Hearing music in your mind - Page 2

I like this thread. I play the piano.. for the few months or so rather obsessively practicing at least several hours weekdays and around six or more on weekends. When I'm not practicing at the piano I'm often going over music in my head. I started learning piano in 8th grade because I could hear music in my head and wanted a way to get it out. Now as a much more accomplished pianist I still have little ability to express that music, but I feel like I'm get closer as I learn more about composing and improv and just develop a better ear for music in general. A big hurdle I just got over was the realization that music is not at all about its complexity but just the sound and emotion. That has helped me immensely in beginning to let the music finally break out of my mind. The more I learn the more I'm in awe of what our brains are capable of.

@Wharfrat

 "Jerry Garcia doing "Dark Star" at the 8-27-72 Veneta"

The music is not just coming from inside his mind.

He is channeling the fumes of a six pack of Bud along with a 1/2 bottle of cheap Annie Greensprings Wine.

Yup my head is my own private jukebox, and where my music projects have their beginnings.

I'm a self taught musician and have been composing electronic music for over 10 years now.

To the ones who wants to get in to music making but find it hard to get started, here is my advice.

Make some music, you'll only improve your skill if you try, don't settle for perfection, what you make doesn't have to be listenable right from the beginning, no one can just jump in the music composition and expect to make something inspired right away.

Make something and finish it, you can't move on before you have finished something, down the road you may suddenly stumble on to something you find pretty good, focus on that, evolve that idea, don't listen to it when you are not working on it, it must not become trivial before you are done with it.

It will more often then not become trivial before you are done though, if so, put it away and move on, down the road the old project will become interesting again, go back apply what you have learned since you started it.

Always try to aware of what you did when you made something good, when you have made a good piece of music (this can take years) export the project and listen to it over and over again, until it's flaws jump out at you, go back and correct them, fit and finish is important.

Never delete a project file, always save what you have made, even if it's just a few cords or a drum beat, you never know if it might become useful for a different project.

Even 'complete' songs may benefit from new skill years down the road, there is no reason why an old project can't be improved with new techniques and ideas, Kraftwerk does this all the time.

So get at it, if you want to make music do so, there is no excuse, you won't get good unless you try.

It takes time so be patient, but it is fun to just experiment with sound and explore the possibilities, even if you don't produce workable results right away.

Thanks for that! I will follow your instructions as I have very few others to go off of, plus they make sense.

Also, little off topic but what program to use to create electronic music?
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adda 

To the ones who wants to get in to music making but find it hard to get started, here is my advice.

 

<advice>

^

Good luck on your journey!

I use FL Studio and a bunch of VSTi's.

Originally Posted by Redcarmoose 

@Wharfrat

 

 

 "Jerry Garcia doing "Dark Star" at the 8-27-72 Veneta"

 

The music is not just coming from inside his mind.

 

He is channeling the fumes of a six pack of Bud along with a 1/2 bottle of cheap Annie Greensprings Wine.

LOL!  Were it simply a lid of Panama Red friendlies and that sweet rotgut liquour, he would not have improvised the seamless transitions in the segue of six songs that begins with "Playing...." and ends with "Sing Me Back Home" as well as he did, proof of the truth in the good rumor has it he was dosed to the gills.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sentient 

Thanks for that! I will follow your instructions as I have very few others to go off of, plus they make sense.

 

Also, little off topic but what program to use to create electronic music?
 

Theres plenty of DAW programs people use, like reason, logic, FL studio like Adda said, cubase. Then theres all these VSTi that is used to make the sounds (Drumcore, claw, synth1 etc). I personally use a DAW called reaper because its cheaper than most  Theres also hardware involved sometimes, like a midi keyboard, which helps out a lot IMO

Don't forget an audio interface with native ASIO drivers, it makes a world of difference, no ASIO4ALL won't do.

The trick is to get the music to stop playing in one's head, meditation can help with this.

 by grokit 

The trick is to get the music to stop playing in one's head, meditation can help with this.

Something to do with the sound of one hand clapping? (I can "hear" that...)

I've often wondered how exceptional this is, or whether the fact that I can compose reasonably complex music in my head is a sign that I was born to be a [drumroll] "great composer".

There's some music that is such a strong influence on the mind that I find it almost impossible to stop re-composing it in my head (e.g. Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Dream Theater). It helps that this music is, on the surface at least, pretty linear, so you don't have to provide much in the way of multi-part harmony. Clearly it's a greater effort of imagination to compose fully harmonized music in your head, and if you can manage a fugue then you are probably the reincarnation of Bach!

For music that is not massively influenced by an existing piece, I've got to think that when the mind thinks that it is composing something very complex it is, for the most part, doing something quite simple and then filling in the detail in the same way that it does when one is sleeping. For example, I can imagine pretty well what a given part of the orchestra would be doing at any one time, but while I think I can imagine a full orchestra, probably everything other than the instrument/group I'm thinking about at any given time is pretty sketchy. I'd speculate that something similar happens when we listen to music; hearing the totality of a musical piece at any given moment is fairly difficult, which feeds back into that mono vs. multi-channel argument.

Speaking of sleeping, a handful of times I've dreamed music but, sadly, nothing that I could remember the next day the way that Macca remembered "Yesterday".

Phillip Glass used to do that to me as well. I need to start listening to him again 

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