<< Change the world

2004 > February

Techniques and Strategies >>

Wednesday, 11 February 2004

Works in progress ::

On the SynthSights list, TM asked if people tend to keep works in progress around vs. making spontaneous love/hate keep/delete decisions. I replied:

I recently took a lengthy trip through my archives and reflected on this.

I do keep works in progress around, and sometimes a long time will pass between recording an idea and going back and using it as a basis for composition. Once I’ve begun composing, more often than not, I will either finish it within 1-4 weeks, or get tired of the piece and abandon it. Once a composition is complete I will often leave it in rough form (sloppy performances or copy/paste jobs needing to be re-recorded, only roughly mixed) for a long time before revisiting it and deciding it’s worth polishing and finishing.

In retrospect it seems that my decisions about what to take from idea to composition have been capricious at times—I’ve finished things that I don’t like so much now, and I’ve abandoned some things that had potential. C’est la vie, there’s more where it came from.

Over the years I’ve read quotes (Dylan, Bowie, Elton John, Prince) with a common theme—that if an idea doesn’t develop itself very quickly, it’s immediately abandoned. (I think with Dylan and Bowie this was in the context of adding parts in the studio, while with Prince and E.J. it was in the context of writing a song). I find some wisdom in this; if something is great, it should be screaming to be finished, and if it’s not, better to move on and give the muse a chance to strike again.

Periods of extreme productivity seem to alternate with creative blocks and it’s occurring to me that the creative blocks might be happening when I’ve gotten stuck trying to force the development of a less-than-great idea, to the detriment of keeping my fingers on the keys and staying open to new ones. And that the periods of extreme productivity are when I’ve become near-obsessed with developing something that has grabbed me, and almost taken on a life of its own.

<< Change the world

2004 > February

Techniques and Strategies >>

---

---