Awash In A Sea Of Musical Ideas Using A Manifesto Of Rules And Guidelines To Increase Creativity And Direction In Solo Music Writing And Production

Awash in a sea of musical ideas
Using a manifesto of rules and guidelines to increase creativity and
direction in solo music writing and production.
Zed Brookes
A dissertation submitted as partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Arts
WINTEC - February 2012
Copyright 2012 Zed Brookes. All rights reserved.
zedb@orcon.net.nz

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Acknowledgements
Academic Supervisor: Matthew Bannister (Wintec)
Project Supervisor: Jason Long (Wintec)
External Supervisor: Stephen Webber (Berklee College of Music)
I would like to thank the following people for providing feedback and support for my
research:
Susie Warwick, Dave Bishop, Dave McCartney, Tony Waine, Harry Lyon, Jean McAllister.
List of terms and abbreviations used in this work
DAW – Digital Audio Workstation – the “studio in a box”; it can be a turnkey-based hardware
system, but more often a modular system based around a computer.
MIDI – Musical Instrument Digital Interface – a method synthesisers, keyboards and sequencers
etc use to “talk” to each other by sending performance data. Like a network system for music.
Overdubbing – the process of recording alongside previously-recording music tracks
PA system – Public Address system – the loudspeaker systems used by bands, shows, DJs etc

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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ...........................................................................................................2
List of terms and abbreviations used in this work ..............................................................2
Abstract.............................................................................................................................4
Introduction ......................................................................................................................5
Creativity and Limitations..................................................................................................8
Aesthetics and Control.......................................................................................................9
Gadamer’s Play................................................................................................................12
Handlability, Limitations as Tools, and Structure..............................................................13
Essence of Rule-Based Structures.....................................................................................17
Technology and Creativity ...............................................................................................19
Music By The Masses.......................................................................................................21
Do It All Yourself..............................................................................................................23
The Democratisation of Music and the Audience .............................................................25
The Knowledge Gap.........................................................................................................27
The Solo Artist .................................................................................................................28
Creating A Genre-Space ...................................................................................................31
Setting Up the Experimental Process ...............................................................................35
Experimental Outcomes ..................................................................................................37
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................40
Bibliography ....................................................................................................................42
Appendix 1: Some Key Problems around Solo Writing & Production in the Home Studio .44
Appendix 2: Writer/Producer Manifesto V1.2..................................................................45
Appendix 3: Song-Starter Checklist ..................................................................................49

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Abstract
Since the early 80’s, there has been an increasing diffusion of what was initially high-cost
recording technology down into the general populace. Multi-million dollar technology, once only
the domain of large record companies and influential recording studios, has become
increasingly available to a wider group of users at entry-level costs and based around domestic
computer-based technology. As the average person can now “dabble” in writing and recording,
potentially creating a trend towards solo rather than collaborative efforts, and with the
increasing quantity of available sounds and options of musical direction now available to this
solo writer and recordist, many of the musical restrictions and the limitations once inherent in
the technology and the social/industrial environment of the past have been overcome.
Combined with a loss of artistic qualitative control by the traditional gatekeepers of commercial
output – namely the music publishers and record companies – and the resultant
democratisation of written and produced music with its vast set of possible musical outcomes,
has this wealth of possibilities negatively affected the overall creative (and technological)
quality of the new music producers at this new technological edge?
If so, by setting up some artificial constraints via the generation and selection of rules within a
custom-generated songwriting & production manifesto, can a set of structures be created that
will aid in re-enabling or enhancing the innovative process, as well as potentially disseminating
some of the potentially lost (or long-trailing) concepts of industry best practice?
“This situation is transferrable and therefore applicable to
songwriters. It can be seen that all of the actions a record producer
or songwriter takes are located within, and thus affected by, the
structures they engage with.
However: it does not follow from this that in order to be free agents
we somehow have to liberate ourselves from social structures and
act outside them. On the contrary, the existence of these structures
and institutions enables any activity on our part, and this applies
equally to acts of conformity and acts of rebellion …all action,
including creative or innovative action, arises in the complex
conjunction of numerous determinants and conditions.”
(Wolff,1981: 9).

