Music Production: A Beginner’s Creative Process vs the Experienced Engineer

I recently had an intern come sit in at my studio. Bright guy with tons of passion. He’s inexperienced and has a long way to go, but I think he’ll do well. In the last session he sat in on, he described a little bit of his current creative process to me. It got me thinking.

Similarly, I have a good friend that I’ve known for 4–5 years now. We’re not super close, but he’s very involved in the music industry and loves making music. Awesome songwriter and brilliant vocalist. He’s recently started to produce his own music and collaborate with local musicians: including some that started producing with me many years ago. I just love how the music industry can connect people.

He recently posted a video of him breaking down his creative process and what went in to his latest release. It struck me that his creative process was similar to that of my intern. Uncannily similar. And overall very different from my current workflow.

The basic idea was that they both started their songs from an element that was never the melody/vocal. The good friend had started his song from a loop with bass, drums, and keys. My intern had been starting from a pad synth or bass. Once those were in place, the melody and words were written over top, then slowly developed into a full song.

I started thinking back about when I first started, which was probably a little over five years ago. I realized that when I first started, I pretty much followed that same process, and didn’t develop my current creative process until much later. I remember specifically when my process first changed, actually.

I had just discovered the TV show “Pensado’s Place”. I was watching an episode pretty much every night, since I recently had become a little more interested in the engineering side of music. I just happened to watch an episode where Dave was interviewing Brody Brown, who is a key songwriter and producer for Bruno Mars. When asked about his creative process, he simply said, “I always start with the melody”. I thought about that a lot over the next few weeks, and I started to understand more and more why. Here are my thoughts.

First, there are really only three things a listener is really attracted to in a song. One is the beat/groove. Obviously that doesn’t apply in all styles, but in most pop and all dance music, it’s incredibly important that the song grooves. The next one is the bass. Cue tangent side story:

I attended college for a semester and absolutely despised it, however, I happened to take an ear training class that taught me an incredibly valuable skill: “When trying to transcribe, focus first on the soprano, then the bass. Then figure out the rest of the chord.”. The teacher explained that our minds aren’t clever enough to hear every note individually, so you have to focus on what you can hear first. Then use the clues from there to figure out everything else.

I’ve found the general listener is essentially the same. When asked which parts of the song they can hear most clearly and sing back to you, the first is probably the vocal/soprano, then either the beat or the bass. That said, the bass needs to be present, clear, and interesting.

And of course, the melody, which is usually associated with a vocalist. Oftentimes, that’s really the only bit of a song the average consumer can remember. Which makes it incredibly important to get right. I remember an article where Zedd is talking about Max Martin, and how he was relieved that Max spent as much time as he did on vocal editing/mixing. He also says that the vocals are the most important part of a song and should take the most time and attention to detail.

So that brings up the question, if the vocal/melody is so important, why are you starting your song from the beat? Or the bass?

And this is exactly where I was at the time. I was starting my songs from a beat or a loop of some sort. And songs never got finished. And they sucked. And they ate up tons of time. So after thinking a lot about what Brody Brown had said, I decided to take a new approach.

I write a little bit, but not much. I find writing extremely draining and intensive. I’ll write every now and then, but I don’t enjoy it like I do producing. So I decided I’d start hitting up a few friends that I knew write songs a lot. And it didn’t take me long to see what Brody was talking about. With the song already laid out, and a strongly defined melody, producing flowed naturally. I had a direction I was going and a vibe I needed to capture. My sessions became shorter but more productive. There was less headache because I knew exactly where each section of the song needed to go. And I was able to focus on becoming a better producer throughout the entire production process. Needless to say, I immediately changed my workflow and haven’t looked back since.

Take a shot at it, see what you think. It may work for you, it may not. I’ve found huge improvements from working this way and highly recommend it to anyone that asks. But try it for yourself and report back. What did you notice? Is the song better or worse than previous projects? Let me know your thoughts.

As many of you know, these articles are written as part of a “brain dump” recommended by an article I read. I’ve found them very helpful, but they often contain incorrect, vague, and misleading info, since they’re written in a short period shortly after I wake up. I find them very therapeutic, but I openly admit there isn’t a ton of cognitive thought or editing going into them. Keep that in mind. And most of all, remember that there are no rules in music. These are my recommendations, but it’s your responsibility to review, ponder, act, and discover for yourself. Good luck, have fun.