- Winging it vs Blueprint -

[Sh@me]

I'm digitally starstruck- now that's nuts. Tis' an honor- truly.


I'm a musician turned aspring hip hop producer and I'm afraid I'm killing my musicianship. The more I create instrumentals whose completion I see as being depended upon vocals of a specific genre- the more I go into it following some kind of blueprint.
In the last band I played in we would jam on someone's idea (usually mine or the guitar player's) and then at the end of the sessions I would email rough mixes to all of them and then we'd come back and structure the jams we liked most into songs. We'd kind of wing it and then mold it. Whereas with hip hop and r&b I'm really finding it hard to find a groove- needless to say I don't have a band to work with. The good side is that I get to experiment with more sounds but my chords and progressions are simplified.

Do you have suggestions on how I can bring some of that winging/jamming into my creation process so that I don't sacrifice feel or my musicianship but still can pacakge it into something for the people at the end?

 

[rjd2? yes rjd2.]

wow, thats a hard question. hmmm. tough. ok, this is gonna sound esoteric, but here's what i would do if i were you:

keep doing what you do, but try to look at it with "soft eyes". i cant see a solution there, but i know there is one.make sure you are having FUN, or at least are stimulated. when i was starting out, there were many days that i got really frustrated cause i knew that a song could be more than it was, but i didnt have the chops to make it happen.

its a fine line between bashing your head against the wall, and "perservering". i think there's a way for this to happen for you, but you are gonna find it before someone else.

here's one thought: approach making a "beat" like you were gonna make an edit tape: 30 little beats that are all simple, instead of 1 super intricate crazy beat. there's a lot of different disciplines relating to making music. try changing how you approach it; test things out, there might be a way to do it that suits your solution.