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Introduction
This dissertation will explore the concepts of creativity, limitations and technology and
how they relate to each other and to the scenario of recording independently rather
than in a collaborative process. It will look at whether it is possible to artificially
enhance creativity and innovation within a field (in this case popular music), by
restricting the available musical and technological choices.
We need to examine and compare aspects of the creative process within solo and
collaborative modes, and identify any advantages to the struggle to overcome
limitations. Then we will look at how technology has affected, and is now considered
part of, the creative process in the music industry. Finally we will examine the idea of
applying a selected set of limitations to the technological and practice-led behaviour
within a solo writing and recording scenario and how we can assess the outcomes.
The idea of innovation being led by social and economic pressures has been well-
explored in the past, and the current state of music technology makes it ideal for
modelling some hopefully equivalent pressures by imposing specific structured
limitations in the home-based studio writing and recording process.
Note that in this sense, setting limitations or constrictions is simply a tool. They are set
up as something to strive against, so the subsequent decision to follow or not follow
those limitations is entirely optional, although ignoring them completely may likely lead
to a less-effective overall strategy. With careful planning, different limiting structures
can be applied that will either restrict choice and hence help dictate musical or
production direction, or enable enhanced creativity in a particular direction by
providing solutions (most obviously in incorporating some best-practice techniques
from professional industry).
Note that this set of structures is very different to Brian Eno’s “Oblique Strategies”.
Whereas Eno’s cards were designed to reactively overcome blocks in the writing or
recording process in the recording studio, this particular set of proposed
writing/production structures (or manifesto) are designed to be set up proactively in
advance of the writing and recording process and used as a tool to help generate ideas
from scratch and then shape the resultant musical outcome.

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The beginnings of a manifesto (see Appendix 2) incorporating these tools was created
and used in the writer’s practical project for this Masters degree, so this will provide
some experimental and practice-based evidence towards the dissertation.
“…creativity is primarily seen as the production of something that is seen to be novel
and appropriate.” (McIntyre, 2009)
Author’s Background
Although I have been an artist, songwriter and composer for many years, my main
occupations have been split around music recording and production in the commercial
recording studio and in audio education. In my practice-led research towards my
Masters project, I became acutely aware of the problems associated with my writing and
recording practice in my home-studio scenario. This is where I primarily do my solo
work, and I tend to do most of writing and recording solo due to the fragmented (and
often short-notice) time around my employment as an audio tutor, with most of my
available music time in the less-than-social midweek evening slots.
Paradoxically, while working solo I have become entangled in some of the same writing
and production issues that I have helped solve for others in my role as engineer and
producer around vision and context, and although I could have gone to another
engineer/producer or collaborator to help overcome the issues and provide another
viewpoint, I really wanted to retain my own spontaneity of work and to see if I could
bring a project of my own to completion.
As part of my own musical practice, I am no stranger to writing and recording with
others – I have been in many bands over the years as a songwriter and hence have had
to write within the typical practice-led Heideggerian structure, with different balances
of power within the writing structure of the band. I have also worked on many
collaborative projects over the years with other writers and musicians. Working in radio
has allowed me to write on demand – which, despite the draconian time limits and
demands by the client, is surprisingly easy once communication is established. And I
have also worked for many years in recording studios in a variety of situations – as
engineer, as producer, as session musician, as programmer; often all at the same time.

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There is a certain frustration working within the democratic music production process,
where some degree of interpersonal ideological compromise (and hence the final
musical result) is a necessity. This is another reason I wished to work in solo fashion – to
try to realize my own complete production ethic. In previous instances of producing solo
work, I observed that it was hard to focus on all aspects (or duties) of the process at the
same time. In writing, the focus tended to be on the composition rather that the sonic
quality, for example. Could there be a way to structure a solo writing and recording
process to simulate some of the aspects of collaboration and simultaneously help guide
or maintain the production standards?
As an educator, I cannot resist the idea of attempting to create a tool or template that
might be employed by others in similar situations. With the fragmentation of the large-
corporation-based writing and recording industry, it appeared to me that any problems
inherent in the solo writing/production process would only become more dominant
with the rising tide of home production.
Perhaps there were some guidelines that any solo artist could use to steer their own
musical journey. In this light the idea of a tool such as a manifesto began to take shape.

