Fortnightly Furry Musicians Newsletter!

I write my music like you, I try my best to make sure that the parts are realistic for the instruments I can't play myself (especially orchestral instruments). The only time I would not do that is if I were being creative in trying to achieve a really specific and weird sound.

I try to do something that could be played on the real instruments. With the mellotron, I'm practically religious about following the 8-second limit, even though I could loop the sounds or retrigger them faster than the actual machine would allow. However since I'm usually arranging the songs in a sequencer with piano roll it is easy for me to create large chords which your hands couldn't really play without overdubbing.

Bass is an interesting one. When I originally started, I'd occasionally use the JV1010 fingered bass patch, but the composition would be mechanical and piano-like. When I started to listen to bass playing more keenly ("Blood Tells" by Moonspell being one of the tracks that really captured my interest) I started to write more complex arrangements. When I actually got a bass and started to play it, I ended up with simpler arrangements for the practical reason that I couldn't actually play the virtuoso arrangements I'd created on the computer. On "Saludora" from the "Dr. Gwendolini" album, I threw caution to the wind and ended up with a bassline that was too complex for me to play. I eventually managed to record it by splitting it into two halves which I recorded separately, and where even that failed, I'd slow down the recording and speed it up again afterwards.

Oh yeah, thanks for the mention!

I tend to write music by messing around playing instruments. Rarely I'll hear some simple lead lines in my head and figure out how to play them.

I started writing music after reading a book on orchestration, though. I first learned to compose strings and wind stuff at 12, and one of the things I picked up early is the ranges of different instruments, because I didn't want to write anything that couldn't eventually be played, and I liked how natural the tone of different chords sound depending on how you voice them, and on what combinations of instruments you voice them with.

On guitar, I usually play with the 6 string, the high e, tuned to an octave above the D string, because it lends itself to the chord shapes I use often.

Playing with more sample packs, and discovering synthesis later, opened up a whole new world I still haven't totally wrapped my head around yet. Still workin' on this.

Your first two sentences caught my attention. I always like to hear about things like that from other musicians.

I have a pretty common rock-ish background; my first instrument was the drums and then I picked up the guitar a little while later. And even though I love a good jam session, I actually mostly compose in my head. I'm able to improvise fairly well, but I find that I'm not really being "creative" most of the time. Whenever I wanna come up with an original idea, just listening to the sounds in my head and then translating them to the instruments usually works a lot better for me.

Whenever writing music, I like to keep in the back of my mind of "could this actually be done?"
Most of my music is written within the realm of possibility, whether performed on an actual keyboard, or maybe even a sample pad as a means of playing.
I guess the limit of reality is based on what you perceive as "real instrument/ation"

I don't focus too heavily on it, but if I'm including replacements for real instruments I at least try to make it sound like what someone would expect it to sound like, which hopefully means it would also be possible to play in most cases. I work a lot with synths, so it often doesn't completely apply.

As far as real instruments influencing my composing/writing, I have sort of a difference answer to this question. I've found I need a piano to write music. I grew up with a piano, but when I first started writing music in FL Studio, I was in college and didn't have access to a piano, and at my parents house, the computer and piano were in different rooms. Eventually, I got a keyboard and placed it right next to my computer where it sits to this day. Being able to hash out melodies and compose simultaneously, and hear how things sound in FL Studio using a MIDI connection allowed my productivity to skyrocket.

I found the same thing when I didn't have a working bass for a while. I had to use a bass plug-in and oh my god...it was a nightmare going from being able to sit and play around to see what I liked to actually having to map out the midi parts. It also points how how technical you do get sometimes having to place each little note.

I know exactly what you both mean. "Clicking" instruments can be a real pain, especially if you would much rather just play the thing yourself, but don't have the right equipment.
I always like to play everything I can myself, but to this day I do "click" my drum tracks. I have yet to get my hands on some great e-drums or a nice set of mics for the real thing.

Having a setup that allows you to do things in real time definitely helps a lot.

When I first began learning how to use Propellerhead Reason, I didn't have a MIDI controller. I clicked entire songs together meticulously over the course of hours. Months later I bought the MIDI keyboard I still use to this day, though I'm actually about to upgrade to a smaller and more portable version, and I do mostly use my full size stage piano these days for the weighted keys and expression.

Really the only thing I use plug-ins for are my drums because I personally can't co-ordinate my feet properly to play drums or else I'd record those as well, but my handwork is solid enough to write with. What I usually do is I'll sit at my kit and work out the handwork in person, then go back and map it out in my drum program. Punch in the footwork I have in my head and bam! I've thought about getting an electric kit and cutting the handwork in MIDI that way then punching in the footwork but....those things are expensive!

I've never used a virtual instrument, though last year, after 40 years of composing on guitar, I started composing with notation software (Musescore), just using the generic built-in sounds which are perfectly adequate to give a good, albeit decidedly stiff, idea of what the piece will sound like. Then I learn the parts on "real" instruments for the recording. So I do always come up with parts that I can play on the respective instruments (like piano, drums, bass, banjo, etc.) That's not to say I don't take any chances or keep it too "safe", I like always gently pushing my abilities both as a player and composer.

"if certain chords can really be played like that":
I do occasionally come up with a bit that isn't playable on the particular instrument, for instance on a recent piece I wanted a sound like a harp arpeggio, those long up-and-down continuous streams of notes which all sustain. I wrote the part using a harp sound, then in the recording played it a few notes at a time on classical guitar. It wouldn't be possible to actually play all at once it on guitar because there were something like 16 notes in the chord, and all sustaining. It worked pretty well! Sounded surprisingly like a harp. I know I could have used a sample of an actual harp, but I'm very old-fashioned in that I want to actually physically produce the sounds on physical things :)

I can see the attraction to coming up with music which couldn't possibly be performed by humans, and know people who are very good at that, but I haven't got the passion for doing that myself. I respect and appreciate good music no matter how it's done.

BD

Thanks for the feature!

I sometimes play piano as a way to gauge the chord progressions I want to use in my electronic tracks. Playing the piano is like playing with an orchestra completely under your control, which is similar to using FL Studio 12.