r/WeAreTheMusicMakers • u/PSACreates • 6d ago
Do you develop a middling idea?
Do you all finish ideas for pieces that seem to have only middling potential?
I go through these stages of development:
- I love the originating idea - the first loop.
- Next few days, meh.
- Next week: It’s truly awful and should be buried. Plus I don’t know where to go next.
Many pieces get abandoned here - my hard drive is littered with them. Occasionally I do push on, and I go through the next few stages:
- It’s not as bad as I thought.
- It’s finished, I don’t know if it’s good or not, but it’s going on the album.
Do you push on and finish those pieces that seem to have only limited potential? Is it a valuable creative exercise to finish the piece, or do you move on to something else?
Thanks in advance for sharing this aspect of your process.
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u/brooklynbluenotes 6d ago
Personally I don't really understand the concept of fully giving up or abandoning an idea. There's zero cost to keeping something and letting it develop over time.
I work on developing and improving all of my song ideas. Of course, sometimes a new idea will be more interesting, so I will prioritize that. I might shelve an idea for months or even years to focus on other things. But it's always on the back burner, and I may eventually return to it, or adapt part of an old idea for a new song.
At this point I have some song ideas that are nearly twenty years old that I haven't finished. I guess in a functional sense I have "abandoned" them, but who knows, maybe I'll find a new way to use those ideas someday.
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u/__life_on_mars__ 6d ago
There's zero cost to keeping something and letting it develop over time
Only if your time is infinite and you value it at zero.
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u/brooklynbluenotes 6d ago
Not at all. My brain can do more than one thing at a time, and can certainly think about more than one piece of music at a time. I can mentally rewrite songs while I'm walking to work, or in a boring meeting, or falling asleep. I can also continue to let ideas develop even while prioritizing other music projects.
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u/__life_on_mars__ 6d ago
My brain can do more than one thing at a time
Very impressive! But it's not a question of whether it can work on more than one idea is it?
It's a question of whether there is a finite amount of processing power in your brain, because if so then that power is probably better spent on an idea that is not 'middling' and instead only the ideas that feel 'strong' are prioritized.
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u/brooklynbluenotes 6d ago
I get what you're saying. It's true that time is a resource.
Speaking only for myself, I never necessarily feel like a new idea is absolutely brilliant, nor do I ever have a feeling that an idea is "middling." My song ideas all feel like they have potential, and I know from experience that if I spend sufficient time developing the arrangement and lyric, I can get it to a place where I'll be happy with it. It's just a matter of whether I want to focus on that idea now, or do something else first.
I also write music for fun and my own enjoyment, so I never really feel any time crunch on these things. I can have an idea, set it mostly to the side for a year while I work on other things, and then come back to it, and that's just as positive of an outcome (to me) as knocking out a song in a week.
If you're someone doing this for money or working with an eye towards a deadline, my method is probably not advised. :)
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u/PSACreates 6d ago
I don’t throw anything away either, and I have found a few gems that years later sparked something interesting. I guess my question is about forcing myself to complete the piece rather than leaving it in its “germ” stage.
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u/watchglass2 6d ago
Using structure markers will help with 'what do I do next' syndrome.
Chop up old ideas, I use Serato on random and hit pads, sometimes a gem will tumble out : )
It's valuable to finish tracks as an exercise, I think I did about 50 tracks - finish no matter what - and I got it. Structure markers are the key imo.
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u/PSACreates 6d ago
Great idea. I’ll have to try that. I use different software, but I think I can try something similar as a way to spur further development.
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u/ApproachingHuman 6d ago
I throw away almost all ideas, as I'm quite literally a one-track minded person. If i keep a track it has potential for me. If I'm on the fence I delete for mental clarity.
You know, I will keep experiments though, as they remind me of techniques and thigns that sound cool. Sometimes they become templates or songs.
Lately, I rely on my ability to compose well so when potential comes along I quickly compose it with bad sound selection, and then i spend a lot of time carving out the details later.
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u/HighwayBrigand 6d ago
Sometimes, bad ideas are the only ones I've got, and they gotta get put in the DAW before they go away.
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u/DJonekill 6d ago
My bigger and longer compositions i make like a weave. There might be a recurring main theme, but apart from that, very few repetitions. And in that process, your scope grows with with it, and when you come across something somewhere in the composition that is pure gold, and that is much better then what you started with, it's easier to not hold on to what initially dragged you in,since you've put so much work and effort in the development. Knowing this, i sometimes work on mediocre stuff with the knowledge of what it might become later, just because I'm feeling it there and then and the flame is alive.
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u/PSACreates 6d ago
Thank you for that. I’ve had that experience, finding gold further down the iterative path. I’ve forgotten about that possibility.
