How do you actually get better at making music...

Question

How do you actually get better at making music...

How do you actually get better at making music? I just keep seeming to descend into my own subjective dissonant musical experience the more music I make rather than getting closer to making something people actually like. I know artists get better because they learn to see things better but music is fundamentally more abstract, so how do you get better at "hearing" objectively.

inb4 ear training

I've done ear training, I can identify the intervals and structures in my music. This is more an issue of taste.

My problem is my ears are so attuned to dissonance that when I start writing melodies to my rhythm tracks I can write a ton of shit that sounds "good" to me.

yes exactly! I am having the exact same problem.

1. Find the music you want to imitate
2. Learn how to play those songs
3. Notice the reoccurring patterns common in that type of music
4. Make your own music based on what you’ve noticed

maybe the music I want to imitate is just bad?
youtube.com/watch?v=kMMQmuuziY0

listening to more music always helped me to notice more stuff. listen to stuff, pick out the bad parts, pick out the good ones. don't be afraid of listening to new stuff. anything that comes to your mind. then think about what do you like in the track and what do you not like. why do you like it. why do you not like it. analyze it. and don't forget to make music (or at least try?) in regular intervals. stay in form.

yeah might be the case as well, but if you like it nobody else needs to like it really. you're making it for yourself

I know this is a common sentiment but what kind of artist wants 0 recognition for their work? Beethoven was pissed when people hated the Grosse Fuge. I think this idea that artists only make music for themselves kind of smacks of cope and connecting to other people is what art is fundamentally about.

you would usually upload it somewhere, and you'll eventually find someone who'd like it

I don't know where to upload it tho

you don't get 'better' you just do it and see where it leads

find a discord server or a website on the internet that has an audio section and publish your stuff on there, check out other outsider artists, give feedback on their stuff, that will also motivate them to check you out and give you feedback as well.

imitating is really gay lol making art to be like someone else is like trying to live someone else's life i.e. for retards and faggots

idk finding a good place isn't that hard. you could go to newgrounds or something, that's what I've used. it's mostly shit music made by kids but you will find some okay people after some time

Does anyone upload classical type stuff to newgrounds?

I've heard some.

Stay outside in the woods for 24 hours. Enjoy nature sounds. Stay silent. Probably stay awake during the night and sleep in a dry, warm spot in the pre-afternoon when some sunlight is available. Maybe see if you can manage 3 hours of rest. Then go back and listen to your tracks and decide which ones are more grating than others.

I love nature. So did Mahler and that didn't do anything to help make his music more enjoyable. Maybe half the problem is how much I love Mahler lol.

people love Mahler. Its just this garbage antisemitic cesspit that hates him. Mahler packs concert halls.

The key is figuring out which one of those off kilter dissonant ideas is the one that would make you experimental in a good way

Jacob Collier knows more about music than Pink Floyd, Bieber, Paul McCartney, Drake, AC/DC, Kanye, Neil Young, The Weeknd, Joni Mitchell, and Taylor Swift combined.
But he can't write a decent song to save his life.

You either have it, or you don't.

You don't.
But neither does a musical prodigy like Collier, so don't feel bad.

who says I don't have it? At least unlike collier I have some kind of musical vision. I'm not just a soulless bugman regurgitating musical tropes. Everyone has to start somewhere though.

worked for Szymanowski

having your own sensibility is good and it seems like most people are incapable of it, so shitty generic advice like should be ignored

descend into my own subjective dissonant musical experience

you either need to compromise on your weird niche taste or realize that you're not actually any good yet. one would think that, if you were skilled, you could just, gee, i don't know, make your music less dissonant?

who

Scriabin epigone.

just make your music less dissonant bro

what constitutes dissonance is 100% objective bro

dissonance is totally not the basis of musical expression and can just be sucked out arbitirarily like fat out of a liposuction patient.

