Why can't I finish tunes?

[nowaysj]

From now on i am going to work on arrangement as my priority when writing music.

HUGE

[Turnipish_Thoughts]

From now on i am going to work on arrangement as my priority when writing music.

HUGE

I'm not quoting this, although It's fucking important ey. I'm quoting you Noway becaue the quote in your sig has got to be one of the best quotes I've read. I'm stealing that one!

[VirtualMark]

Its great when a single sentence is taken out of context...

[Mad_EP]

Whenever I start a song, im never never able to finish it. After I get partially into it, I get frustrated because I don't know where to go next. Im not sure if this means im just not meant for it, although ive only been producing for a few months. My thoughts have been maybe im not creative enough or I just dont feel the music. I generally enjoy making music although I don't like it when im frustrated. do you guys have any clues as to what my problem might be? Ive tried making house, trance, electro, techno and drumstep and I have the same problem as I do with making dubstep

I'm a bit late to the party on this thread... but from what I skimmed, I didn't see the thoughts I want to share repped yet...

Basically... 90% of the answers given are WAY too complicated. The reason you can't finish a tune is because you haven't demanded it of yourself. Simple.

At a certain point - you have to say "Is this tune really going anywhere? Even if it might take a long time - that is cool and all, but is THIS track worth it it?" If not, scrap it... cannibalize it for parts and move on. A lot of the beats in my tracks were not the original beats written for that track. They are re-invented beats from the scrapyard of tracks that I knew weren't going to go anywhere. You have to have that internal litmus test of knowing when a track is worth slogging on with or not.

It is hard... because usually one needs to have that litmus test in order to get to the next level - which is being paid for tracks and having deadlines. I'm telling you - if you wanna be paid for making a track, you gotta be able to deliver when you agree to deliver... even though, having such a finite deadline makes it easier to hold oneself accountable for finishing a track.


Which is why - I think it is important to set deadlines for yourself even if you are just starting out, no label, no promise on the horizon... nothing. That is the PERFECT time to whip your ass into shape and create deadlines and discipline. It is the only way you will get anything done, and even better - should you get a break... you will be better equipped to move on to the next level.

[AxeD]

I don't finish my tunes because I think every new project I start is better than the last.
Most people have this when they don't have a lot of producing experience.

[Immerse]

I'm a bit late to the party on this thread... but from what I skimmed, I didn't see the thoughts I want to share repped yet...
At a certain point - you have to say "Is this tune really going anywhere? Even if it might take a long time - that is cool and all, but is THIS track worth it it?" If not, scrap it... cannibalize it for parts and move on. A lot of the beats in my tracks were not the original beats written for that track. They are re-invented beats from the scrapyard of tracks that I knew weren't going to go anywhere. You have to have that internal litmus test of knowing when a track is worth slogging on with or not.

It is hard... because usually one needs to have that litmus test in order to get to the next level - which is being paid for tracks and having deadlines. I'm telling you - if you wanna be paid for making a track, you gotta be able to deliver when you agree to deliver... even though, having such a finite deadline makes it easier to hold oneself accountable for finishing a track.


Which is why - I think it is important to set deadlines for yourself even if you are just starting out, no label, no promise on the horizon... nothing. That is the PERFECT time to whip your ass into shape and create deadlines and discipline. It is the only way you will get anything done, and even better - should you get a break... you will be better equipped to move on to the next level.

really, really good advice man well taken.

[Puncture]

If you're a perfectionist. Stop it. Your tunes are not and may never reach a point where you can say "wow, I'm EXACTLY as good as I wanted to be".

When writing a tune (and this took me too long to get over) sound design should be left until the end. If you have a melody in your head, put it down, if you have a beat in your head put it down. Start layering pieces together and get the climax of your song together. Get that done and the battle is half over. Now you can start subtracting pieces for the intro, start changing up synths and throw on plugins and make each sound how you want it to be.

I used to get stuck almost as soon as I began an idea because I would dive into my synths and start doing sound design. This is creative murder. What I like to do now is spend time apart from song production and simply do some sound design, or organize my library, etc, just so that when an idea hits me everything is already in place and I can lay down the foundation of the song asap and then worry about the specifics at the end.

Ira Glass says what nobody tells beginners is that there's a gap between what you're making now and what you hear in your head, what drove you to start producing in the first place, your awesome taste. The BEST way to close that gap and improve your songs and, more importantly, finish them, is to just keep working.

[OfficialDAPT]

If you're a perfectionist. Stop it. Your tunes are not and may never reach a point where you can say "wow, I'm EXACTLY as good as I wanted to be".

When writing a tune (and this took me too long to get over) sound design should be left until the end. If you have a melody in your head, put it down, if you have a beat in your head put it down. Start layering pieces together and get the climax of your song together. Get that done and the battle is half over. Now you can start subtracting pieces for the intro, start changing up synths and throw on plugins and make each sound how you want it to be.

I used to get stuck almost as soon as I began an idea because I would dive into my synths and start doing sound design. This is creative murder. What I like to do now is spend time apart from song production and simply do some sound design, or organize my library, etc, just so that when an idea hits me everything is already in place and I can lay down the foundation of the song asap and then worry about the specifics at the end.

Ira Glass says what nobody tells beginners is that there's a gap between what you're making now and what you hear in your head, what drove you to start producing in the first place, your awesome taste. The BEST way to close that gap and improve your songs and, more importantly, finish them, is to just keep working.

Quality advice, I always get told I'm a perfectionist. Also, I do try to get the sounds perfect before I move on and, like you said, that's killing my creative flow.

