Do You Have Trouble Finishing Projects?

[Anderton]

What people probably think of in terms of finishing music is avoiding the temptation to do one more mix tweak, or overdub one more part..."art is never finished, only abandoned" as Leonardo da Vinci once said. I've gotten much better about that, but it seems like "there's always something." I've finished tracking for my next album project "Simplicity," but the tunes will be posted on YouTube as videos. So I can either just have the song title come up and finish things up quickly, or do a lyric video that takes more time, or do full-blown videos like I did for "Neo-," which would probably push the project out another 6 months. Part of me wants to just do song titles and move on to doing more music, but part of me wants to do full videos to dress up the existing songs.

 

But of course...while I'm deciding, I'm not finishing things up I guess it's all about "fish or cut bait."

 

 

[Geoff Grace]

Congrats on your new project, Craig! I look forward to hearing it when it's released.

 

In answer to the question posed by this thread, as I make music for a living, economics ultimately govern my choices.

 

I'm highly motivated to finish projects as quickly as possible because I'm paid a flat rate up front for creating music. Therefore, the more hours I spend on a song, the lower my hourly rate of pay. Also, the sooner I get a song out into the world, the more quickly I can begin to earn royalties from it.

 

Of course, it's all moot if the music I create is bad—no one will want to pay anything for it. My top priority is to create something of value. The bottom line is that I can make a living from creating music if I can create quality work quickly.

 

If I find myself fretting over small tweaks, I've learned to make a decision quickly and move on. The law of diminishing returns governs at that point.

 

Best,

 

Geoff

[MikeRivers]

I more often have a hard time starting projects. But once I actually get started, I get impatient and consider them finished, knowing that the final product isn't as good as I could possibly make it, but that might requre more people, more stuff, and of course more time. I'm usually content with "good enough for who I expect it's for" and go back to my usual piddling around.

[Mandolin Picker]

Boy am I in trouble. I have difficulty getting started, but once I get started, I never want to say it is finished and just keep tinkering with it. It is odd, because I don't have this issue with anything else that I do (building models, writing code, etc.) However, I have found a bit of advice that has helped with this. Over at the Recording Revolution web site (https://www.recordingrevolution.com/) the site host Graham Cochrane deals with this issue in a rather straight forward fashion - simple set an arbitrary "End Date" for the project.

 

It is a simple idea, but it does help keep you focused. We get deadlines all the time at work, and as a result we get stuff done on time. Since music isn't a job for me (and for most folks like me it is a hobby), we need to be our own boss and set a deadline. It has worked well for me in getting projects done and has had other benefits as well.

 

To improve on our craft, we need to constantly evolve. This could be learning new things our DAW can do, writing more music, learning a new instrument, etc. To help with that, we need to create new projects. By creating a new project, we create new goals and objectives, new obstacles to overcome, and so we continue to learn and improve our craft. If all we do is simply tinker with the 'never ending' project, we stop expanding our talents and skills.

 

So if you do have issues finishing a project, simply set a end date for the project (and stick to it!). That way you'll finish the project and move on to new, more exciting projects!

[Anderton]

Having done so much writing for magazines and books, I work well with deadlines. But the question here is a little more existential because each of the three possible paths for video would have very different deadlines.

 

ATM I'm leaning more toward doing lyric videos, but having a few "featured" songs with more complete videos. But the problem with that is I don't want to "pick favorites" and make some songs seem lesser than others...

[nat whilk II]

Starting projects is pretty easy for me for some reason. I have a Sonar project I use like a sketch notebook. I'll work up a basic idea, bounce it to one stereo track, and copy it into my "Sketches" Sonar project. In the Sketches project, each track is a separate basic idea - I have them all muted so I can just unmute one at a time and go back through my ideas.

 

Right now my Sketches project has about 90 idea-tracks. I'd say maybe 30 of them might be worth the trouble to work up into a full-fledged song. If I have spare time, I can easily add two or three new idea tracks a week.

 

I like working this way a lot - it keep me from getting too obsessive about any one song of mine. The sketch tracks tend to group themselves into stylistic groups - so if I get to where I have, say, 10 tracks that are solid ideas, all of them acoustic guitar and simple bass/keys backing, I can work that up into an album without starting with a blank sheet.

 

My biggest hindrance to finishing projects is trying to mold my recordings to match the ideas in my head. I do a lot better when I just find something that sounds good, forget my ultimate-dream-concept of the tune, and move on. People can't hear what's in my head - let the music tell me when it's good, as opposed to dubbing the music "good" when it fits my imaginative preconception.

 

nat

 

[Notes_Norton]

I write aftermarket user styles for Band-in-a-Box and I create my own backing tracks for the duo I'm in.

 

They are never really finished, there could be a tweak here, another there, but I get to a point where I say that I've passed the point of diminishing returns long ago and it's time to declare it finished.

 

But in reality, I'd like to go back to almost every one and tweak them a bit more, and some of my early backing tracks for my duo, re-do them with all I've learned since then. But there is a new song to do, a new style to write, and new musical adventures waiting in front of me.

 

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