why do so many producers confuse lack of focus with creativity?

[karim]

i've been doing music for more than ten years, and this is something i encountered over and over again. basically, people don't get that producing music is a craft. sure, jamsessions are fun, but in the end, you spend hours in the studio with nothing to show for it. if you want to be a producer, you need to bang out beats. banging out beats gets repetetive. not every beat you bang out will be great and a lot of your beats will sound similar. but you add to your stash of beats so you actually have something to sell. very few people i've collaborated with got this instead, they

a) create a loop which they play for hours until they get tired. if you try to get them to finish the beat the next day, they say "nah, let's do something new", create another loop, play it for hours until they get tired, rinse, wash, repeat

b) make great sampled beats, but somehow think that sampling is not creative. so they insist on playing repetetive three finger melodies on shytty synths thinking they are mozart

c) think using traditional song structures is boring and copying other peoples work, so they try to reinvent the wheel and produce instrumentals nobody will use because they have no structure

c) don't even manage to create a loop. instead, they spend hours jamming on their guitar or piano. if you ask them to record what they just played, they can't because they didn't really pay attention to what they were doing.

d) the same as c) but they don't even jam on their instrument. instead, they light a blunt and fall asleep "vibing" or sit in a corner somewhere glued to their phone texting bytches

shyt is aggravating as fukk. and the funny thing is, music is just a hobby for me, yet i'm ten times more focused than most of the people i met who wanted to become professional musicians

 

[Young/Nacho\Drawz]

Translation: "My way of making beats is the right way and yours isn't."

 

[Ghpstface]

im definitely guilty of A and D

 

[karim]

Translation: "My way of making beats is the right way and yours isn't."

if your way of making beats results in no beats, than yes

 

[Wildin]

a) create a loop which they play for hours until they get tired. if you try to get them to finish the beat the next day, they say "nah, let's do something new", create another loop, play it for hours until they get tired, rinse, wash, repeat

d) they light a blunt and fall asleep "vibing" or sit in a corner somewhere glued to their phone texting bytches

When you get seasoned as a musician you know what is good and what works. You can spend hours or days working on a loop or beat that never is going to conceptualize or move on to the next one and actually come up with something. If you play piano or guitar you can play within scale and string notes together or even play a loop that might never materialize. Just because you play one thing and it sounds decent doesnt mean you have to keep it. But sometimes fukking with that same loop over and over again forces you to do something different, like sampling yourself. record your loop. chop it up, reverse it, add effects, change the tuning, change the timing.

At some point you need to progress though, dont spend 3 hours 'making a beat' only to be coming up with little ditties then tossing them after 10-15 minutes.

Ive seen people smoke before or after, never during. Once you get working its like a ball rolling down the hill, you have that momentum. Ive seen people chill while the beat is on repeat and they are writing or whatever but texting and falling asleep? Dont hang with those bums.

 

[DJ Mart-Kos]

My problem is that i want to do too many things in my beats which takes me too much time.
And than i delete all my beats half of the time.

 

[LauderdaleBoss]

C is definitely annoying.

nikkas making beats with no type of structure, then wonder why nobody wants to rap on their shyt. Beat sounds like one long loop with a new transition every 40 seconds.
Like creating an intro/chorus/verse is some sort of extra chore you can't be bothered with.

 

[Nomadum]

I definitely have lack of focus, but never a lack of creativity.

once I can focus my creativity down one channel when I need to, I'm going to be way more productive.

 

[DJ Mart-Kos]

My beats usually always have the same structure.
Almost all my beats have 16 bar verses and 8 bar choruses.

 

[Nomadum]

My beats usually always have the same structure.
Almost all my beats have 16 bar verses and 8 bar choruses.

i think most beats do, I hate working within that model. sometimes i'll do an intro and a 32 bar verse and outro

 

[karim]

i think most beats do, I hate working within that model. sometimes i'll do an intro and a 32 bar verse and outro

Why 32 Bars though?

 

[Nomadum]

Why 32 Bars though?

I've never been a big fan of hook's or choruses unless it's a female doing it or singing it.

 

[Young/Nacho\Drawz]

I disagreed with his song structure comment as well. Depending on who the artist is, once you track the beat out they will probably structure it anyway they want to.

 

[LauderdaleBoss]

The emcee/artist can always restructure the length of the verses or chorus, the point is that the producer should always try to make a beat with some sort of structure so at least when someone hears it they can start putting a song together or at least have a foundation for it. 16 bar verses are just an example. The verses could be 20 bars, but as long as there are intro, chorus, transitions etc...then we good.

It's harder to brainstorm or put songs together, when you just have a 4 minute beat without any intro or transitions, or verses or chorus etc.....Just one long ass loop that keeps going over and over That shyt ain't gonna cut it if you're trying to get cats to spit on your beats.

For example, me and the UK breh @clanarchy prolly got a hundred songs together. One of the main reasons for that is he makes structured beats, that when he sends it, it's already a song really. I just gotta add my vocals to it. Sometimes if we on some creative shyt, we'll rock with a different structure (50 bar verses for example), but for the most part I can listen to the beat just once and already know what I can do with it. (song wise)

 

[Young/Nacho\Drawz]

I feel what you are saying but that's just how you like to do your songs. There are cats that just want to rap for four minutes straight on some freestyle ish. Maybe the intro is just somebody talking or they use a clip from a movie then the beat drops and they just start spittin'. To say that producers need to conform to an imaginary standard is silly. Screw the music industry. That's what wrong with it now, everyone has conformed to their system which only stagnates music. At the end of the day there is no right or wrong way to do this ish. There are no rules. Most of my beats are structured four or eight bar intro > sixteen bar verse > eight bar hook > sixteen bar verse > eight bar hook > four or eight bar outro though. lol But I'm just against anyone trying to set rules for music and tell others how it should be. Bobby Shmurda's joint aint have no hook and it was still a hit. Rules don't apply in this internet age.