How to deal with remixing ideas vs. completely your own ideas?

Discussion in 'Lounge' started by ArticStorm, Nov 22, 2024.

  1. ArticStorm

    ArticStorm Moderator Staff Member

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    I recently thought about how everything in the world just seems to be a remix of something from the past and im wondering how the musicians deal with it here.

    For example you have an idea for a lyric, inspiration came from a situation from your daily life, but upon crafting the lyric, you fall into the trap - using ideas from other music compositions.
    How to avoid that?

    Now i know - we always kinda remix things, take 3 things and put them together in a new context - but the problem i have is that it should be done in a clean and totally new manner.

    Cant wait for your opinions and input! :disco:
     
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  3. Radio

    Radio Audiosexual

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    First of all, big compliments @ArcticStorm for still thinking, because that's just the beginning.

    The following points are worth thinking about:
    - The end is always a new beginning.
    - The journey is the destination.
    - People have endless creativity but a finite life.
    - You can't reinvent the wheel twice

    Klaus Schulze (musician) was once asked whether everything hadn't already been played, he said there are still many possibilities in arranging.
    I think we should revive the 80s and bring back Italo Disco, but with modern instruments and a contemporary tempo. We should also replace the kick drum with a conga drum.

    A lot of music sounds the same these days. I think only more intelligence and education will help us progress, but we can't reinvent the wheel.
    Jean Michelle Jarre said: We devote ourselves to a musical problem and try to solve it.

    I think we should look at other cultures and listen to what they do. Maybe you should start from scratch: break an ice floe and record the break and use the cracking sound as a snare, edit the cry/call of a bird as a vocal and duplicate it. Maybe you should just play metal music without distortion and then see what you can do with it.

    If you're bored and are good at something, you should create learning videos, if you're good at speaking, maybe make a few podcasts.
    If you can play an instrument, you can teach others something. Maybe you should just play metal music without distortion and then see what you can do with it.

    There are 8.2 billion people living on this planet - that means 8.2 billion possibilities.
     
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  4. Lois Lane

    Lois Lane Audiosexual

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    Lyrically I don't believe I've used other's compositional ideas in a song of mine. Early on in my musical journey the few times I had an inkling that I was being derivative I radically changed direction and quashed it then and there. I enjoy speaking in my own unique voice and strive to be innovative in relationship to myself even now in my mid sixties. For instance, the last few songs I've written employ "normal" chord structure, the lyrics are coming solely from reflections of memories I've garnered over the years in direct experience infused by my current filter of the moment, the melodies unconsciously spewing out in a knee jerk reaction. Even since I've been doing this for now about 50 years I can't really give advice as I feel that everyone has their own trip in regard to their creative side and that what might either work or not for me might not fit anyone else's flow. Some sit at a desk when they wake up, others do their best in the wee hours. I used to use for years a green #2 graphite pencil from a local supermarket on an unlined piece of paper, now I need to use a frixion erasing roller ball in a lined notebook or nothing comes to me. Software programs are worthless to me.

    I probably haven't satisfied your query though.
     
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  5. Demloc

    Demloc Rock Star

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    There is a mathematical model on statistical physics that explains why the anticonforming unintentionally become the expected, so pursuing pure originality is itself another trap we can fall in. I don't know if there is a proper way of mixing things either and if they can be mixed in a clean and new manner. For me mixing is messy by definition, cause entropy.

    The only thing I can say about it is that most original creative outputs I enjoyed in life were always a group effort, even if the outcomes were signed by individuals. A bunch of likeminded people who set some rules about any creative endeavor and produce art while trying upholding them. So if you, with some others, make some rules about how things are supposed to be mixed in a clean a new manner (no matter if the rules make sense at all, just make some and agreed on them) you have given yourself a nice creative framework that you will enjoy producing in.
     
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  6. Auen Fred

    Auen Fred Rock Star

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    so in that context what is genre other than remixing ?
     
  7. Grape Ape

    Grape Ape Audiosexual

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    its more intuitive for me at this point yo, like a reflex; i just know what comes next, where to go or whats right - im playing until i get that feeling im trying to express, or i contemplate and play with words, til what i want to say is what i feel in an honest way. the feelings im trying to express are the most important thing

    thats why i love fell in love with music as an artist. its like a energetic release or letting go, giving me a better understanding of things ive experienced afterwards, thats very therapeutic and makes me feel better. when i listen to something i recorded afterwards, its an expression of how i felt. only thing i worry about is: if its authentic to me and what im trying to express. the public will have their own say on stuff like its its new or not; i cant control what they think of it
     
  8. BlackHawk

    BlackHawk Platinum Record

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    Everybody stands in everything she/he/it does on anybody's shoulder.

    In nature/universe everything that exists comes from anything that was before.

    Everything is a result of a cause that was before.

    So ... there is never invented anything completely new from scratch. Everything is a - maybe somewhat new - combination of things that were before. Nothing comes from nothing.
     
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  9. ArticStorm

    ArticStorm Moderator Staff Member

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    remixing ideas:

    example lets say you write lyrics about something, then you merge melody parts from another song you have heard long time ago - i call that remixing.

    not remixing in the music kinda way.

    Let me be more precise: You have a lyrics idea, write the idea down, but borrow words or metaphors from other lyrics you sung or your have heard (without knowing or knowing - i would like to avoid the knowingly part), the same happens for the melody! you use a chord progression from a style or even a particular song willingly. Now the question is how to avoid that?

    How to keep the mind fresh with listening daily to others music?

    The music is for myself, maybe for people i know or who i will meet ... so nothing for releasing, but for myself i want to be as much original as i can - to make it to something of my own and not just copy or follow trends - since thats totally unimportant for me.

