Hate Composing - Do you?

[adam_mc]

I find myself spending 95% of my time making tracks only in the session view and performing them in my studio for myself and friends but when it comes to the arrangement of the pieces into a track . . . my goodness I lose the will to live in 30 minutes max.

Is this a typical symptom of using Live that allows such quick development in the session view that arrangement feels so tedious or are there people who love arrangement and see it as the bringing together of all the parts to make something wonderful?

If so, would a great collaboration be between two people of these two different elements? Or is arrangement the hard graft that we must all necessarily do to have something that can be deemed a completed track?

Adam

[mothergarage]

...performing them in my studio for myself and friends...

just press record before you perform...BOOM - arrangement

[adam_mc]

Yeah I do that sometimes but then it's the tidying up, the inserting betting transitions, adding effects to give it that something extra. I guess it's just a repeat of when I did science at school:

I loved doing the practical, you know experiments and stuff, but then when it came to writing it all up - lost interest in a flash.

[dave dove]

just play live...

dave

[Tarekith]

I go through phases. I love the process of turning loops into longer pieces that ebb and flow, though sometimes I get a little fried on the detailed transitions and 5-8 minute length as a format. Lately I've been spending more time writing shorter patterns that I can perform as longer pieces. So still composing, but over the course of 30-60. And on the fly.

Eventually I'll get sick of that and go back to writing short songs I'm sure

[Angstrom]

I like composition, arrangement. It's like storytelling - putting things in context is what gives them impact. A clown face in a circus is annoying, a clown face outside your 3rd story bedroom at 4 am is frightening. Composition is what separates the sheep from the goats.

I think that composition and arrangement is where most modern music falls down,
Very few people seem to appreciate the power of composition.

[Tarekith]

Totally agreed, so many basic copied song structures.

[re:dream]

I find I enjoy every stage of the process.

What's helped me is to understand that every part of the music making process, from initial 'jam' to rough structure, to final structure, to detailed editing of each part, etc etc, has its own characteristics and its own focus, and its own aims. The sense of moving from phase to phase, solving the problems as I go, is very rewarding. In the beginning it's basic problems of what I am trying to say, of the structure of the song, of the choice of sounds. In the middle it's a huge amount of editing and re-arranging. In the end it is minute polishing of the sounds, EQing and effects. At each stage it takes a different kind of work and a different kind of focus. What's fun is to have a lot of different songs on the go - that way if I am in a tweaking and polishing mood I can take a song that is well advanced; if I am feeling energetic and ready to deal with some puzzlement and frustration I work on a song on the beginning stages.

[doghouse]

I find myself spending 95% of my time making tracks only in the session view and performing them in my studio for myself and friends but when it comes to the arrangement of the pieces into a track . . . my goodness I lose the will to live in 30 minutes max.

Arranging and tweaking effects is not composition.

Step back a minute and ask yourself what you are doing this for. If it's to entertain yourself and your friends, maybe jamming in session mode is the end product.

I'm strictlly a hobbyist, so when I do finish songs it's not to make an album or to give to anyone else to listen to. It's just for my own enjoyment.

[Stromkraft]

If so, would a great collaboration be between two people of these two different elements? Or is arrangement the hard graft that we must all necessarily do to have something that can be deemed a completed track?

I'm currently in that situation, doing the arrangements, and I see it as my responsibility to let my partner learn from the results and by discussing these arrangements as they're done and finished. It may seem boring, frightening or both but it isn't really. Co-operating and learning together is fine.

I see arrangement and composition as presentation and thinking about it as storytelling as Angstrom suggested really helps too.

[yup yup]

Arranging and tweaking effects can very well BE composition!!

Composition for me is the biggest challenge of producing. I can get the core elements together for a track quickly. Allowing the elements to exist where/how they should takes me weeks...Evidently, the final arrangement usually will require one or two more minimal elements to complete the track. Very fulfilling when it comes together. Lessons learnt when it doesn't...