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Creativity and Limitations
Creativity
Part of the outcome of this experiment, or series of experiments, is to enhance creative
output. The first question is whether we need to test any potential improvement against
an external standard for creativity. Can creativity be measured?
There are accepted models of creativity and innovation, with the confluence approach
appearing to hold favour at present. The associated systems model appears to have some
relevance towards the musical domain, although like other models it appears to contain
some potential flaws.
The systems model defines a field of knowledge of which the operator gains expertise,
and then attempts to generate innovation. This new product is then tested by experts in
the field. This has parallels in the music industry in the sense that experts in a genre of
music create a fresh combination of music and test it against public acceptance. The
main issue with this model is that it ties creative success to public acceptance, ignoring
creative works which are not popular. And what are the time limits of the desired public
acceptance or popularity in order to meet these requirements? A year, 10 years, a
lifetime? An infinitely long time? It can be seen that to some extent this model, although
it appears straightforward, contains aspects that may not ever be fully measured, or to
be more accurate may not ever completely define a lack of novelty.
Klausen states that the standard definition of creativity is the production of ideas that
are both novel and useful and that “…creativity is about breaking with norms or
practices, doing something unexpected or unpredictable, but still meeting certain—
albeit more liberal—constraints.” (Klausen, 2010)

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There are some problems with this definition too, and Klausen states that “It is thus
preferable to speak instead of a process which has a propensity for resulting in a novel
work.”
The difficulty with this viewpoint is that it is problematic to establish the true creative
value of a process without looking towards a product. However, on a positive note, the
“product” could be more than, for example, a published song. It doesn’t need to be an
“object”. It might be acquiring fresh viewpoints, improved practices, and better
(creative) ways of approaching music production or the recorded performance.
So in this case, perhaps a more appropriate (and convenient) goal is to produce a
creative environment in which an operator feels enabled and is more productive in the
generation of works (and perhaps finishes more of them). We are trying to create an
artificial system that has some parallels the constraints of a collaborative or band
approach, which then acts as a guide or set of rules which can mimic creative aspects of
either of these scenarios. Whether or not these outcomes generate actual creativity is
subservient to creating enhanced productivity and more focused direction. Ideally there
will also be some finished product at the end, as it is one of the goals of the proposed
methodology.
Aesthetics and Control
The philosopher Heidegger’s post-aesthetic thinking claims that aesthetics “…feeds back
into subjectivism…” (Thomson, 2011) through the separation and objectifying process -
and of the breaking of the practical world view needed to view a piece of art as an
external object. Via the process of the human subject eventually turning that control
back on itself as yet another objective resource, it also leads to “…the nihilistic
technologization of reality..” (Thomson, 2011) that is late-modern enframing. This
attempt to objectify and control everything by externalizing it creates a separation
between the observer and the observed.
In other words, there’s a risk that analysing and thinking too much (and desiring control
over) about the discrete elements that make up the product – a piece of art or of music
in this case - or of the artist’s creation process itself risks affecting how we perceive the
art or music – during and after the creative process.