    The question for me is, is inspiration simply a construct out of past songs (for music) or what we have consumed, felt, etc? or is it something totally original? If no, how can i keep it original and not just copy ideas from others in some way and create a collage of those ideas?

    I hope thats not to philosophical:

    thoughts and reflections comes from this video:


    the last 4-5 years exactly feel for me like that, like everything is just an endless cycle of recycling and remixing, nothing new and fresh :(
    and with all the models, i feel like we will kinda hit a flatline with new ideas and concepts.
     
  10. ArticStorm

    ArticStorm Moderator Staff Member

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    i think you kinda hit, what i wanted.
    in the last two months i started writing music for someone i want to find, i havnt meet yet. this sort of helped my creativity and inspiration. I am keep having ideas daily, i havnt written any lyrics before, but somehow i get ideas now from that change of perspective and it keep flowing from there.

    And i realized that in the spill of this inspiration melodies/lyrics from music i have consumed came up - when i started to write the lyrics and then later played around at the piano trying to find chords and a melody for it.

    So i thought - how can i avoid that? how can i simply explore melodies and chords without having any connection to anything i have consumed before.

    I totally agree - the more i play around with the lyrics and finding chords for it, the easier it is - have ideas and try things out.

    Writing something about daily life is so cool and feels so easy ... just a spark of inspiration ...

    I guess being more open what happens around, really helps to find initial ideas, exactly what you wrote above.
     
  11. Radio

    Radio Audiosexual

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    When you come into the world, i.e. are born, your brain is empty and clear like a 10 liter bucket of water.
    Every day you absorb information and the water in the bucket becomes more and more unclear until it ends up being a dark broth.
    (From a monk from a monastery).

    You can only think what you have read, heard and maybe even dreamed. Conclusion: The more you have read, seen and heard, the greater your knowledge and your horizon of consciousness and the possibilities of thinking.

    You learn to solve problems as a child. The better you can solve problems, the further you get, which means you don't give up on the first failed attempt but try at least three times.

    I once read a book by "Professor Frank Sikora - The New Jazz Harmony Theory" - subtitle: Understanding - Listening - Playing, From Theory to Improvisation. I didn't understand 3/4 of the book at all, but it's nice to know what you could learn.

    In the last third of the book he teaches his students how to listen and analyse correctly and differently....! They listened to the great masters and the students were asked to say what they understood from the piece. Because later on they want to lead an orchestra themselves or write film music etc.!

    The first music people made was probably a bone on a tree trunk, then bamboo flutes, strings made of tendons and drums made of wood, since industrialisation and computer technology people have been building the machines that make music themselves, this is called technological progress.

    A lot of it is trial and error. Listen to other keys (copied from wikipedia): ordinary major and minor pentatonic, the twelve lu of Chinese music, the Japanese pentatonic, the Indian pentatonic, the slendro of Java, the pélog from Indonesia, the whole tone scale (hexatonic, six tones), the heptatonic scales (seven tones): the major scale, the various minor scales (pure or natural minor, harmonic minor, melodic minor), the church scales (Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Locrian, etc.), the acoustic scale, the Phrygian dominant scale, the gypsy scales (“gypsy major” and “gypsy minor”) with two one-and-a-half tone steps, the harmonic major scale, the mi-sheberach scale, the altered scale, the enigmatic scale, etc.

    All You Ever Wanted to Know About Klaus Schulze (1947-2022) ---> www.klaus-schulze.com
    Inspiring interviews and knowledge transfer: www.klaus-schulze.com/interv/welcome.htm
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2024
  12. Auen Fred

    Auen Fred Rock Star

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    cut all input ....
    think of a writer which goes onto contryside in a lonely house to write a book ...
    some painters to the same others quite the opposite ...
    genres in painting art are not lets say so static
    like genres in music...music is straight math and dirt brings the shizzle...
    i dunno man....cut all musical input for a while and look what happens ....may be hard thing to do for you...i only hearing music while working out these days and could not cut all input thats why i gone 66bpm and halftime to fly a bit in my own spheres...but adequate breaks are hard to find for that bpm bla bla
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2024
  13. lbnv

    lbnv Platinum Record

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    When you wrote this post you was using words, phrases, notions etc. borrowed from other people. And what?
     
  14. DJ PUKKA

    DJ PUKKA Banned

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    Ive heard 70s,80s,90s,2000s, & so on remixed! The list is never ending! What we had back in the day was real musicians/bands & so on. But today we have a laptop/PC & no new/good ideas! So people think i can make a better version of that.. which some sound crap
     
  15. Demloc

    Demloc Rock Star

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    Yes, we are, or it seems that we are, but I think is only a perception. Innovation and fresheness on art is tied a LOT to inovation and freshness on scientific discoveries (those change how we percive the world) and techonological advances (those allows new medias to explore). The thing, as they point in the video, the media (social platforms are king, cause traditional media is subordinate to them as well) we took our inspiration from is designed to homogenize, so only the similar and recognocible gets into the surface. Also we hit a technological plateau. We've been with electronic music 70 years now for and almost 40 years producing with computers involved. I hear someone said that if you take Apex Twin 30 years back from the 90s people will run in circles trying to save their lives from the sorcery of the sound. But if you take something edgy from 2024 30 years back, people will ask if that is from Aphex Twin and move on. It's not a bad thing per se, is just the zeitgeist we have been born in. Now diffusion models are here, and I'm sure something truly new, fresh and unexpected will come out of them, as it happens in the past multiple times with other tools and media.
     
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