option fatigue anyone?

[jamoo]

anyone else feel like they are inhibited by too many choices?

i can create a song on synth, guitar, with samples, or real piano, so i say to myself:

"maybe i should do it this way, maybe i should do it that way" etc.

* how do you overcome option fatigue? *

[drumsound]

Two words:

Four-Track

[PeterSawatzky]

I know what you mean. Whenever I start a project, I'll start out playing something kind of heavy, like Zeppelin maybe, and then wish it sounded more like the Beatles, or Otis Redding, or the Meters, or Radiohead etc. I guess this is the downside of enjoying a variety of genres--being pulled in a variety of creative directions.

[theBaldfather]

One thing I've done in the past is to sit down and create limits before I get started on a project. I'll decide on the focus of the project, the instruments to be used and sometimes I'll even try to keep it to a certain track count. I've found that this helps me focus on the important things, and clears my mind a bit. I actually need this reminder right now. I'm did quick piano/vox demos of a full length that I'll be producing for this girl, and now listening to them, my mind is reeling from all the different options that could be applied in instrumentation. I'll have to take my own advice .

[jamoo]

One thing I've done in the past is to sit down and create limits before I get started on a project. [snip] I'll have to take my own advice .

ditto. this is exactly what i mean. i have those notes many/most of us take, but when i start working, things change. why can't i just do what i wrote down? seems simple enough, eh? there is none of that coveted 'vibe' really. the technical side dominates the creative side when you have to think so much. i guess this the reality of the 21st century home-recordist. we're evolving. i used to think those guys in the hardware ads staring at a computer monitor with a guitar and headphones on looked rediculous. now i realize, *that's frickin' me!*

i would not hesitate to go to a studio if i had things down, but i'm still a hack. i can be inspired, have vision, write, and do technical things, but this is about it. i realize others can't do the things i can, but cooperation is tricky. i guess this is a 'people skills' tangent.

...so the only thing that stays constant is the tempo and track order, then most likely, the key. i'll only change the key if i realize i can't sing what i've written.

i just finished replacing a kick with a pulse/drone. the electric is now an acoustic. i figure the next song is acoustic, might as well use it for this track for continuity.

re: four-tracks, i wish i'd learned on one. right now would just seem like another 'thing' to deal with.

i am looking at wind-up metronome for the piano, tho.

[JGriffin]

i'll only change the key if i realize i can't sing what i've written.

That puts you well ahead of many of my clients.

[I'm Painting Again]

anyone else feel like they are inhibited by too many choices?

i can create a song on synth, guitar, with samples, or real piano, so i say to myself:

"maybe i should do it this way, maybe i should do it that way" etc.

* how do you overcome option fatigue? *

take away your options..

[jamoo]

A lot of people who write pop music don't even understand the notion of "key". Some of them are really talented anyhow.

And I hear classical musicians can't play in time, but I wouldn't know this first hand.

[segue]

On the advice, you can't really take away options if you have them, but I understand what you mean.

My problem is, I didn't have good input to get me where I am, so it's like as it's always been...

(nearly everything you have to figure out yourself, if not the answers, then the questions).

[jmblack]

I feel that way about a lot of things. It drives me really crazy sometimes. A lot of stuff is the same price and the same quality, especially towards the lower end of the spectrum.

With songs, I just let things happen organically. I don't sit down with a plan. Maybe I'm not a good musician, but everytime I try to plan out how I want a song to sound I am usually not satisfied with it. So, rather than plan, I just let the song lead me. I'm almost always more happy with those results. I try not to overanalyze the technical aspects and that keeps me happy. As long as I like it and whomever I'm recording like it, then its good.

I dunno. Maybe try some Oblique Strategies cards for inspiration.

[Spiderhead69]

Sometimes it helps to let the project sit a day or two and then re-visit it with a fresh mind. I had a piano, clarinet, Congo / percusion piece that I kept waivering on the congo part. I mixed with and without the percusion listened to both mixes and then decided to leave it in.

[Randy]

In the bigger picture view, it sounds like you are in exploration phase without recognizing it.

When you got your first glob of clay when you were a kid, did you do what most kids do and make a flat surface and draw on it? Quickly realizing how limited that was for what the clay could do?

Give in to the options and expect that what you make are going to be shitty first drafts and abortive experiments for a while. Get used to the options until they become your vocabulary. No art suffers from having a broad vocabulary. Think of it as if you are writing a poem. You don't want to use words if you don't know what they mean, what they connote, and how they have been used before. You'll never learn all this unless you try to use them.

In this phase, your only limitations should be on how much you revise. If you think a part should have been electric guitar instead of acoustic guitar, too fucking bad. Time to do the next part, and that part needs to make the acoustic guitar make sense. Save the electric guitar part for the next song.

After a while, you will have a pile of songs that you can re-record and sculpt with more care. Not everything you record needs to be good or even listenable to other people.

you are actually in a very good place, enjoy!

[Randy]

One more quick note-

Have you ever heard of the Exquisite Corpse? It's a drawing that is made by folding a paper 4 times, and having the first person draw the feet, leaving the connecting lines to lap over to the next panel, and then the next artist creates the legs from those lines without looking at what was drawn before. This same thing happens for the torso and the head. Once done, the paper is unfolded, and you have a funky drawing. I like to think of this as I write a song using a multitrack as the medium. Once you strap a different instrument on, you are a different artitst for the most part, and you can't change what the other person did, you just have to make it work.

[bitsyras]

Those prescient geniuses Devo had a song about this.

Take your first instincts and just go with them until it's obvious that it either sucks or works. Don't waste a bunch of time overthinking your initial parameters or you'll never get started.

This applies to much more than the audio realm - it's our whole crazy market-driven world of infinite "choice". Ever look for a car? A loan? A house? A TV channel? Shoes? Fuck.

[jmoose]

You've got to have it all in your head before you can get it out...

[JGriffin]

One more quick note-

Have you ever heard of the Exquisite Corpse? It's a drawing that is made by folding a paper 4 times, and having the first person draw the feet, leaving the connecting lines to lap over to the next panel, and then the next artist creates the legs from those lines without looking at what was drawn before. This same thing happens for the torso and the head. Once done, the paper is unfolded, and you have a funky drawing. I like to think of this as I write a song using a multitrack as the medium. Once you strap a different instrument on, you are a different artitst for the most part, and you can't change what the other person did, you just have to make it work.

Incidentally, The Exquisite Corpse is originally a Surrealist word game, the rules of which are:

The players sit around a table and each writes on a sheet of paper a definite or indefinite article and an adjective, making sure their neighbors cannot see them. The sheets are folded so as to conceal the words, and passed around to the next player. Each player then writes a noun, conceals it and the process is repeated with a verb, another definite or indefinite article and adjective, and finally another noun. The paper is unfolded and the sentences read out.Players may agree on small changes to ensure grammatical consistency.


It is named after the first sentence produced using that technique:

"The exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine."

The drawing version Randy describes is a logical extension of the original.