[TomViolenz]

Composition/arrangement is fun. It's where all the hard work and good ideas come together and form a bigger picture.

If you stay in Session view you only paint disjointed people, houses, trees. Even if you do that well, it should be totaly unsatisfactory. In an arrangement you turn this into a cohesive landscape and thus your vision.

And this is not only relevant if you make an album, this sort of arrangement is just as important in your live performances. Otherwise it will just be loops following each other.

So I definitely +1 the people who suggested to record your session playing, but would add, don't use that as a short cut, but try to become good enough in your playing that the result is almost ready to go on a record. Mastering ect. not included of course, but if you are already cooperating, why not let one of you try to EQ/mix that thing on the fly too?!
I promise you, if you manage that, your live shows will impress. (Assuming your music is any good in the first place of course.)
I would flatten the whole Session to audio first though, except maybe for one or two elements, otherwise it may all be a bit too much for you AND your computer to handle.

Just a tip. If you are mostly a producer of electronic music, my suggestion would be to look for a decent DJ as a partner, they often have a very good understanding of energy and how it should be distributed over time.

[adam_mc]

Thanks for all the ideas and comments; as always, other's perspectives are so valuable.

I think I have a weakness in not really knowing what I'm trying to construct. When I construct things on the fly in session view I'll often arrive at a place that I consider to be pretty solid but, just like writing a book, all of the parts that are taking place need an introduction. Simply hitting play and having all the elements coming at you in that one instant moment would of course be far to much.

I create deep house/techno music and have friends who DJ so I could, as was suggested, ask them to sit in on one of the the tracks I am working on.

As for having a partner working on the performing idea, I struggle to find anyone in my area who has this as an interest; Folkestone in Kent is not the largest place to be. I have friends who are musicians but they are very much acoustic guitar musicians and our efforts to work together have not gone particularly well in the past.

I'd love to try some kind of online collaboration but I get the feeling that these things are not viewed that positively and posts I've read in the past have not painted such attempts as being very successful.

I've toyed with online courses before and watched some online content that has shown the construction of a complete track but often when I take what I've seen to my music the process does not translate very successfully.

[beats me]

This is why I switched to Logic years ago. Even if I don’t finish a track I still have something linearly to show for it. Although, I am wondering if I now have the maturity and discipline to go back to Live and Session view and still get something done. There are creative advantages to it for sure.

The whole preference to just perform for friends and not record kind of gave me a chuckle. Reminds me of recording DJ sets at a gig. Whatever you thought was brilliant in the moment coupled with crowd reaction and whatever alcohol/drugs you might have been on doesn’t always sound so great just sitting there and listening to it after the fact.

[Angstrom]

This is why I switched to Logic years ago. Even if I don’t finish a track I still have something linearly to show for it.

Strange. I tend to build up a rough arrangement of parts in Live's arrangement as I am creating the first riffs in Session.
There's actually no way in Session to get it to the things I need because you can't chain session clips together to make sections (follow actions are total bollocks).
It's much quicker and easier to put the different riffs in a row in arrangement. I always do that before I close the app, because otherwise when I re-open a session in 3 months time there's no saying I'm hearing the session as it was intended to be when I last played it. The various session clips might have got de-selected, or I accidentally saved in a state where I was trying parts out against each other. and then you are fucked. Nothing sounds right.
So I lay a rough arrangement in session and it's a reminder of what I was thinking - for next time.

Also - arrangement view is the only place to do micro edits, these just aren't possible in session. Want to try out the fill from pattern 4 in the last beat of pattern 12? In arrangement I can just drop that tiny segment onto the relevant bar. In session I'd have to duplicate clips, rename, copy sections from other sections. A total PITA. In arrangement it's all completely visual and easy so I do a lot of work there.

Ableton really need to do some work on Session to support sections, but that's not likely to happen unless they feel the heat from Bitwig actually doing things in that area.

Motherfucking METACLIPS (2005)