Enter Cadence
If you try to work on something without cadence, you are going to have a hard time making something creative.
cadence /kād′ns/ (noun)
Balanced, rhythmic flow, as of poetry or oratory.
If you are the start of building your song or album chaos is just part of the process. Ideas are flowing, crazy ones, thinking outside the box is wonderful. write all those ideas down somehow. But you still need some cadence, stay focused on new ideas, don’t rush off to follow one until you feel the chaotic flow is over. You also need cadence to know when to stop the chaos and make a decision of what ideas work and what are better left for a later (much later) look. Best thing to do is just set a timer for 90 minutes or so. If working in a group, designate an ADULT to keep track of the ideas and timer.
For myself, in the brainstorming phase I usually go to the library once a week for 2 hours. Play around making snatches of songs, write some lyrics, not focusing on an existing song but something different. Experimenting with instruments, chord changes, drum patterns. It’s fun, but after 2 hours I am pretty much toast. Time to stop, grab something to eat and have a beer. Doing this every week is another part of my cadence which keeps the ideas coming. and I end up with a catalog of ideas to draw from when I need to start a new song. The investment in time is low, it keeps me fresh and there are no consequences to existing work I have queued up. Some days I just don’t feel musical so I will play with lyrics, sometimes I don’t feel either so I watch a video about some features in my D.A.W. or plugins, or microphones. I try to stay away from my entertainment websites, they tend to be a slipper slope into blowing away the day.
When it’s time to work on finishing up a song my cadence is to start the day by listening to the song and jot down on my todo list for that song what I want to go over. Sometimes I will listen to it on other speakers, headphones, EarPods to see how the instruments are balanced. It’s amazing how different the song sounds a day after working on it all day. Don’t try to finish it in one day. Your mind and ears get warped as you work on the songs after a few hours. Again, set a timer, or just work till lunch break or coffee break. And when you go on break. DO NOT LISTEN to music, or anything that taxes your ears. You want them to get rest. Check off the things you did on your to do list to get that glow of achievement in your blood stream. Do it again the next day.
Once you are happy (enough) with the song work on the next one. once the second one is done, go back to the first one and give it critical listen. Does it still stand up? It’s okay to go back and touch them up. This is pretty much how I work on my music, song by song of an entire album. This cadence works for me and my style, but you get the idea that these patterns will build up good habits at writing songs that properly match what’s in your head and sounds good on many devices.
Recently I found a few websites that will play your music on their weekly shows. I used their schedule to create a cadence for me to finish up demo versions of my songs for the next album, and to make videos for my published songs. Without their prompting I might have just thought about it and not actually done anything. Thank you Pete Johns and Thomas Christ! Check them out!
https://www.youtube.com/@StudioLiveToday
https://www.youtube.com/@ThomasChrist