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The post-modern approach of breaking everything down for analysis is the essence of
this. When it is broken down and analysed are we seeing the artist or are we just seeing
a reflection of ourselves?
So does this mean that (according to Heidegger) consciously creating a set of rules to
follow is actually the antithesis of creativity? Is our desire to control every aspect of our
own creative process forcing us towards product-based outcomes rather than process-
based?
Heidegger’s ideas do appear to have some context towards formula-driven music
production, and also serve to highlight at least some of the potential dangers in
generating a set of rules to work by in the creative process. The process of following
them might force enframing by trying to establish a set aesthetic, and hence create a
kind of disconnect with the music by turning it into an external object. There is certainly
a risk of this happening, especially with the musical interactions occurring over an
extended recording time-span, combined with a desire to be in complete control over all
aspects of the process.
This turning towards subjectivism via direct control over every aspect of the music
creation process, a holding apart of the music and objectifying it based on its discrete
characteristics, appears likely to be the essence of what can sometimes make some pop
music so distasteful to some people. Is it coincidence that much of the pop music of
today appears contrived, formulaic and is written or produced by the same set of
international production teams? And yet, it is popular, so there are aspects of it that tick
the boxes for creative outcomes if we judge according to the systems model.
Further (and as is revealed in later sections), each creative process or product could be
viewed as a balance of craft and art, or the holding and breaking of conventions, the
form conforming more or less to perceptions of usefulness or convenience. Even the
shape of a canvas presupposes this to some extent, and a song may comprise structures
that are well-proven to be effective.
So will applying a set of pre-decided structures force an artificial “contrived” product
that inherently has less of a link with our world-view than it should, in the desire to
somehow control every aspect of the piece? Heidegger’s proposition that we come to
know the world through our relationship with things – the generation of praxical

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knowledge where our understanding comes through handling rather than as an initial
theoretical construct subsequently made real, is vitally important in the generation of
musical ideas.
Although there is evidence that there could be some risk involved of over-thinking
creative decisions in light of self-perception and identity, we can look at this another
way.
By setting up some simple structures beforehand, it allows us flexibility and the ability
to be more intuitive within the recording process itself, rather than risk being bogged-
down in the tedium of multiple “left-brain” decisions. It has parallels in the recording
world; it is more propitious to spend a few minutes moving a microphone into the
perfect position than to spend hours trying to equalise that sound later on, analysing it
in context of everything else that is happening.
Perhaps we could compare this to using selected media in a painting – once you’ve
decided to use charcoal rather than oil paints, you simply and transparently include that
media in all your creative decisions in that piece – you don’t keep analysing the piece of
charcoal, you simply embrace it as your tool that becomes you.
Creating a set of rules that promotes processes rather than outcomes is an advantage
here as well, as is overtly including aspects of identity and genre before proceeding into
the creative process, so that the writer does not feel a need to continually reflect on their
own identity at each step of the process, allowing themselves to remain in the non-
judgmental intuitive space as long as possible.

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Gadamer’s Play
The philosopher Gadamer’s theory around Play intuits that all creatures love to play.
This concept fits well with aspects of musical creativity – in particular the idea of
jamming. Jamming is a version of musical play or exploration that operates within
various degrees of defined structures. For example, at one extreme, the jam may be over
a single note or chord. Or it may be over a well-known chord progression and/or
rhythmic feel – a blues progression is an example. Or it may be around a jazz
progression in which the conventions allow each player a turn to perform a solo. Or it
could be a random progression that was simply called out before beginning. Or it could
be a free-form jazz performance where only the overall dynamics of the piece over
blocks of time are pre-arranged.
In this context, the limiting structures are a form of meta-tool that defines how we
operate our other musical and production tools.
Reinforcing the concept of practice and handlability, Gadamer’s concept of Play seems to
particularly resonate with aspects of music performance and recorded production. This
given by a timely collaborative interaction of a group of musicians acting as both
spectator and work of art. A solo artist might also find a version of this same interaction
in the presence of a live audience or perhaps even by interacting with their instrument.
There are two key things that might intervene, though; the outcomes of play cannot be
decided in advance, otherwise it is not truly play, and play has a special relationship
with the “serious”. “Play fulfills its purpose only if the player loses themselves in play”
(Gadamer, 2004).
You might think this could create some possible conundrums in regard to using a set of
pre-fabricated rules to guide the play during a “serious” recording session - but this has
not appeared to be a real issue in this case.
Consider this; any time play is involved, it typically contains or is performed within a set
of structures (or what Gadamer calls “tasks”) understood by the participants, either
explicitly or intuitively. In this sense, having a set of rules not only provides something
to play against (if this is necessary through absence of other inherent ones – like how to
play an instrument competently) but also provides something to measure against to
provide a sense of risk against failure – which is also considered necessary for a game to

