[Locating Handbook of Instrumentation]

I found this by Tchaikovsky – is this related?

 

GUIDE TO THE PRACTICAL STUDY OF HARMONY

(Руководство к практическому изучению гармонии)

Translated from the German version of P. Juon by Emil Krall and James Liebling

Reprinted from the edition published: Leipzig: P. Jurgenson, 1900

[copywrite of music]

You can copyright "a loop," and claim royalties if anyone "borrows" any fragment from your copyrighted song.

 

But this doesn't prevent someone from making a library of loops available to you without "strings attached."

 

For instance, most DAW programs these days include a very large library of expressly royalty-free "loops."  These loops are copyrighted, but your purchase of the DAW software licenses you to use them any way you like and to owe nothing.  You're entitled to use them in your own work without attribution.

 

(And FYI ... it is the fact that the library is copyrighted, and that the DAW vendor has secured the proper rights to it, that legally entitles said vendor to grant these rights to you.)

 

Of course there are some "absolutely free loop libraries" out there – not associated with a DAW nor with any other product – for which exactly the same reasoning applies:  "the owners of the material, having thereby the sovereign privilege of 'attaching any strings they want,' have instead elected to 'attach no strings.'"  Because they own it, they can do that.

["Creative Composing" ... With LOOPS(!)]

Most DAW programs today offer a very(!) expansive library of "loops."  These are prefabricated snippets of music – 2, 4, 8, 16, or some other "power-of-two" bars long – which ordinarily also have the characteristic that they "end exactly where they begin."  As the name implies, they form musically-perfect "loops."

 

Most of us who've spent any time with this – that is to say, "on the composer side" – now find it painful to walk outside of any dance-club in the early evening, or to be stuck at a traffic-light at any time of day if the automobile next-door to us appears to be "changing lanes" under its own steam.  (We've heard it all before.  As Charles M. Schulz [RIP ...] once put it, "Beethoven comes in spray cans™")

 

Nonetheless, "loops" do offer a branch of musical creativity that you can – if you care to – profitably use to kick yourself out of any musical doldrums ... and to create something that really is(!) original.  Allow me to explain ...

 

First of all, "a loop is a professionally-made musical performance," even if it's only a few measures long.  If your musical imagination is motivated by what you hear, here's a really easy way to hear something that will get those juices flowing.

 

Second, "a loop might actually be a ready-made and usable part."  A part of something bigger.  A part of something that is yours, even if some of "the parts, themselves" are not.  Go with it ...

 

Third, "there are two kinds of loops – audio loops, and MIDI."  The latter are interesting because they consist of professionally-rendered performances, expressed as event-sequences executed under a particular patch.  You can edit those event-sequences, or splice them together as you wish, to create something brand new.

 

When we leverage "loops" in our musical inventions, I would argue that we are not cheating – rather, we are building on the shoulders of other giants.  Instead of starting with a blank piece of paper, we're starting with completed segments that other artists have filled-in.  And that, to me, "is okay, too."

 

HTH...!

[What do you take into account when evaluating electronic tracks?]

I like to think of it this way – "electronic" is just "the instrument(s)."  But, these days, "that can be anything at all."  If you'd like the services of a symphony orchestra and never have to pay union scale, they'll spend as much time in rehearsal as you want them to.  If you'd like them to be accompanied by a 70's synthesizer, a ukelele and a choir, your wish is the computer's command.

 

Then, put it into a recording studio and mastering console.  There is no billing-clock.

 

You've got at your fingertips stuff that, less than twenty years ago, people did pay $200,000+ for ... and still could only dream of.

 

So – I just look for well-balanced pieces of music that are interesting, and that make creative use of whatever instrumentation and effects the composer/orchestrator/arranger (who's usually just one person) feels most comfortable with.  "Surprise me.  Please me."

[This site needs to join the "https" bandwagon]

"Yep – I'm in the very same business too!"  😎

 

("Day job." ... sux ... When I'm not making music, you know ...)

[This site needs to join the "https" bandwagon]

These days, my browser says about this site – "Not Secure."  Obviously, thanks to "letsencrypt.org" (and, as they intended ...), "https" has become the new normal, and this forum needs to follow suit.

 

Several of the hosting services that I commonly use now provide for this as a "just click the check-box and we'll do the rest" option.  So, the site owners might not have to do any setup, or periodic renewals, at all.

[How do you push through?]

When you listen to a song, watch a show, or read a book, your first and only encounter with the work is "perfection."  You never see the process that went into it.  Therefore you might sincerely imagine that process isn't there.  That the people who write these things are magicians.

