one get the video? USD 50 is a lot of moola for a video

[re:dream]

This thread has been so helpful. Firstly, I stumbled across the whole 128 / multisampling thing by following some of the links here, and spent a very interesting weekend preloading samplers with all kinds of sonic palettes.

I have been trying to commit to making some time for music, even if it is just practicing scales or whatever.

And this morning I was on my way out the house, with just 5 minutes to go having coffee. Usually I would waste it with Facebooking (or the Ableton Forum ) but this time I just made myself fire up the virus & play with some chord changes / finger excercises. And then it was but a step to think, why not, hit record, whack on a kick drum and a 1 bar loop using randomized percussion from the weekend's work, and somehow the germ of a new track was born.

So thanks for the inspiration!

[jbauerctu]

As I now have a young baby, it's difficult to find the time at home to sit and spend the time writing. So when at work On my lunch I try to come up with ideas using my iPad and all the little funky apps that's been released.

Then I take the audio and import it into Ableton.

[two_masks]

Glad to hear that this idea has caught on with a few folks! Funny thing that music making is such a pleasure for most of us, and yet it's often the first thing we compromise when schedules are tight.

A quick update on my own process: I was out of town for a few days so missed some sessions (in the future I'm hoping to use days when I'm not around my studio to experiment with different kinds of music making. Someday), but have restarted with an interesting new seven day project. My friend Colin is a visual artist whose commitment to creating a "render a day" was the inspiration for my 40 minute music project. This week we're collaborating: each day we choose an "atomic element" that will act as the inspiration for that day. Colin then creates an image based on that element, and I create a sonic artifact based on his image and my interpretation of the theme. Yesterday was our first stab at this, with thematic element "cube".

http://9gon.tumblr.com/post/41269332695/1-22-2013