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succeed. Therefore there is no conundrum – having a set of pre-defined rules does not
negate the opportunity to play. If anything, they are an essential component of the
process, and having a manifesto of rules, for example, simply takes them from the
intuitive to the explicit.
Perhaps the biggest risk here is in having rules that may be broken at will, as creating
this manifesto is in part designed to elicit a response rather than just dictate specific
outcomes. In any case, it is much more important to us that the participant achieves the
correct state of mind or play-state to achieve our desired creative outcomes. Many of the
problems with creativity tend to fade to the background when working within the
structures of a band or production team; within a team there is opportunity to bounce
ideas around and a better chance of keeping the flow going, there are more
opportunities for play, limitations are inherent within the group dynamic – ideally the
best ideas are continuously filtered to the top. For any of these reasons alone, it is
obviously an advantage to work in this way.
But, as music recording technology becomes more prevalent on the home computer
(and increasingly so on smart phones, iPads etc), the statistical balance of published
musical output will tend to shift towards solo or independent output, if only due to
people playing around and creating something for the fun of it - hobbyists who are able
to release music to the general public.
This highlights our need to identify what sort of rules of play may be set up via our
manifesto to help improve both creative and technical outcomes in this mode.
Handlability, Limitations as Tools, and Structure
How does this defining of specific outcomes contrast against the simple “jamming” of
musicians in the most basic expression of handlability?
We need to look further towards defining a creative process, because we are not just
looking at analysing how the process might work, but also about finding methods to
enhance it under specific situations; namely to overcome some inherent obstacles in
working alone as a writer/producer.

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As we have seen – handlability will still be present in the absence of collaborators, and
so too can the excitement of exploration and messing about with the equipment. The
problem becomes one of too many tools and too many choices, unmediated by a
collaborator to help hold the course, or to help modify the direction “on the fly” to a
musically appropriate outcome.
In Bolt’s (Bolt, 2004) concernful dealings where the materials and tools have some sort
of life of their own, this turns out to not be too much of a problem, as there is a strong
dialogue set up between the practitioner and the tool. This is most evident when a new
piece of equipment arrives, or a new guitar is played, or a new piece of software, or
instrument plug-in. The dialogue is then lively and fresh, spinning off new ideas. The
innovation and inspiration comes from the dialogue, and the jamming is between the
practitioner and the tool itself.
This is not so bad, but it is again a constrained or localised version of jamming. It works
for a track within a song, or is at best a great seed idea for a song. But it would appear to
be hard to build a complete song using only one tool, so the strategy must be modified to
turn that idea into a completed piece.
Normally, this is where the dialogue between musicians comes into play, jamming with
each other to create an interactive conversation between people and tools. Contrast this
with working alone; this strategy must be substituted with recording each track one-by-
one, and then having a very predictable dialogue with yourself across a variable gap in
time.
The outcomes could be therefore very predictable and lacking the potential richness of
another’s input.
It’s hard to not think back to various solo efforts by artists from famous bands and feel
evidence of a lack of richness and dimension – the underlying tension that adds interest.
Even if the artist brings in outside producers (the minimum necessary to ensure some
sort of dialogue with another expert), their own cultural capital may ensure that their
own ideas are selected over the others, upsetting any true creative balance. This
underlying tension is a key part of the process of writing, because although we might
call it a “dialogue”, at times it takes a turn as a debate, an argument, a fight, a wrestling
match where the best or freshest idea wins, and although we are currently viewing this