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u/garyloewenthal 6d ago
I'll give a meh idea a fighting chance, 2-3 days. If it's still meh, I don't want to waste my time, and I don't want to upload mediocre stuff. I have a whole notebook of ideas, and I'll work on something else. Everything is a valuable creative exercise (at least for me), so the opportunity cost is chasing bad after good and putting off something that has more potential.
Exceptions: a) The well is dry, so may as well see what you can do with what you've got. b) Despite the idea going nowhere, you have this inkling that there's a gem buried in there; so it gets a stay of execution. c) You've got a good track record on reviving ideas, turning them from meh to yeah.
I keep the dead ends around. Sometime in the future, I might have a need for that riff that didn't make the cut previously, but might fit well in a new composition.
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u/BlueLightReducer 6d ago
If something is really really good and it has vocals and lyrics already, I make a project with structure markers in my DAW on the same day.
Don't keep fretting over making a loop as perfect as possible, this will end up with you abandoning the project. Finish a first draft of as much of the song as possible first. Intro-verse-prechorus-chorus is a good place to start. Second verse and bridge (or third verse or solo or whatever) as quick as possible after that.
I feel it's hard to add a verse after too much time, when you already "know" the first verse(s) so well.
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u/PSACreates 5d ago
That’s a great idea that I’ll try. Thanks! I think sometimes I flesh out the loop to get some sense of accomplishment rather than getting the gist of the idea recorded.
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u/BangersInc 6d ago
what do you mean next few days!
i guess i write to near completion in one day so when i come back the next day i dont really need to feel it and tap into the same energy. theres a limited amount of time you have to work on a song before you hate it. its true for any song whether i wrote it or not. i dont need to tap into the enormous excitement of an idea when im tracking a song.
rotating projects when you feel that icky feeling coming takes some disciplines to do but it does wonder. an elaborate song takes me 2 weeks max. any longer and ill need to return and come back to it with long breaks inbetween
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u/PSACreates 5d ago
The limited amount of time before you hate it - that made me laugh because it’s so true sometimes. Thanks.
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u/rainmouse 5d ago
I write music with my SO. Our most popular tracks are ones that she rescued from my deletion folder and developed into full songs.
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u/Key_Effective_9664 4d ago
No. I stopped finishing everything a while ago. Only the best stuff gets finished
Knowing what is good enough, what needs to be canned, and being able to make that decision as early as possible so you don't waste time is where the skill is. I still spend way too much time worshipping and polishing turds
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u/SportsMaGorts 3d ago
For the unfinished songs I like to remove the drums or dominant beats, add an excess of effects ( echo, granulators, and reverse the track) until it sounds like an interesting texture or non musical element. Then I add it as a background to another song that is going better. Key doesn't really matter because you can always pitch it up or down.
Most music has this kind of ear candy, before I got in the habit of re using these scraps my songs never founded full or interesting. It works really well with eclectic music, but if you listen to Rumours or Revolver those albums are littered with little non sensical background bits.
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u/indigo_light 3d ago
Work fast and finish whatever you’re working on with a creators brain, return to it another day with an editor’s brain.
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u/unclellama 3d ago
i find this (getting stuck on ideas that lose their attraction) happens more when i'm thinking of songs in terms of 'loops'.
like, i started out making electronic music, so i totally get it. but these days i find it's generally better to reach for a guitar or keyboard and just write a song, keep things free form at the writing stage.
grooves, beats, loops - all that can come later. but if i get the outline of a good song down quickly, i know it's worth finishing. if i can't find that outline, i might not even bother trying to write 'parts' for it.
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u/avj113 6d ago
Rule of thumb: Always think back to your original thoughts and feelings when you created it. Was it 'Ooohhh this sounds good, I like it!" or was it "Nah that's crap, hardly worth bothering with"?
At any point in the project, those original thoughts and feelings are still correct. Trust your initial reaction, because most likely that will be the reaction of others when they first hear it too.
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u/okiedokieophie 5d ago
I don't like deleting projects, I've got nearly a decade of projects in various states of completion that I might go back to and grab to finish whenever I'm looking for something to write.
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u/Tasty_Act 5d ago
I don’t judge my ideas while working on them, I finish them, and let them sit and then I revisit them some weeks later to actually see what I did
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u/Danwinger 5d ago
If the idea of the song, more meaning the words and intent, is important enough I’ll finish it.
Otherwise I’ll save it for another day. Got to go with the momentum. If this beat/song isn’t moving me, time to put it aside and find something that does. Always save it in case it’s just a matter of my mood getting in the way. Some days when I don’t feel like writing something new, I’ll review my half ideas. Usually they’ll last 2-3 rounds of that before I’ll trash them if they just aren’t interesting me (or, more often than not, they sound too close to something I’ve already written).
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u/SkyWizarding 6d ago
I finish most things. If it's something I feel like releasing into the world, it's not up to me whether it's "good" or not