Re: Strategies to Exit Composing and Looping Ruts was, Death to homophonic harmonies!

["kay'lon rushing" <k3zz21@gmail.com>]

Really good stuff. I ought to work on this for the festival. i have a habit of starting with the drum loop..
On Jul 31, 2012 9:43 PM, "Rick Walker" <looppool@cruzio.com> wrote:
>
> On 7/31/12 11:52 AM, Tyler wrote:
>>
>> What do you all do to crack yourselves out of making your old familiar type of
>> >music?
>
> Change direction:
>
> Write from the percussion/drums up
>
> .....from the bass line up (or down)
>
> .....start with a melody and experiment with how to reharmonize it (or add counterpoint)
>
> ......start with a chord progression and proceed
>
> ......use an instrument that you have very little to know knowledge of
>
> ........change your time signature,  or if you want to stay in common times,
> swing rhythms if you play straight or make your swung rhythms straight
>
> ........radically change up your tempi.........right much slower than you would normally
> or , even harder,  much faster
>
> ........create homophonic loops and then reharmonize them, either with what you play
> chordally or what you play in the bass
>
> .........Paul Simon had a cool strategy he applied to lyric writing that you could also use
> to write harmonically or melodically
>      1)   write a complete cliche and very 'inside' line
>      2)   alternate that with a line that is very idiosyncratic....perhaps even one that would only
>            appeal to you.........continue this strategy with a 50%-50% formula........you
>            will create music that feels very familiar and yet you feel like you've never heard it before.
>
> ...........look up Brian Eno's Oblique Strategy Cards (available to print out for free on the web)
>           Shuffle 'em up, draw one and religiously do exactly what it tells you to do.
>
>
> Simplify
>
> make things much more Complex
>
> good luck,   Rick Walker
>
>