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process in light of discovery through handling, that handling can sometimes get quite
rough.
In solo production, when overdubbing something on a track one has already recorded,
the process mirrors the separation of self and object that Heidegger was expressing.
Apart from the very first run-through (that first take has an unusually high value over
every other subsequent one) where instinct and immediacy takes supremacy, there
becomes an increasing aesthetically-derived holding-apart and pre-emptive censorship -
forced viewing from a distance. “What should I be playing here? I played this part before
and this new line will fit those parts”. By doing this, one steps away from the immediacy
of the moment and potentially loses the essence of jamming.
The new part might work harmonically and rhythmically, but it remains a more
considered approach rather than that of instinct and habitus, and although it might be
technically correct, it may not contain the most creative potential idea available. There
are potentially ways around this problem by creating some rules that foster immediacy,
speed, and “feel”.
Working solo, unless a musical idea arrives complete (a rarity), part of the creative
songwriting process is often that of creating an initial structure and then using a
recursive sequence of reflections over time to define and optimize the ideal outcome for
the song.
Even in collaboration, a completed song is rarely born intact from a jam session – there
is usually some other structural work involved. It’s rare that an entire complex song
structure is jammed complete1. Despite the dangers of objectification as highlighted by
Heidegger, a song does need a macro structure that is its arrangement.
Does this also mean songs are always inherently flawed by the nature of this editing
process? Perhaps they are, but no more than a film is, and it may be a necessary evil in
order to complete a work – surely it can’t all be play.
Unlike a painting, the structure of a song unfolds over time, so the idea that we can
simply and instinctively provide the full and correct output based simply on habitus
would be rather unrealistic. Besides, the structure now employs concepts added by
1 Note that some of the most authentic performances are those with the most rigid set of
rules – blues in particular has arrangement norms that make jamming easy.

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technology, and as Toynbee (Toynbee, 2000) states, in the context of a rock song, for
example, each repeat of a section tends to add extra lines and weight. In other words,
the more parts that are added, the more a song moves towards the rendered rather than
the intrinsic play of those involved, potentially decreasing the creative value - especially
if aiming towards musical authenticity.
The very nature of loop-able bar-based computer recording systems favours a modular
rendered approach – again, potentially creating a literally object-based viewpoint. The
ability to work with song sections and manipulate arrangements is a powerful tool, and
one that could potentially wield the user in return, especially the less-skilled production
novice.
The advantages and flexibility that consistent bar-lengths lend to a production are huge,
but there is little doubt that the risks are also very high, with performance becoming
focused on playing in time rather than other more important musical conversations.
The choice around either following or ignoring the bar-grid or click-track have had
significant effects on both process and outcomes since their invention, and the current
danger is that it becomes even more dominant in both solo-based processes where
decisions are more likely to be deferred and so modularity is desired, and within the
available technology which is based on bars and may incorporate instruments
(including drum-machines) based on them.
Furthermore, the added abstraction of operating audio technology via a visual medium
(such as a computer) requires further separation of self and object, increasing the risks
of being unable to achieve a state of play. The ideal answer to this is that the operator
gains enough familiarity with the technology and software interface that the production
system itself is also included in the jamming process. This sort of technological
adeptness can be observed with experienced studio engineers and electronic music
artists using music controllers.
Although significant, this aspect is not something easily addressed within this
dissertation (and related experimental project), so will only be looked at in light of
applying best practice.
When a writer/producer works in solitude, effectively collaborating with themselves
over time, the recursive recording and reflective analysis process may cause two
potential problems;

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[1] it can allow the writer to “second-guess” or question their initial instinctive creative
decisions made intuitively on the spur of the moment. This can result in selective editing
towards safer creative outcomes at the expense of unique interesting parts, or the writer
may continue recording and continue refining the part, at the same time modifying it
towards a more stylised or simplified norm.
[2] The writer becomes progressively bored by repeatedly listening to the part that
initially excited them, with the result that, in an attempt to regain that initial rush of
excitement, extra musical parts are now added, potentially diffusing and weakening the
effectiveness of the overall arrangement. It can also lead to detachment from the song
over time, risking non-completion.
These aspects would be ideal to address within the manifesto – setting limits on both
time and the number of parts allowed within the song.
Essence of Rule-Based Structures
So, can a set of rules be set up that somehow still allows the essence of flow or jamming
that predicates an effective and emotional piece, or perhaps there a way to refocus on
the “no-thing” (Thomson, 2011) as part of the creative process – the ground that the
object is set upon, the jangle in the guitar, the hiss of analogue tape, the imperfect
perfection, or as the producer Quincy Jones is reported to have stated “Leave space to
allow God to walk through the room”. Perhaps this ability to attain the “no-thing” is
inherent in a particular producer or practitioner of music - in the sense that it would
come from them regardless of any set structures, and regardless of any set rules or
guides that are used.
The main problem, and in a way it is unique to the music creation process over other art,
is more about the looking at the larger picture. Later on we will talk about how
technology brought about the multi-track recorder. Although it allows an individual to
build an entire song out of overdubbing numerous takes, it disrupts the normal dialogic
process between musicians.
Toynbee (Toynbee, 2000), proposes that creative possibilities are generated from a
mismatch between habitus and field, where the habitus is an acquired set of dispositions

