Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers

Preface
Contents
	Problems of Beginning
		Three Ways to Start
		Catalog of Attributes
		Avoidance List
		Active Listening
		Listening to Music You Hate
		Mise en Place
		Arbitrary Constraints
		“Write drunk; edit sober”
		Choosing a Tempo
		One Part at a Time
		Different Tools
		Presets as Starting Points
		The Tyranny of the Default
		Simple Sounds
		Extended Techniques
		Goal-less Exploration
		Procrastination and Timeboxing
		Collaboration
		Thinking Like an Amateur
		Scraps and Sketches
		Problem-Solving as Distraction
		Personal Workflow
		Originality vs. Quality
		Process vs. Product
		On Work
	Problems of Progressing
		Breadth Before Depth
		Foreground, Middle Ground, and Background
		Fuzzy Boundaries
		Creating Variation 1: Mutation of Clones
		Creating Variation 2: Mutation Over Generations
		Creating Variation 3: Note Transformations
		Implied Rhythm in Short Loops
		Asynchronous or Polyrhythmic Loops
		Misusing Rhythmic Tools
		3+3+2 Rhythm
		Programming Beats 1: On Looseness
		Programming Beats 2: Linear Drumming
		Programming Beats 3: Ghost Notes
		Programming Beats 4: Top, Bottom, Left, Right
		Bass Lines and Kick Drums as a Single Composite
		Drums to Pitches and Vice Versa
		Tuning Everything
		Silence and Noise
		Sampling the Old-Fashioned Way
		Creating Melodies 1: Contour
		Creating Melodies 2: Using Motives
		Multiple Simultaneous Melodies
		Linear Rhythm in Melodies
		Sound-Color Melody
		The Rhythm of Lyrics
		Creating Harmony 1: The Basics
		Creating Harmony 2: Beyond Triads
		Voice Leading and Inversions
		Parallel Harmony
		Harmonic Rhythm
		Repetition and Insistence
		The Rhythm of Automation
		Humanizing With Automation Envelopes
		Maximal Density
		Deliberately Bad Listening
		Randomness and Responsibility
		Dramatic Arc
	Problems of Finishing
		Arranging as a Subtractive Process
		The Power of Erasing
		Formal Skeletons
		Common Forms 1: Elements of Song Form
		Common Forms 2: Layering as Form
		Short Loops as Endings
		Unique Events
		Three Ways to End
		Rendering as Commitment
		Getting Feedback
		Diminishing Returns
		Fail Better