It’s back to the drawing board -time. Before I can return to the drum kit, I have to solve a problem. And it’s a big one: What do I want to sound like?
So when I double-clicked to open Ableton Live and set about creating stuff, I was treated with the most terrifying sight I can think of.
A completely blank project file. I’m staring at an endless void of possibilities.
Into the void
Having endless possibilities sounds like a good thing. But in a situation like this, where I need to draw creative inspiration out of nowhere, it’s actually stressful.
Being a drummer in different bands, I never had to provide much melodic input. Other musicians were responsible for that, while I was able to concentrate on bringing the beat.
Considering melodies lead me to more questions.
What tempo should I go with?
Which instruments do I want to use?
What effects should I apply with them?
There’s exactly 52 197 691 different options to each question. Should I just go through all of them?
Ain’t nobody got time for that!
To combat this nightmare, I have acquired a book called 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers, written by Dennis DeSantis. It offers practical and concise strategies to help a music maker power through a creation process in a software environment.
I’m going to utilize this book probably through the entire process, it’s my favorite book of all time right now.
I also consulted other electronic music makers through Reddit and IDMforums for fresh thoughts about incorporating drums into electronic music. I got some really inspiring comments there, thank you to the people who shared their experiences!
“Usually, I’ll come up with a cool melody, bassline, or chord progression on the keys, then I’ll drum along to it a bunch of times until I settle into a good beat.” (PattycakeMills in Reddit)
In addition to this, I had a helpful suggestion from my bandmate Jussi of Haraamo. He encouraged me to just start creating the song without thinking too much about the sounds. The fine-tuning will come later.
Time to get cracking
With all of the above in mind, I set about trying different approaches to figuring out a good sounding foundation for the track.
Find out what I came up with in Part 2 tomorrow (Sunday)! It contains the first audio samples of my project.
Stay tuned!
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