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in the artist, and the field is that in which they exist – for example in music production.
As Bannister points out, there are flaws in this way of looking at it – especially in the
field of music where more often than not the creative process is also a collaborative one.
In this case it’s a matter of “multiple habitus interacting with each other…” (Bannister,
2008)
This is true even in the sense of an individual artist writing music, as firstly, the music
needs to take some form in order to exist outside the writer’s brain, and so relies upon,
for example the engineer or producer to aid the process, each with their own set of
habitus and perhaps existing in a more specialized area within the field of music
production where practical norms might be different.
But also that there often needs to be other musicians called in to perform parts that are
unable to be played by the writer.
Although ostensibly these extra musicians are simply playing parts that have already
been created, in practice it becomes another collaboration and mediation towards the
outcome of the work – either through an inability to perform exactly what the writer
“hears” or by adding unthought-of (by the writer) novelty. In this way the extra
musicians are providing their own habitus in their own specialized fields. In any case the
work is a jam-in-progress, as the song continually develops as material is added or
subtracted from it, and it is therefore a practical object like any other - subject to
handlability.
There are many parallels between the collaborative work in film and that of making
songs, where the idea of one writer, or director, whether an auteur or not, has overall
control of a piece, but the other personnel are just as vital to the final outcome.
Looking at the other side of this coin, the implication that rules might somehow reduce
the value of a piece of art’s inherent worth appear to be false, as many of the most
stylistically diverse and critically successful pieces in the world have been by artists
using taught skills and techniques and, dare I say it, fixed aesthetic processes.
Similarly, most of the songs people listen to are recorded by the same engineers in the
same studios, using the same gear, and the same recording and production techniques

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as other songs that vary widely, and wildly, in style and aesthetic2. From this it can be
seen that simply having some standard recording and production techniques and
approaches still allows some room to move stylistically and aesthetically.
Perhaps a solution is in allowing enough room to move within the set rules, or even
better, for those rules to be broken should the will desire, because the rules, after all, are
just another tool, or meta-tool, to help achieve a desired outcome – they are not the
destination in themselves, and are there only to give some sort of direction where all
directions may be possible.
How can this set of rules be constructed to help with the development of practice-led
research and the acquiring of tacit knowledge – rather than a “top-down” approach?
(Bolt, 2004)
Part of the solution is to treat the rules no differently from a hammer or a brush. They
must simply be used, without too much concern over the outcomes, over and above the
here-and-now of the creative process.
‘We create our tools, and thereafter, our tools shape us.’ Marshall McLuhan
Technology and Creativity
As Toynbee describes in the “Technology: the technical instrument”, the collaboration
between artist and production team in the recording studio, despite the “exchange of
cultural capital” (Toynbee, 2000), could disempower musicians who lacked, or fell
behind the technological members of the team in the necessary expertise in operating
the equipment and/or having background knowledge of the way things fundamentally
work acoustically.
2 I use the word aesthetic because, as much as the Heideggerian approach sees it as dangerously
leading into Modern Subjectivism and Late-Modern Enframing, it’s hard to find another word to
encapsulate a way of appraising the intrinsic or intended qualities of a creative work
“This is to say that a record producer’s agency, the ability to make
and effect decisions, is dependent on the structures, principally
the domain and field, they encounter and surround themselves
with. As such their freedom to act is relative to the domain and
field they work in” (McIntyre, 2009b: 7).