 

But that isn't the case, and it never has been.  They spin these snippets of thought out of wherever such things come from, then assemble and polish it into something that they like.  (They might even make several things.)  Teams of people work on most projects, and most of their contributions are invisible to the public.  All to produce something that makes you say – if they did their job well – "wasn't it always this way?"  "How could it have been anything else?"  (That fellow over in the corner of the room who just stifled a chuckle knows all too well ... but, he won't bother you with it.  Just keep believing that it's magic, not hard work.)

[Urban Line?]

For example, when people are out looking for a job, there are plenty of companies out there that are basically:  "professional resume spammers."  For a fee, they promise to get your resume in front of thousands of companies, by algorithmically submitting it to every single job-requisition that can be found anywhere on the Internet.  (As though this could possibly be anything but the last thing a sentient human being would actually want to do in this situation.)

 

Instead, I would echo the "Ira Glass" footnote from the preceding post, albeit for a slightly different reason.  What you should strive to do is to begin building up a catalog of "songs for sale."  Dozens, hundreds.  (Some artists literally have more than a thousand, now.)  Try to make each one as high-quality as you can make it, but don't stop making them.  You never know what someone's gonna want to buy.

 

It's always best to let the customer drive the purchase, and not the other way around.  S/He wanders through the musical showroom.

[Urban Line?]

"If it sounds too good to be true . . ." 💩

[Why do you think most songwriters never finish and release their songs?]

FYI – "have you stopped beating your wife?" is the classic example used in school to describe the fallacy called "begging the question."  As you see, it cannot be answered "yes" or "no."

[Why are people comparing artists of today to The Beatles?]

I would tend to agree.

 

"The Beatles®" was, of course, a very-successful musical product of the musical industry – and, certainly, the technology – of its day.  They were supported by very-gifted songwriting talent, of course ... but they were also supported by an industry (at the time, entirely based on "AM Radio" and "Vinyl") which frankly, didn't care how many miles of magnetic tape they ran through ... at the hands of the very best recording engineers that money could hire ... in the most expensive recording studio in London.

 

Those days are gone.  "Sir Paul," at this writing, is still with us – thereby forever disproving the validity of those backwards tracks – but otherwise, yes, such comparisons really don't apply.

[How to Know if a Song is Good]

Songbird, as a lifetime(!) software developer myself, I would rather-strictly caution you not to be too hard on yourself.  

 

On the one hand, "music-making," much like "software development," is a highly-technical skill (if you want it to be ...) that most people encounter every day but really don't understand.  It's tempting to presume that "it's the same analogy."

 

However, in this context, one very-important thing is missing:  "the computer."  Here we are not coaxing "an impossibly-advanced morsel of sand" to obey our instructions: we are merely using it as a tool.  (W00-H00!!  Logic Pro X is somebody else's headache!!  I can write trouble-tickets and I never have to answer them!!)  

 

Here, we are people, trying to communicate in an artistic way to other people, while using computer technology as a tool to our best advantage.  The "absolutes" that both of us are entirely used-to ... don't exist here, and, don't apply.  They aren't "bugs," anymore.  The people with whom we strive to communicate don't particularly care if our musical tool is a computer, a string, a surface that we strike, or a tube.

 

Therefore – "give yourself some room."  If you let yourself hang upon the question, "is this 'good?'", the answer will probably always be, "no."  But it's the wrong answer, at least if you jump to it.

[Help! Licensing Terms Of A Beat: Streams Limit]

But also ...

 

"Now that you're beginning to get your feet on the ground, using free beats and re-mixes ... howzabout branching out, now, to start creating and incorporating material that will actually be ... yours?!

 

Listen to those "free beats" ... how did they do it?  Those "remixes" ... what would you have to do, to make something competitively-similar that is yours?  Listen to those complex tracks that you've been "borrowing," and think about how they actually were made.  "You could probably do that, too, y'know ... but, how?"

[How many of you write with the piano/keyboard/midi controller?]

How do I say it ... "modules, sequencers, the whole 9 ..." ... it's all gone!

 

That is to say – "it no longer consists of physical devices."  The only thing that you actually need anymore is:

1. One or more good, expressive input devices that are "like putty underneath your hands."
2. A recently-modern digital computer.
3. DAW software for that computer, which is capable of emulating "all of the foregoing."

 

[Arrangement - Tell me your opinion, please]

Well, I'd say that you have a very nice ... MP3 ... as though it was very-faithfully produced from ... a score.

 

"So far, so good ..."

 

Next, what I'd suggest to you is ... "relax."  Listen once again to the original performance.  The timing is actually fluid.  The instrumental parts, also.

 

Now, if what you've produced so-far is "a score," and what you've got so-far is a computerized playback from "that score," well, perhaps you've actually reached the limits of what "computer score-writing software" can [be expected to ...] do, in which case you will need to begin explore further options.  

