Desired Output vs. Conventional Structure

When I’ve recently sat down to write music, I’ve been more drawn towards ambient, experimental, and spatial work. It’s difficult for me to pin down exactly the type of music I’d like to be writing, but I have found that I’ve been avoiding dance music, and popular music approaches recently — trending styles with conventional popular structures. To me, this music is often about trying to match something that has come before. I’ve found myself interested in exploring approaches to music that are new and haven’t been explored before, and I often want to actively avoid conventions where possible.

I remember Daniel Avery mentioning how he is confused to hear people talk about wanting to create sounds that reflect natural sounds and sonic behaviours, as he wants to explore sounds that are impossible, new, and haven’t been heard before. I definitely resonate with this feeling.

But right now, my creative process feels like it’s in a bit of disarray. Every time I’ve recently sat down, I seem to want to approach composition in a new way. This does align with wanting to push music into new territory, but it also leaves me feeling fairly untethered. There’s huge value in having a process down pat that you can use to make new, wildly variable music, using the same set of tools. I believe it comes from having a process that is rigid enough to offer security, but flexible enough to facilitate a diverse and experimental output.

The Creative Tension

I think that’s part of the tension: I’m always trying to find the balance of established structure in the creative process, and abandoning conventions in the music itself.

An established structure acts as a foundation. If I ever get lost, I can fall back on it and use it for guidance. I know which synths to use for certain applications, or which plugins to use for specific processing methods. I’d really like that: having, say, a single plugin for a distortion pedal, or a single plugin for a tape emulation. That way, whenever I want distortion or tape emulation, I know exactly where to go. At the same time, this bank of equipment (and creative techniques) must have the potential to create experimental music, absent of conventional structures.

Defining the Creative Process

What actually is the creative process? To me, it’s a collection of procedures, techniques, and equipment/technologies.

Procedures are linear processes I move through to fulfil certain tasks. Techniques are the creative, often signature ways of carrying out those procedures. And finally, equipment/technologies are the tools (DAWs, specific plugins, modulators) required to execute them.

The creative process is almost fractal in nature: micro-techniques nested within macro-procedures. Take, for example, creating a layer of interesting glitchy material. I go through an overarching procedure: setting up the material, routing it to an auxiliary channel, loading a complex processing chain, recording the output, chopping up the resulting recording, isolating the parts that resonate with me, and then further processing them through pitch shifting and time stretching. That whole sequence is a procedure, but the specific choices I make define my technique. Another composer would have an entirely different set of techniques — and use a set of different tools — to carry out their procedure of creating a layer of interesting glitchy material. A single piece might have a hundred of these procedures embedded within it, from long, extensive sequences of actions to concise procedures for things such as isolating transients in a sound.

Rigidity; Avoiding Dogmatism

It’s worth considering the results of rigidity in the creative process. If it’s very rigid, and the composer knows exactly what to do step-by-step — which rhythms to use, which synths to use — the composer will feel secure, but the piece will sound similar to their last one. But if the process is completely unstructured, the composer may feel lost, and each piece will sound wildly different.

The essential task is finding that balance: the process should have enough rigidity to allow the composer to feel somewhat secure and have options for what to do next, but not so much rigidity that the resulting works are predictable. Variation — and its ability to create unexpected outcomes — can be applied to technologies, techniques, and procedures alike.

To me, it’s similar to the move of certain DAWs to create ‘ranges’ in parameters, rather than fixed values. In Live, you can fix a velocity range that each note will play at each time it is triggered, creating a subtle sense of randomness in the sound. In Bitwig, you can create a range that an automated parameter will sit at, rather than a fixed value. This ability of establishing ranges rather than fixed values allows for some structure, but offers the possibility for variation each time the track is played. Applying this to the creative process, there is structure and security, but the possibility for variation each time the creative process is undertaken.

My ideal process is one that results in works that do not align with conventional structures. If you make music based on techniques you’ve heard artists use, your music may align with their sound. This is completely fine early on in a career, as you develop your skill set, but at a certain point, departing from these conventions allow for a unique, personal voice to emerge. You have to allow yourself to develop and evolve the techniques you learn and mimic, to embed them in your own process — to adapt them; to break them into their fundamental components and vary these. Techniques can be built upon others, merging to create entirely new ones, akin to how technologies evolve. I believe it’s worth being aware of the true nature of techniques, and how adapting them can open us up to entirely new ways of working and entirely new types of creative outcomes. I think we’re all aware of techniques, and can talk about them well, but it’s interesting to really unpack them and get to their essence — understanding how they’re similar to technologies; how they relate to craftsmanship; how they construct our own unique ways of doing things.