Yc Looking For A Teacher/remixer To Progress In Electronics

Hi!

I'm a young composer, aged 28, and I write soft electronic music which you can all hear at https://soundcloud.com/ddrandwill . I compose in Fruity Loops. However, I do not have an educational background in composition, and I often face a problem with my tracks: they're simply too short. A minute, a minute and a half, and then I feel like we're done here and the track is ready to be looped successfully. However, I feel like I lack in skill. I just don't know what to do with the musical material I have, how to create a decent long-winded track out of it, how to develop the melody, I just don't know about any of these things. I can't read notes so self-education clearly isn't happening, as I can't read quality composing manuals such as Schenker or Schoneberg.

 

Therefore, I decided that the best way to learn would be to see someone else finishing the job for me, and then appropriating the specific technique of making music longer and thus more enjoyable. I am looking, specifically, for someone to remix my music into longer tracks, like 4-6 minutes long, so I can see how it's to be done. 

 

I've added a link to an archive of all of my *.flp files so that anyone with Fruity Loops 11 can edit them. I'm looking for a like-minded individual to pick up my tracks where I left them and expand upon them. We would be a team; all credit would be shared and I would be additionally thankful for the instructions received. That will mean you will draw inspiration from my music and try to continue and expand it, hopefully in the process methodically teaching me of how to do that on my own.

 

I have 10 tracks worth 11 minutes of music, hopefully, someone can make them worth like 40 or 60 minutes of music so it can then be commercially released. We could establish a mutual partnership for life, and I would be eternally grateful for anyone that can make my composing skill develop. So far, I'm quite proud of my music, seeing it as diverse and interesting, I hope someone else will be inspired too and will remix the tracks for good.

 

Sincerely,

Mihhail Veingold

So you have 10 minutes and want someone to write 50 more minutes while remaining consistent with the specific styles already set in place? For free? Then after, you want the same person to educate you on composition? For free? How are you going to expect someone to do all that charity work on your behalf when you're not willing to do any of the hard work to educate yourself and develop as a musician by your own will? Maybe I'm being harsh, but you're being incredibly unrealistic. 

Edited July 25, 2013 by Cadenza91

If your serious about music, get on the internet and start 'googling'.  Computer Music is a great magazine for you.  

There are a lot of free courses on music on the net.. Study them all, and learn what you can.  Start by copying someone else's idea.. Figure out what they did..

 

You'll find the path that is right for you, but it's going to take work.. I have a friend who is pretty successful, but doesn't know a lot about  music.. He uses a lot of samples, and some of his stuff is amazing.. Now many here would scoff at his technique. But there is a place for everybody.

 

What you propose is not totally unreasonable, if it is the starting point for you.  You might be able to find a wanna be mixer or producer, that would fit with you.. 

 

Study and analyze music that you like. Find websites that accomodate the Fruity Loops and Ableton Live crowd. Write out an analysis of the song. Drummer plays 15 bars does a roll, then goes to a new beat for 8 bars. etc..  Same guitar riff in 1st and 3rd verses..

 

Get some  graph paper and chart out the songs.. don't worry that you can't read the notes right now, that will come later, if you decide that's how you want to create music.. 

 

Count out the measures and draw lines for each instrument, use squiggles, slashes, circles, anything  to help you to remember what the instrument did. Do this for every instrument. Checkout the 'idiots guide' books there are available.. You can certainly learn to decipher sections, when and how they repeat.

 

You have to learn by doing it yourself, or come up with the money to take a course..  Personally most of my life, I've been a do it yourself person.. I did study music for several years when I was young.  But the vast majority of my abilities came  from working in a recording studio with other musicians.. Different people approach music differently.

 

Look around there are a size-able number of people in the same boat as you,  they are just not here.  I write pop music, which I upload to several sites.  Some of them the uploaded music is not that good.. Yet, people encourage them.  I upload here, but get very few comments. The vast majority of people here are working on a different level and field of music..

My music is not 'legit' enough for some of the members here.. There are some truly brilliant minds here..

 

But you are going in a different direction, than most here, I suspect. Look around at different sites.. Run an ad in your local Greg's list, you're bound to find someone on the same plane as you.. Good luck.

 

To make music of certain length, you must have the motif or theme, state it, develop it, restate it, go to a different motif and then come back.. That is one approach. If you only have one 15 second riff, you're gonna have to develop it, mutate it, and something else for variation etc..

 

In my pop music,  I can do about 5 minutes keeping to one general theme, and even then I got some complaints, cause haven't developed it enough.. I don't have the classical training to do it.  I listen to other peoples work. Sometimes I feel, I don't even have the 'legitimacy' to comment on it.. But I pick up ideas.. I'm going to a free sight that has classical and jazz courses on it.. I'm focusing on the jazz because that interests me right now..

 

I also work as a doorman at a club, and the technobabble played, no one here would call music. Yet there is a vast audience for it.. A lot of music created by DJ's have no music training.  But they have good ear, and have put in a considerable amount of time listening and playing music.. Noticing what kind of music, what beat, what synth patch, make the audience go nuts.

 

Like the OLD saying,,, There are many ways to skin a cat - likewise there are many ways to make music..Don't be discouraged.. keep working at it.

 

Just listened to a couple of your pieces, while not my cup of tea; you have some talent for coming up with 'arresting' ideas.. I'd first start by stringing some of these sections  together. Pick one or two of the loops and  repeat them.. Put some wild drumbreaks before going to next motif..

 

Musically yours....

Edited July 29, 2013 by mark styles

Cadenza91, yes, while the thought of offering money has crossed my mind, I thought it would be the wrong way to go. Any association of minds must be based on common goals, such as the creation of music or advancement in a field, but monetary incentives open the way to exploitation and avoidance, do not want that, as of yet.