[nowaysj]

I would dive into my synths and start doing sound design. This is creative murder.

Understand the relativity of that statement. Tracks can be inspired simply from tweaking on a synth, or layering a few sounds together. You have to find what works for you. These hard and fast rules are ridiculous. Everyone is different and finds different paths through the wilderness. Not a bad idea to try these suggestions out, but see how they go.

Personally, I'd do the sound design way before the track starts. Hustle through the arrangement with quick mix as you work. Then the rough shape of the track is there, and HONESTLY it writes it self at that point. The track will just scream I need a break here, a release there, a tension here... I STILL forget that tracks get helluv easy to write once they're basically written .

[Sharmaji]

my ability to eat requires me to finish songs, so.... i've got a few concepts that work for me.

a song is a collection of ideas that are conversations between themselves. that's it. so if you just have a single idea-- that's a boring song. if you have a bunch of ideas all yelling at each other, thats' an awful song. A song needs to have some give and take, tension and release, quiet and dark, etc.

SO-- dave's advice for instant song generation--

you start with an idea, something that grabs you, it could be anything from a hihat pattern to a riff to a chord change. great. Think of this as a call-- it needs a response to really make sense as a full idea. as soon as you get that, figure out a B section to that idea, which is the response to that call-- if the riff goes up, then in the B section it goes down, if it's rhythmically or harmonically dense, it clears out, etc. Boom-- now you've got an a section and a b section; in standard pop tunes, this could be a verse/chorus, or a prechorus/bridge, but you've got somewhere to start.

approach the rest of your elements lke this and mix and match until you've got something that is COHESIVE. the elements are working together, energies build and dissipate, and it's got a structure.

from there, arrange, arrange, subtract, add elements,maybe figure out transitional bits-- could be a reverse crash, or could be a whole new section.

NONE of this is set in stone, nothing has to be perfect aside from note choice-- easily done via midi. also i'd suggest that once you have an idea, bounce it to audio and move along; you can keep the midi, mute it, and save it for tweaking later.

the point is to get a SONG-- not a loop, not a wicked synth patch, but a song. fight the big fight first.

I do a ton of mixing, for myself and for other clients, and for songs i write, the mix is the last thing i'm worried about. I want a good working mix where i can hear everything clearly, sure, but busses, parallel compression, etc-- not the time to be worrying about this as you've got bigger fish (again, the SONG) to fry.

[Puncture]

I would dive into my synths and start doing sound design. This is creative murder.

Understand the relativity of that statement. Tracks can be inspired simply from tweaking on a synth, or layering a few sounds together. You have to find what works for you. These hard and fast rules are ridiculous. Everyone is different and finds different paths through the wilderness. Not a bad idea to try these suggestions out, but see how they go.

Personally, I'd do the sound design way before the track starts. Hustle through the arrangement with quick mix as you work. Then the rough shape of the track is there, and HONESTLY it writes it self at that point. The track will just scream I need a break here, a release there, a tension here... I STILL forget that tracks get helluv easy to write once they're basically written .

Of course, I would never expect someone to treat my advice as gospel :]

That being said I agree completely with your take on getting inspiration from sound design, it happens to me all the time. I just find balancing the two very tricky (for me) and it can kill my workflow if I try to bounce between them all the time.

[OfficialDAPT]

I think my problem is that im just too busy to get into my flow with a song.

[grooki]

When I'm making a track, I often lose perspective of whether it sounds good or not. So I have to trust myself that before I listened to it 1000+ times I thought it was good, and so proceed to the end knowing that I'm a little tired of it. What you can do to temporarily escape this feeling while making a track is exporting the track and listening to it on another system. This makes the track feel external to me again and I can get some fresh perspective.

Also, what I find REALLY useful is if I have most of the track down but have been loopmonging a bit, I export the track, sit down with pen and paper, and listen critically to the to the track, writing down what I need to do as I hear it. I usually have a list of 5 things at the end, which I can then methodically go and change, thereby ensuring progress.

But, at the end of the day, as has been said above, fuckit. If it isn't working it isn't working - there's no point in having a miserable time finishing what you think is crap. So something else fun!

[Turnipish_Thoughts]

watch this

[immortal]

I've been dealing with this same issue for a while now too. I do have a few things that I've finished, but for the most part, since I've moved into electronic music/dubstep/whatever I haven't been finishing much. But the things I have gotten the furthest with have been the ones that I forced myself to get out of loop mode with as quickly as possible. I typically start by fleshing out a nice 16 bar loop. If you listen to your loop over and over and over and over again it just becomes something that, oddly, you can't see going anywhere the more you listen to it. That's just the nature of hearing a loop over and over until you've killed your own creative brain function in trying to come up with the next part. You have no problem creating the loop until it gets too busy and your brain doesn't know where to go. The ideas are there man, but your brain gets used to hearing the loop you've created as exactly that, a loop and nothing more. You've got to create the loop, not listen to it any more than a few times, and immediately begin stripping it back to almost nothing more than maybe a hi-hat loop and a thin pad sound. This could serve as your temporary intro until you get further along. Now your brain will start to think it sounds thin and you will naturally start adding things back in every few bars or so to build progress, you should naturally start to hear what should come next and what the track needs just as you did with your initial loop only now you are building arrangement instead. You have essentially uncockblocked your mind. You never get to this point if you just sit listening to the same loop over and over hoping that an intro idea or bridge idea will come to you. Maybe some people can, but I sure as hell can't. Hope this helps.

Really liked how you put this,nice too hear man in this thread saying the things i been havin troublesome times with recently,its good too know your not alone