Got down and discouraged a couple of days ago. I pushed the demo key on my synth and was pretty blown away by the sample track. Somebody had put it together to show what the keyboard is really capable of and I had to admit it was way way beyond anything I could produce. The shock came in terms of instrumental skills and mixing.
You could say I'm now recovered from the shock of hearing a keyboard played by an accomplished pro but I do find myself thinking a lot about the apparent illogic of music. I'll explain:
The thing is it seems to me there are really huge, wide gaps between songs or numbers performed by groups and artists. Some draw on quite accomplished, highly skilled instrumental skills, plus diverse mixing whereas other stuff can be very simple. For me I still have problems digesting the concept of something simple still being good.
Anyway, I just put together a rock theme and am actually quite happy with it although it's really simple. My mind tells me it can't really be any good as there is no complexity or advanced instrumental quality but my ear and gut feeling tells me it sounds O.K. regardless. The bass consists of only 4 notes (with pitch variation) but once I switched to an eighties synth bass (instead of traditional) and added a very basic "bang boom" drum beat, it clicked. Then somehow I stumbled upon another really simple keyboard sequence and the whole thing then just fell into place as if made to fit somehow. I've just mixed in a bit of lead guitar filling in (improvised at this point) and what emerges is a catchy little rock number. I wouldn't say it's the kind of thing I'd aspire to put together as I prefer really melodic material but still.......
A good example of what I'm trying to get across I think is the following so everybody please try and digest this. I say that because the funny thing is I located my example song on YouTube this minute and I read some comments below. Other people are apparently thinking what I'm thinking here (about my example):
PAUL McCARTNEY - DANCE TONIGHT - YouTube
This song Paul McCartney strummed on a simple mandolin. People here wiser than myself will know what chords he's using and the story goes he was in a really happy mood, picked up the instrument, strummed and wrote the song instantly. O.K., this isn't the sort of thing I'd go out and buy but it's still basically a damned good party song (illogically damned good). It boils down to incredibly simple strumming, mega simple drums and very normal bass. Even the lyrics are childishly simple. Someone below writes:
"everything about this song is simple - simple bass line - simple guitar - simple beat - simple mandolin - the melody even sounds simple - BUT try to write a song like this
even other songwriters fail - paul is one of a kind."
The above quotation sums up what puzzles me a lot. You see, McCartney I think doesn't question music in terms of complexity. He doesn't get headaches thinking, "This is too simple, so I'll bin it!" I think he just uses his ear and doesn't complicate what he does if it sounds O.K. In fact I seriously doubt Macca lost any sleep over this song, wondering if by adding more chords and more complex bass runs it would be better.
The amazing irony is any 10 dollar busker or street entertainer is capable of strumming this sort of thing but McCartney does something that defies logic and gives me headaches.
Anyone have any thoughts? How is it one sing can show amazing complexity and be technically brilliant while another can be childishlyu simple yet the one people often hum at home is the simple one!!
Glad to hear you've found an effective approach! That's how I do it a lot of the time--one track at a time, see what happens.
That's a good approach--wait for the muse to come to you! To me, music that isn't fun to make isn't worth making. I'm sure people who worked with Phil Spector would back me up on that one!