 

(And, full disclosure, "if this be the case, then I know exactly where you're coming from!") ... 😃

[Sub-harmonic synthesizer ?]

Just remember – your style of music is inherently "asking an awful lot from a set of puny earbuds!"  Therefore, if you want a particular set of sounds – that is to say, in a particular harmonic range – to "come out," be very sure that there isn't activity taking place in other ranges that would compete with them.  A speaker can't do double-duty ... especially earbuds!

 

Also – stop and consider your actual audience.  I've sat at stop-lights beside cars whose "awesome sub-sonic speakers" were moving my sun-visors from thirty feet away.  But I don't think that such sounds would do a damn thing for "earbuds," whereas sounds octaves higher just might have a chance.

["Editing" ... a Song? Well, yes ...]

Some folks have quipped that the most-important writing tool ever invented was the eraser.  They recognized that quite often "the actual creative process," when it comes to the writing of text, is to first "get your words out onto the paper," then to promptly attack them either with the eraser or the "number-two pencil strikethrough."  Somewhere lurking among those "extra supercilious words" is a great idea waiting to get out.

 

Well, maybe this same idea is true of our music, as well.  As we hold our "draft upon draft" against this-or-that commercial blockbuster that "somehow, made the cut," why do we assume that the blockbuster somehow "emerged, perfect, fully-formed (and, utterly starkers ...) like Venus from the proverbial clamshell," when we ought to know full well that it undoubtedly didn't?

 

"[Commercially successful ...] Human creativity ... is a process."  This process consists equally of what you contribute, and what you then take away.  Maybe within your latest lyric draft ... go ahead, call it "a draft" ... is a somewhat-smaller idea waiting to get out.  An idea that's waiting for your eraser.

[Advice Please]

Watch this video ... very, very seriously ... it was originally created as a commencement speech for an on-line university:

 

 

 

[Why do you think most songwriters never finish and release their songs?]

Gotta say this, though ... this is called, "begging the question."

• Why do most songwriters never finish and release their songs? 
• Have you stopped beating your wife?

Same thing.

 

"The creative process" is never certain.  Most professional songwriters approach this reality by quietly working to accumulate a so-called catalog of "songs for sale."  

• Even if a song is "not yet finished," it quickly could be ... and "how would you like it, mister customer" ... should you now be interested in buying it.  
• Likewise, any particular "catalog song" won't be released until someone buys it – unless it's offered [in an unfinished form(?)] for advertising purposes.

Sometimes, it's most-strategic to bankroll a large number of admittedly-undeveloped products, each now ready for the customization requested by a particular interested buyer.

[Help. Whatcha think about electronic drums]

As we geek project-manager types would say, "what's your intended use case?"

• "Are you a drummer?"
• Do you want "a physical [electronic] drum-set?"  
• Do you want it to have fantastic drum sounds of its own, or do you have a DAW that can provide them if given, say, a MIDI input from a drum controller?

 

Stuff that is "only a controller" is of course much cheaper than equipment that produces sounds on its own, but they can be "fantastic controllers."

 

I've had great success buying "gently used" equipment from reputable music retailers – e.g. Guitar City (in the USA) – because they will give you a warranty on the equipment.

[What is your biggest challenge in the realm of making music?]

Starise, maybe you should post your work-in-progress and let the rest of us have a listen.

 

Maybe we can help you to "listen analytically" to your WIP to maybe spot where the trouble might be.

[Songs used as mobile phone ring tones]

Back when "phone sounds" were much simpler, legend has it that someone invented a Whoopee Cushion (or, something like it) that would produce cell-phone ring tone sounds.  I guess the joke was to watch everyone scrambling for their phone . . . 

[Notation software... best?]

That certainly has tantalizing possibilities.  Do let us know what you think about it.

[Have any of you ever thought about why you write songs?]

I guess I write songs because I just can't stop doing it.  I'm still enticed by the pure magic of it ... especially with the basically-unlimited capability of the technology that we have at our fingertips today.  (I subscribed to [Contemporary] Keyboard magazine, back when all of this computer-stuff was happening before our eyes, and I lusted after $100,000+ keyboards that don't do a fraction of what my Macintosh and 88-key controller does.  And you never could have convinced me that I would own such a computer in my lifetime.)

 

But – it's not just the toys.  It truly is "music, itself."  You can make magic.  And there's always going to be something more to learn.

 

But – maybe it is the toys.  Because today you can move beyond your music lessons.  You have a word processor for music.  You aren't limited to your physical/mental abilities of "live performance."  You're free.  We live in interesting times.

[Notation software... best?]

Nope ... I can't give you phone support.  Sorry.