 

Dear mark styles, I did as you suggested and went the hard way and in fact remixed a piece of my music all by myself, improving the time from 0:47 to 2:52 (more than three times longer); it's still the same tune, yet it's more diverse and intense. The result is at 

 , if anything. With this kind of progress, I'll be finished with some 30 minutes of commercially viable music in a week or in 10 days; this is great news, I am indeed progressing when it comes to composer skill. I'll keep in touch and report on how my activities are going.

The problem with music is that in order to be commercially viable, it has to be perfect.

Cadenza91, yes, while the thought of offering money has crossed my mind, I thought it would be the wrong way to go. Any association of minds must be based on common goals, such as the creation of music or advancement in a field, but monetary incentives open the way to exploitation and avoidance, do not want that, as of yet.

 

Yes, but you're essentially asking for a workhorse. You stated you want someone to take your 10 minutes of music and write 50 more minutes. That's not a partnership. The whole avoiding money thing is nicely Utopian and all, but money (especially when a lot of time and work is involved) is how you know everyone is on the same page. Maybe I'm wrong and you'll find someone here who will be thrilled by your music and would want to do all your work for free but realistically, 'shared credit' and your deepest thanks isn't going to be enough an incentive for most people. 

Keep in mind: if this is something you really want to do, don't wait around until you find someone willing to do the work for you. Learn on your own. It really isn't that hard. Harmony, counterpoint, form...it's not rocket science. Good luck.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Cadenza91

It's going to take more than ten days...  You might also consider taking 2 or three of your motifs, and making variations of them, and place them later in the piece.. After you've accumulated and hour of music, comes the work of segueing them.. You will/should try many variations of the order of the pieces.. Some pieces sound better when they precede or follow another piece.. You don't want to have too many similar ideas strung together (or perhaps your do).  Many artists spend weeks on queing the songs in different orders, and listening to the emotional inpact of them..

 

Just as a song makes a statement, reiterates it, then a variation, then some kind of bridge to shift your focus and then back to original idea.. You also need to do that with the order of your songs. Learn by doing.. You can listen to the growth of almost any artist, how they got into a certain genre, where they finally settled, or the artists who made it a point to never repeat themselves. 

 

Think of how a movie develops, how the scenes lead up to the important idea.  How after that you have to come down gently, and then move on again.  Also think of it as journey through the country side.. You as the composer off up interesting sites to the customer.. Yet you have some continuity.. You have a home base, which comes around..

 

In the early 60's, it wasn't unheard of for an artist who would take the chords of his previous hit record and put new melody and lyrics, theses usually didn't work, but occassionally did.. Once in a while you even heard the same piece of music with a new artist and song singing over it.  They were hoping the familiarty of the originial piece would catapult the new song into top of the charts.  Indeed there are any number of songs that use the same chords (they can't be copy written).. The familiarity of the chords, strikes a sympethetic string with the listener,

The Beatles last album features a 20 minute medley most of pieces of songs they never finished.  They rewrote some lyrics to hint at a song coming later.. George Martine told them to 'pepper' the album, with their motifs, that made them popular.. You here a lot of 'yeah yeah yeahs, and other titdbits from old songs. Glass Onion reiterates on a number of earlier Beatles songs, they even took the flute part from Fool on the Hill, and kind of twisted it to fit into this new song.. It almost mocks Paul's original song..

 

Just like an embroidery you have  areas that are duplicated, you have areas that are different.. You need continuitinuty to keep listener's grounded, so the music just sound like a free from nothing song. You need variety to re-s

spark the listeners attention, then you need to go back to original motif, to make the listen feel comfortable (something he can count on).

 

The great thing about computers and music is; it's easy to make variations, yet quickly retrieve a previous idea.. Quite often I experiment on a song a lot, sometimes ending up with something very different than what i started with.  Then the moment of inspiration sparks.. and I splice/edit in a variation from two weeks ago..

 

In the old days 70s. You had to do all these takes on different pieces of tape. Then you needed a brave experienced engineer, to cut the two inch tape with a razor blade and edit them together. (there were no computer generated clocks then) and not that many artists used the idea of recording 4 bars of a metronone so they got the exact same tempo.  

 

All the while you do this, you should be having fun.. Keep doing what you're doing, and you'll meet up with someone who will want to work with you.  Draw up a simple agreement, so it's clear what each of you are doing, and responsible for..

 

I had a friend years ago, who miracously got Eric Clapton to play guitar on his song,. Well the keyboard/ engineer, got greedy and claimed he should receive  80% of the credit, since he came up with a few chords, and he engineered the song in his studio.. My friend came to me. Gave me only a track with Clapton's guitar, and I build an entirely new song with different chords, so we could bypass the greedy bastard who wanted all the credit.

 

Remember sometimes you are paying/bartering with someone for recording/engineering time.. It's a tricky situation when members start contributing their parts, because then they become composers too.  

 

Keep putting your ideas out, make some you tube videos,  even a simple panning of static images, to get others to hear your work..   I have no doubt you will find sone one interested, but there will had to be concessions made on both parts.  That is part of the fun of music.

 

I've also worked with session singers, who charge a lot of money, come in do what they're told, then they leave.. That is a work for hire. The piece is still yours, but this must be stated and signed.

 

Finding people on the same exact page as you and will to do it for the fun of it, is hard to come bye.. But the people are there.  You've started on a never ending journey, enjoy the trip with it's ups/downs, detours and triumphs.

 

Good luck, I have no doubts, that you will make much progress.