How do you start making your music ....do you start with Chords or Melody or Drums or Notation or Scratch Pad?

 

"Scratch Pad" = lyrics?
More often than not I end up starting with chords, sometimes a chord melody.

 

Scratch pad can mean also lyrics or just randomly hitting notes and chords on your keyboard or piano roll to come up with a great idea of your song writing some people go the extra mile and listen to other people music and get inspiration and motivated....essentially different strokes for different folks haha

 

Ah, yeah I make regular use of retrospective record to capture ideas while I'm just messing around.

 

you just gave me a idea i can maybe start retrospective recording sometimes to come up with some ideas that i normally wouldn't come up with

 

i don't really set out to adhere strictly to this order. But I mostly end up doing it anyway. If I already have a vocal I want to use when I start, I might put in the vocal right after I have the drums. Pretty basic stuff.

1. Drums
1a. Drum Fills
2. Bass
3. Chords/Pads
4. Synths/leads
5. Special FX effects like risers, impacts, reverses, etc
6. Vocals

 

It depends. I watched a YT video recently where the guy said to try doing things differently to start a song. I thought the way he described the concept of doing this was kinda brilliant. Think outside the box, basically, so you don't get in the habit of doing the same thing over and over. That's my advice here.

I very, very rarely start with drums for some reason, so I decided to do that for the current track I'm working on... and I'm REALLY liking it so far.

I do listen to a lot of music for inspiration, although at the same time I don't want to mirror anything anyone does.. it just helps get the creative juices flowing.

The two most common ways I start a song though before this recent one was just to lay down some chords and see where it goes, or I might blow through a bunch of presets on my favorite synths and "noodle" away and see if anything comes to mind.

 

Last edited: Sep 27, 2023

I like to start with drums at the very beginning of a track. Even if I know I am going to possibly delete, mute, or replace them later. I still find it helpful to me. The kick drum becomes the anchor for the track; so when you are sketching, you have a very consistent point of reference for the later parts. It will get you into a rough ballpark gain structure very quickly. It's pretty much the exact opposite of thinking out of the box. Very helpful doing sketches or for someone learning and practicing.

 

It depends on a lot of factors but some approaches are:
most cases - Piano. As it's a 'percussive' instrument I can mimic the rhythm (section) /w left hand an play harmonies etc on top
orchestral - Strings/Tutti.
orchestral/hybrid - a pulse foundation. Can be an orchestra perc, arp or even a synth patch or a mix of those
electro/EDM - a single synth patch can be great inspiration. In this case I'd use a drum/perc loop base

But, say, when making a house tune, I'd first play a M1 riff and later drop a 909 on it for ex

Also adding a strange enveloped, lfo-ed temporal multi-effects to a material can bring out interesting stuff that I can remake later with another instrument/synth
And loads of other methods... I am a mess

 

To clarify, I don't mean to think outside of the box as doing stuff others aren't doing (although that can be a good thing, of course), but rather doing stuff that you personally aren't normally doing in order to push yourself out of doing the same things and creating the same things. That was what was needed for me. And it doesn't even have to be the order in which you throw a track together, per se... just changing the process somehow, and only if you find yourself in a similar place as I did.

It goes without saying too that the drums first formula works well for you (and I'm sure most others), so it likely wouldn't make sense to deviate from that if it is something you consistently have success with. I found myself on a long stretch of creating similar sounding music because I tended to do the same routine to build a song. So, I took the advice of that YT'er and changed how I do things. It definitely has worked great so far.

 

I'm mostly starting on piano or string patch, sometimes would just browse presets and play with them until some sound inspire me, from there it's just where inspiration takes me. At the beginning I would pull stuff from other projects too, especially drums, than just jam around in clip launcher area until I have an idea for an arrangement, play live as much as I can to really ensure I have elements flowing and working together, sometimes I would even make whole pre-arrangement there and play it live from top to bottom, assign as much stuff I can on controller and have a go, at least to get arrangement skeleton recorded.

 

Last edited: Sep 27, 2023

It really depends. Every track is different but I'd say I usually start with a small drum loop, afterwards I get a random synth or vst and scroll in preset until something starts fitting my ear. Then I smoke a large one and go wild with tweakings and just some live compo (usually goes way overboard) ! That's where the real fun is. It's all really what fits my ears at the very moment.

But as @naitguy said, it is also good to change your habits. It helps creativity I think, not to do the same things always, experiencing even if it feels like it takes longer or that you're loosing your time. I often feel this way but in the end it rarely is true as I end up with either something special or discover new sounds, or ways of coming with new sounds

 

^^this

 

this is the ? i asked myself many times, as a person with no musical background but instead DJing, i m usually leaned towards starting with drums, but only recently i realized this and forced myself into not using or start with or muting the drums.
U might ask wats the end result.
well, i usually go like

 

Typically... chords on keys or a riff on guitar. I have on occasion tried to write lyrics first and then write something to the lyrics but it's pretty rare... even though I like working that way I don't seem to bring myself to bother doing it much. Lyrics for me tend to be an afterthought.

 

im dead bro lol the shirt

 

Last edited: Oct 14, 2023

Drums (even if I have a vocal)
Bass
Rest as I feel like on that day. Nothing in a particular order.

 

If I find myself always starting tracks with the same instrument this usually also comes with me always using more or less the same structures and formulas... this it's usually a sign that I'm stuck.

On the other hand when I find myself constantly starting tracks with different ideas and instruments it really feels like my creativity is peaking.

This is subjective ofc.