dissonance is objective and mathematical, little buddy. OP could easily take any passage of his music and make it less dissonant. you sound dumber than OP so i don't think you're him

okay so the clustered harmony of traditional gagaku, the chromatic counterpoint of Mahler and the modal mixture of composers like Bartok and Stravinsky (never mind the grating soundscapes of the SVS) are all the same thing. Of course dissonance is mathematical but it needs CONTEXT to determine how it functions. You can't just say "oh let's extract some dissonance here and make the music more consonant" without losing the musical style in the process. Do you even make music?

gay and wrong

so what you're saying is

i'm not mr internet debater man but both your posts are just strawmen and false dilemmas and now moving the goalposts. if you remove dissonance, you change the music. i assumed no one would be so retarded as to need that explained. maybe read OP's question again if you still don't understand why i've given the advice i have

it's subjective, most people think my stuff is shit and then i find 1% that like it

find your 1% or get obsessed with the technical side of music if you care to

voca.ro/1296ggyw9lMq

you don't have paranoid schizophrenia you will not ever get credit for anything.

actually I do albeit.

okay I'll just post something I'm working on and you can tell me what dissonances to remove.

vocaroo.com/17SMAkaTLHtH

i have tried for 13 years

i made like 650 songs over those 13 years

i finished 0 of them because they were all so bad and just gave up. maybe i'll try again one day but idk

i never managed to make more than like 4 contiguous seconds that sounded decent

real anon. I would recommend learning some theory and doing some ear training though. These guys posting Jacob Collier memes and saying theory will stifle your creativity are just lazy desu. My problem isn't a lack of confidence in my own music... well exactly. Its about making something that connects with somebody.

i tried; it didn't help at all

i will probably try again one day but wouldn't be surprised if it takes me 20 years to finish a single (terrible) song

post some of your music anon. I bet its not that bad.

as i said i have 0 finished songs so i don't even have any music to share

literally the only thing i ever actually"made" was just a stupid remix a few months ago where i just rearranged a few things in some pop song for a Anon Babble meme (the singer sounded like she was saying the name of the meme). that is the height of my achievements

I don't finish anything either anon but I posted my music. I'm sure you have something we can hear. I cannot believe somebody who works at music for 13 years and actually invests effort can remain that bad. Then again I have been at it as long and nobody seems to get my stuff.

the way to make music is not try. literally. you just cannot force it. you have to figure out what you like and do that. it's not mental

i've been working on a song for the past week. i got all the instrumentation done for the first minute and today i did the vocals. it took me like 2 hours to come up with something. i got in front of the mic, sang nonsense for a few minutes, sat down and started drawing, looked at my phone, all the while the clip is just looping and looping. finally after two hours it came out in one take. music is like that. it just comes when it comes, and when you force it it's fucked.

all I have to say is don't give up. I had my own hobby that I was garbage at for years (though kind of a one hit wonder) and then last year everything just clicked and I made banger after banger. Sometimes your experience just reaches a boiling point and you become adept at whatever it is you do.

1. Make what you LOVE and NEVER overthink it.
2. Upload to YouTube.
3. Distribute to digital storefronts and streaming services.
4. Make merch and show it off.
It's that fucking easy and yes I'm speaking from experience, and yes I make my living off it. No I'm not doxxing myself. Yes you can do it no matter how niche your taste is.

I doubt it anon. I mean think about all the music posted to youtube that gets like 100 views at most. Some of it even very good. Now throw in all the AI slop that will drown it in a sea of irrelevance. You got lucky.

You're killing yourself without even trying. It took me upwards of a decade with some covers here and there, but it worked. Started in 2011 as a teen and finally found success in 2022. You CAN do it. Even with AI shit all over the place. One of the huge advantages you get as an actual human being is posting behind-the-scenes stuff, and discussing or posting ideas as they come to your head, making wips, sharing your sheet music/tabs or midi or patches to fans who want it, etc. Livestreams. You've got a lot you can do and it does put you ahead of anyone who doesn't do these things, which is nearly everyone.

that might be a bit dramatic. I'm not looking to be a professional musician anyway and build my entire life around this. I just wish somebody would say "yeah, this is going in my playlist" to a piece of music I made.