arrows of attention
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Arrows Of Attention: 20 Production Prompts
Make a beat with a generic-sounding kit then add effects until it sounds enchanting. Make an effects rack that turns any tuned sound into ambience. Truncate percussive sounds until they are tiny slivers, all attack. Make a huge template with every instrument you enjoy using. Design/finesse the sound to the point where it’s irresistibly playable. Continue reading
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Arrows Of Attention: The Musical Minimalist’s Manual
Identify your idea’s smallest musical unit. What part, aspect, or quality of what you’re playing or composing is its essence? Is it a rhythm, a series of chords, a melody, a stasis, an unusual orchestration, a timbre combination? Identify the essence and pursue it, amplify it. One sound, one part at a time. Refine and Continue reading
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Arrows Of Attention: A Pattern Language For Electronic Music Production
Arpeggiate Automate Breakdown Browse Compress Copy And Paste Delay and Echo EQ Extend Fade In / Fade Out Filter Sweep Fractalize Harmonize Humanize Interrupt Juxtapose Layer Loop Mix Mute Pan Pedal Note Quantize Randomize Recombine Reduce Remix Repeat Resample Re-Tune Reverb Reverse Route Stretch Subdivide Syncopate Texturize Transform Continue reading
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Arrows Of Attention: 100 Music Production Movements
Move from a blur to clarity. Move from sharp attack to slow. Move from everything sounding at once to a single sound. Move from bass-heavy to treble-light. Move from sparseness to density. Move from thick to transparent. Move from on-beat to off-beat. Move from left-panned to right-panned. Move from macro to granular. Move from Continue reading
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Arrows Of Attention: Variations On Oblique Strategies
Take yourself out of the mix. Make it sound exquisite. Hide the production’s effects. Make it felt, but not quite audible. Derive everything from a single source. Get to know how the parameter can modulate the overall mood. Picture someone using this or the music being useful to them. Does it still work when Continue reading
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Arrows Of Attention: Sports Talk As Creative Self-Help
I hung in there. I hit some Quality shots. I gave myself some chances. I had a good routine and a good process—just sticking to the same old deal. I just need to trust my shots. I had some good looks today. I need to make sure I’m in the right frame of mind, trusting Continue reading
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Arrows Of Attention: 100 Words As Creative Actions
1. Accept 2. Accumulate 3. Age 4. Animate 5. Articulate 6. Assign 7. Borrow 8. Brighten 9. Build 10. Channel 11. Chart 12. Compress 13. Complexify 14. Configure 15. Contour 16. Copy 17. Counterpoint 18. Darken 19. Decorate 20. Define 21. Delay 22. Delete 23. Detune 24. Diminish 25. Doubt 26. Drum 27. Duplicate 28. Continue reading
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Arrows Of Attention II: 100 Not-But Conceptual Pairings
1. Not virtuosity, but attention. 2. Not new ideas, but remixing old ones. 3. Not novelty, but classic form. 4. Not a large gesture, but a small one that sits comfortably under the hands. 5. Not saying too much, but saying little. 6. Not adding, but subtracting. 7. Not free form, but logical. 8. Not Continue reading
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Arrows Of Attention: 100 Ideas For Action In (Electronic) Music
1. Compose for that sensation whereby you forget that it’s the sounds you’re listening to that are creating this experience of forgetting in the first place. 2. Be guided by the effects of the musical thing, not the thing itself. 3. Starting with something harmonically simple, tweak it to make it harmonically complex. 4. What Continue reading

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