Making Music. 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers Quotes

“My freedom thus consists in my moving about within the narrow frame that I have assigned to myself for each one of my undertakings. I shall go even further: my freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees oneself of the claims that shackle the spirit.” — Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music”
― Dennis DeSantis, Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers

“Force yourself to compartmentalize your work into two discrete phases. During the creation phase, your goal should be to capture as much material as possible. Only move forward in time. Delete nothing. Once you’ve recorded something, consider it finished. Better yet, forget about it entirely and move on to the next thing. Aim for speed and quantity, judge nothing, and be prepared to make lots of mistakes. Once you’ve captured a lot of material (maybe after a set amount of time, or simply once you get bored) switch to the editing phase.”
― Dennis DeSantis, Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers

“It doesn’t matter how you start; just do!”
― Dennis DeSantis, Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers

“In most genres, we can think of the “bottom” of the music as being the low-pitched or purely rhythmic instruments, such as the bass and drums.”
― Dennis DeSantis, Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers

“Nothing kills the creative flow more than having to stop and solve a non-creative problem.”
― Dennis DeSantis, Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers

“the chorus serves as a point of musical resolution, while the verse creates musical tension.”
― Dennis DeSantis, Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers

“Music-making time is sacred. Don’t stop to learn and don’t stop to fix something unless it’s absolutely critical. Use what you have and know, right now, to keep going forward.”
― Dennis DeSantis, Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers

“It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry”
― Dennis DeSantis, Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers

“For example, sounds can be made to seem closer to the listener by making them louder, “brighter” (an increase in high-frequency content in comparison to other sounds), and/or “dryer” (an increase in the amount of original, unprocessed signal in comparison to the amount of reverb applied to that signal).”
― Dennis DeSantis, Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers

“it’s much easier to decide that something is bad once it exists than it is to make something good from nothing.”
― Dennis DeSantis, Making Music: 74 Creative Strategies for Electronic Music Producers