Yeah this was my approach decades ago. Carnage :D Organisation helped me move forward but never put me on a workable path. There's always an empty feeling.

Organisation is key. Having the Library ready to roll, Busses at the very least set up in advance to put sounds inside. Anything that cuts down repeated work and distractions.

Yep its frustrating though seeing all this education that attempts to explain things with promises like they know what they are on about and then it doesn't connect. There's always something missing. For me it was the lack of vision or direction. Wish I'd figured this out decades ago, because I'd have been able to figure out what needed learning from there much faster, rather than just endless learning with nothing ever bringing it all together and never figuring out what was missing.

 

The route is the goal.

You all wrote so well here that I'll write how I develop my sounds, presets and radio plays.
(P.S: I hope the google translator does a good job translating it right)

When you've finished a song. You can rest and look at your work in peace.
Sometimes you are satisfied and sometimes you are not and rarely are you very happy with the result.

Since you are not a machine or a robot, you try to draw some strength and collect energy for the next project.You think about it and take a step back and think again, with a little luck you will decide on a good idea and then consistently complete it.

Most likely it is true that you have an idea of what the end result looks or sounds like. The difficult thing is then the way there - you should already master your craft or you can learn something new. This is called a challenge or a musical problem that you want to overcome.

In all honesty, it's a lot of work and there are a lot of difficulties.If you do one thing for a few years, you get better, but the demands on yourself also get higher and higher.

The quality of the product, which is then at the end, will be offered to people and hope that they will accept it and then you will be appreciated. In other words, you hope for positive feedback, should you have to live on it, you will check your account balance and change or maintain your future actions on it. In short, if the story flops, you either have to get better or change your concept or just do another job.

 

Well not all cases/conditions/persons/situations are the same, but actually different,
and we know little about the OP..

Ofc I never had ADHD, so I cannot fully understand how it works mentally,
but I may have been quite Asperger at some points in my life.. and I can tell you, time/age changes you.

Changes your perception, the way you think, feel and perceive the world/stimuli,
and even the way you interact with the world/society..

I don't think having ADHD makes you inmune to the pass of time,
or the maturation of your mind/character.. therefore there's a very high probability time will change OP's perception/mentality.


Also when you're "into it" everything is so solid you may think things are hard-wired and will be like that forever..

But take a good cup of Time/experience, and take a good cup of Trauma,
one of those that shatters your entire life, mind, heart and soul..

Go through it, live it.. and then stabilize again, let time pass,
and then pretty I'm sure you will see/think/feel things differently than you did before.

(In that sense also illnesses can have an influence.. it will be too long to explain,
but for me there's a clear after and before having Mononucleosis (kissing flu), and not in physical but in mental terms.
Before I was much more Sensible, Intuitive, Mental and I had more autistic "jedi powers" so to speak..
After it, (alas) I lost part of that enlightment, but I became more Physical, yet Practical and mentally Stable..
and strangely enough, I also became better at analytic/structural things like maths or composition..
whereas before I was basically driven by Intution and abstract ideas/feelings..

I don't know if this makes any sense at all,
but without getting into impossibly long explanaitions, that how I would describe it.. )

 

Last edited: Sep 8, 2021

Ah man you got to try reversing it and see if it connects with you - bottom to top. You did that for a reason then never connected it up. For background you can make a big change just cutting highs really. For drone stuff that sounds perfect. Even if you just do it for fun it might connect some dots and let you enjoy it again.

I kind of had the vision in advance as I started mapping out Depth on the Busses, but I started in the carnage. Then I realised my order had no logic in Session View, so I looked at Arrange View and saw the top to bottom. I switched things around and it started to feel better. Then I started on the colours and I could see it taking shape for me. Simple shit really and you wouldn't expect it to have any impact. I didn't really, it was a shock how much this all turned the lights on for me... And then I could see other aspects lighting up, like the obstacles I face with arrangement, where I can't see why we're doing this shit. I know we add a Filter rise and I know that this builds intensity, but I'm not feeling a deep connection...

But I also have the PBN stuff layered out so that its not just visual, I can hear those Busses and they have various EQ cuts to create dimension as well, plus Reverbs, Compression etc. That has been making a difference for a while having the balance in a good place, but it has been getting tweaked for a few months now and eventually I figured out that basic monotone was key. Something musical ruins the sonic illusion of space to work off and it tires easily.

The whole thing is deep really and I see why it all works. Takes a lot to set it all up, but I guess it could be explained in a bunch of YouTubes if enough people wanted it explaining, but I couldn't do it right now because I want to follow it through to a finish first a few times until it is fast and proven.

 

Cheers for that, I'm really happy that you understand the connection. (its Ableton btw, but yeah, the point is that all DAWs that work across are set up to receive this workflow)

Funny that you bring up Seal. Horn and Lipo are legends to me. They just throw this stuff together instinctively without all the shit that doesn't matter, just running on instinct. Everything that I'm not capable of without a direction. This isn't the only track that has awesome composition from them. Relax, Two Tribes and other Seal tracks aren't exactly normal.

My starting track here on my vision is using what I had at the time and I've added more of this change last night and this morning as more lyric loops came to me. So it will be even less typical hopefully when its fully arranged. Really exciting looking to the future from here now.

Cheers for bringing up Crazy. I'll play that now and see if I can hear any logic or inspiration in there.

