Ableton Forum

how do you do it?

i was wondering how people here who make music, keep structure in developping a new song.

i tend to end up with loads of variation loops of the same idea, but get stuck in creating a song of it.
i know i have to kill my darlings, but i was wondering what your way of work is in order to end up with a song and not with a bunch of loops

this is something I've been thinking about lots recently.

Its taken me an age to work out the importance of understanding the genre your writing in. I know that seems really obvious but it can be over looked.

I would study some other artist that work in your genre and make notes on how they arrange. Obviously you don't have to follow them exactly but it helps as a guide.

Also, understanding some basic music theory about chord structures and keys can help a lot... knowing which chords changes make a section feel like its resolved or going somewhere.

Both of these points should help when you have loads of good loops and sections but just need to piece it all together. Also, maybe try thinking about and then writing down what you want to achieve with the track.

Hope that helps.

if you want hlp to structure tracks listen to tracks you like and note what the y do
i.e 8 bar intro just drums , after 8 bars bass comes in . The 8 bar chorus etc

yes,
the 8bar theory and basic structure, i'm pretty aware of.
i also tried to cover some of my fav artists, which is a pretty good lesson in my opinion.

i think very important is the 'less is more' attitude also.
but in my case i'm having more difficulties in selecting the right loops for the arrangement.
like ending a production session with 5 good loops, then the day after reopening ableton and starting to tweak these loops and ending up with another 5 loops which are nice also...then the trouble comes up: which loops i like more? etc...
in my experience i think writing songs asks for a lot of discipline..
forcing yourself to work with structure, order etc...

Restructuring music is what Live is all about for me. I never "arrange" I just perform the track in a way that makes sense to me (while recording into arrangement view), and then I am free to tweak afterwards, if need be.

i love to jam. live allows me to jam for hours on end; when I'm done jamming i cut out the best parts of the jam and turn that into a song.

dj mush wrote:yes,
the 8bar theory and basic structure, i'm pretty aware of.
i also tried to cover some of my fav artists, which is a pretty good lesson in my opinion.

i think very important is the 'less is more' attitude also.
but in my case i'm having more difficulties in selecting the right loops for the arrangement.
like ending a production session with 5 good loops, then the day after reopening ableton and starting to tweak these loops and ending up with another 5 loops which are nice also...then the trouble comes up: which loops i like more? etc...
in my experience i think writing songs asks for a lot of discipline..
forcing yourself to work with structure, order etc...

it sounds like you need to be more decisive
you can't keep everything so you need to be hard with yourself
the best loops should jump out at you... delete the ones that are just ok
build connecting patterns to transition between the best loops

keep old versions of a song just in case you think you might have deleted a pattern you liked

but dont have loads of patterns cluttering up your workspace... it just confuses

i like to have lots of fills and edits in my tracks, most of my tracks are made from a few basic loops that i pad out with edits and stuff
most of the edits and fills i write as i'm arranging the track