Exploring the Melody: HOW TO PRODUCE EFFICIENTLY WITHOUT SACRIFICING QUALITY

"One of the challenges facing musicians - including the electronic and digital versions - is maintaing a balance between playing music and producing songs. We all love to sit down at our preferred instrument and get lost in the groove, but when it comes to a production environment things are different. Often times you're on a deadline to get a song finished, and all of that improvising and abstract jamming that we do can hinder that; however, I think there is a way to maintain your musicianship but still get the individual project done in a timely manner. So fire up that computer and let's compose our composition!

The whole crux of the matter comes down to variation. No melody or rhythm ever is set in stone really. You can take it and bend it, massage it, break it, and mold it into new stuff over and over again. If you couldn't then the the word 'remix' would have never been invented. Now, I know when I'm writing a song, I come up with dozens of variations for my main melody and percussion. The thing is that if you try and use all of them in one song then the listener gets lost. It's like trying to read a newspaper article that's talking about acoustic guitar music in the first paragraph and then wood working in the second. Just because acoustic guitars are made from wood doesn't mean that wood working is still on topic. In the same light, just because you write a melody with a ballad and dance variation it doesn't mean they belong in the same song. So what's the solution to take all those different ideas and make a song out of'm?

What I've found to be most helpful is to divide my work into two different modes: composing and producing. When I'm in the composing mode, my muse is a'workin'. This is where I'm at the piano and a melody or drum rhythm comes to me. Whenever this happens I let my self get lost in the stuff. I work it inside and out exploring all possibilities recording each one as I go along not caring if I know where it fits in the final cut of the track or not. Heck, I don't even care if I don't know if I'm going to use it in the final song or not! I just let myself go and feel the music.

At some point in time, I usually grab on to one or two of the melody variations. These usually sound the best to me or give me the right feeling when I hear them. This is when I go into producing mode. At the same time that I hit the right variation, a general song structure starts to form in my mind as I can see other instruments building around this particular melody. Often times, at this point in the process a cool intro idea will come to me. Regardless of where I find myself in the song, the point of the matter is that I've pretty much got the main melody for the song and now need to build a track around it with different sections and instruments. In this manner, you're keeping your focus on one general idea and building around it. This will keep your listeners tuned into what you're trying to say to them with the track.

Now, I've divided up the two modes for explanatory purposes, but on any given day in the studio they are rarely mutually exclusive from one another. In fact, I tend to move in and out of the two modes as I write the track. So you start out composing and coming up with a bunch of ideas until you find your melody or rhythm. Then you start producing by building up the rest of the song around that. Eventually you'll come to the point where you need to add some variation to the track so revist the other variations that you came up with or go back into composing mode and invent more. Keep this type of process and soon you'll have a song written! Remember, though, that in a production environment you have to be aware at how much time you're spending in each mode. While the composing mode is indeed fun and essential to writing the song, the production mode is where the actually song is going to be made. In a production environment you gotta respect that. If you can recognize when you need to be in each mode, though, I think that sorting through the myriad of variations and sequences and putting them into a coherent song will become much easier! So happy composing and producing!"

e-effect
01-24-08