 

Last edited: Sep 8, 2021

That would've been offensive, have I not grown numb to it over the years. As I've said, don't expect neurotypical people to understand. Ever.
Still insensitive tho.

 

Made me laugh actually

 

Oh that happened probably years ago to some degree. The Specialists couldn't even see it in me. Until they gave me the ADHD meds, I had no idea I had that. When I took them my vision became a tunnel and it actually hurt to try switching focus. I knew straight away. I knew as a child I had mild autism or something, but back then we used to cover these things up. They used to stick electrodes in people's heads and had a program to sterilize autistics to stop them from having children, so we had reason to hide these things. So it becomes instinct to emulate normality. But in conversations it doesn't take people long to figure out that I'm weird, mental, not normal or whatever :D ... I figured out similar interests where it matters to me and where it doesn't matter there's really no point in engaging with people

And yeah, I tend to look for something in everything. In all trauma there's a lyric, so I should capitalise on those moments. Its not always possible, like in heavy depressions, but even there its gold if you can tap into the moment.

 

You don't need YouTube, take your time, everything you do takes place in your brain and your brain works all the time, it puts together and forms new synapses. Your brain - i.e. yourself, finds a solution, but not at the push of a button, the creative process - i.e. what you are doing there - is already the way, your brain stores everything and you then intervene in the process, for example, me want to finish now, says the mind, your feeling says it still takes time. The route is the goal. Be glad what you have already achieved and how many new impressions you have gained, many new tones, rhythms and colors. All of that is awareness and experience.

 

Jesus Christ. Where do you live?

 

Neurotypical..
(sure, or even Cis-neuro if you will.. lol)

That's easy to say when you assume things/categorize them, without really knowing about them, or about someone else,
about the way they may perceive/think/feel life and world stimuli..

Also it's all Relative, a matter of perspective,
I may be the most neurotypical person in the world if you compare me to Rainman,
but I may be an absolute Lunatic if you compare me to I donno.. a sober and dry librarian, a priest, or an inquisitor.. lol

It's easy to be right, or insensitive, in the solitude of you room..

 

Last edited: Sep 8, 2021

Yeah I'm 49... I figured out naturally over my life how to build connections to 'blag it as a humanbeing' as I've always called it. I find connections that I can relate to and build conversation inside familiarity. Beyond that I fall apart. Humour is always the best way to deal with almost everyone. Its something that can build connections with many people and it helps to disguise the fucked up shit :D

 

UK. Look up 'eugenics'.. We have a dark history that people don't realise.

 

Lol... yeah that never happened. I still haven't grown up yet. Cycle crazy distances. Boxing sessions are 5 hours long, 30 minute rounds. I'm ridiculous. No concept of moderation... Probably why what I'm seeing here is so groundbreaking for me. Moderation is obvious except for percussion.

 

Think about a spiral. A spiral is an always evolving structure that starts from the ground, to elevate itself infinitely. African music is exactly like that. From the POV of an non-trained audience it could at first appears repetitive, but in fact, in reality it is never, never the case.

New elements, words, vocal harmonizations or sounds, are introduced permanently, and this process never stops, which makes this music so special and so unique.

An example of spiral structure, each of the words presented here could be notes, percussions or even phrases / structural elements / melodies / patterns / symbols... or whatever you want:

A tree.
A tall tree.
A big, tall tree.
A big, tall tree, with birds.
A big, tall tree, with birds, singing.
A big, tall tree, with birds, singing on the branches.
A big, tall tree, with birds, singing on the branches, hidden behind the green leaves.
A big, tall tree, with birds, singing on the branches, hidden behind the green leaves, where our ancestors' spirits are rooted...

...And it never really ends! This is the spiral structure. An entire Culture is based on that.

 

Yep. But how my mind works I can't just rely on luck. I need to know how I did something to keep repeating it. Its stupid probably to most people, but I can't move forward on that self belief if I don't really know how I did something. That's like the imposter syndrome aspect. I don't have this in me. I can only ever be who I am capable of being. In a collab, sure, I can live up to my contibution at elite level, but I can only do what I can do. That always leaves me relying on building connections and its a struggle for me. So figuring out enough to do it all myself was the only realistic potential. Arrangement has been my biggest Achilles for decades now and this gives me a chance to burn it to the ground (or maybe into the void beyond the Depth ).

 

You treat a quite simple and well-known concept like it's a revelation. That's curious.
Were you only listening to pop music and switched to what you call "African" music (which is only one of many diverse styles and cultures) only recently?

 

Well, growing up is difficult indeed..

There's so much factors involved I guess, and some of them are Social,
and therefore more random/out of one's full control..

But yeah I'm also one of those.. I don't usually think about this stuff,
but I kinda see growing-up as hardly being in the realm of possibility..
(despite what my will could be)

And it's also more of a boys thing,
women tend to be more practical and grow up more/sooner.. in their own femenine way.
(but ofc loose bullets exist everywhere..)

 

Just find pop songs ultra-boring, since looooongtime. Just trying to imagine other ways to compose and produce songs, to break out of this mental prison that the medias in general favor greatly, to the detriment of other ways to think, create and structure songs.

 

There's a guy, Ben Sharp aka Cloudkicker.

I highly suspect he's one of us.

In truth, you can write songs in any way. You can write them like plays, with acts where something happens, or like spirals (i'd call them cascading loops), like fugues, like UnexpecT (i.e structure? what structure?). Pop music covers about 3-5% of the possibilities, maybe less.