20
In other words, the balance of power flipped towards the engineer and producer, and
for a time - particularly between the 1970’s and 1980’s - they tended to lead the creative
and song production direction. This is illustrated with the production team often
creating a track, and populating it with a marketable singer. This was Stock, Aitken and
Waterman’s stock in trade - creating numerous hit songs in the 80’s. An emergence of a
disconnect between live performance and fabricated studio production saw many cases
of performers being unable to perform live at a standard up to their recorded work, or
of not even being the actual performers; the Milli Vanilli Grammy fiasco was forever
stamped in people’s brains and damaged the illusion that all studio recordings were
somehow “real”. Milli Vanilli won a Grammy for Best new Artist in 1990 and had to give
it back when they were discovered to not even have sung on the record. They were just
dancers miming lyrics at live concerts.
As an eventual reaction from both musicians and fans to this endemic “contrived” style
of production, and to the perceived domination of slick engineering over good
songwriting, there was a gradual move towards artists controlling their own music. This
was combined with a general move away from the dense layered enhanced production
towards perceived authenticity. This led into a groundswell of a shift back to Toynbee’s
“documentary” and “ventriloquism” modes – where bands took great pain to capture
what sounded like a unique “live” performance.
Home recording, or low-budget independent studios, became a mainstay of artists who
desired their own control, rejected major-label ethos and had a desire to highlight their
authenticity, but it took another decade or two before the audio technology revolution
made available to all what had only previously been available to big-name artists with
significant financial resources – “the cultural and financial capital required to gain
access to the means of production” (Toynbee, 2000)
‘songwriting didn’t just mean writing songs, it meant
writing records’ (Palmer, 1980:2).
‘twentieth century popular music means the twentieth
century popular recording’ (Frith,1988:12)

21
Although low-budget home recording arrived in the 70’s the gear was still quite
expensive, so it wasn’t until the advent of Tascam’s Portastudios in the early 80’s that
relatively inexpensive home multitracking finally became available to the budding
musician and songwriter. This allowed artists to record and release lo-fi recordings
directly. Through the 80’s and 90’s this technology became more refined and
widespread and allowed gradually higher quality of home production. Similar advances
in cheaper reel-to-reel multitracks, and later on inexpensive digital recorders, allowed
the expansion of numerous low-budget recording studios. This helped drive the closure
of many of the big-budget studios.
Alongside this small-studio development came the development of inexpensive
electronic synthesisers, sequencers and MIDI, which allowed not only a new way to
capture and edit a musical performance (MIDI sequencing was the electronic equivalent
of the player-piano paper tape), but allowed step-writing and the use of looping to
repeat phrases. As Toynbee mentions, here is where musician and technician melded
together, spawning a new creature – the “producer”, but this version looking slightly
different from the specialized producer that arose from the large studio. This form of the
producer did not distinguish between the abstract writing of, and the
recording/creation of music. Even now, there is a disjunction between the two versions
of the terminology of producer, depending on whether you affiliate with electronic music
culture, or the more conventional non-electronic genres of music.
Music By The Masses
This decentralising of music production had its benefits and its detriments. On the one
hand almost anyone could now get a song recorded, but on the other hand the quality
tended towards the lo-fi or perhaps no-fi in some cases (although electronic music was
If this is the case one needs to consider when creating popular music
not just the lyric and melody of a song but: all of the elements that
may go into the creation of a classic popular recording: what
instrumentation is used, and the interaction between players; how it
has been recorded, produced and mixed; and of course how the basic
song itself is constructed and arranged (Rooksby, 2001: 9).

22
by far the most robust due to the lack of acoustic theory needed to capture or obtain a
good sound), and much of the technical audio/production expertise available in the
major studio mentored/apprenticeship system was lacking. Most home recordists were
teaching themselves and making many fundamental mistakes but with the occasional
naïve victory.
Audio engineering and music production were latecomers to the education system, so
opportunities for formal training were rare, not well developed, and outcomes were still
aimed at employment by the large professional studios. Many of the courses taught were
by industry professionals whose industry experience and credentials might have been
exemplary, but who had no formal teacher training, so much of the training was not
effectively matched to the desired outcomes.
Although we are now in a much more supportive educational environment, the
technological expansion around music and audio has seen almost anyone who picks up a
guitar as a recording engineer and producer as well, and it is this non-electronic
performance-based recording that has been the most problematic. We will come back to
this later.
Hennion (1983, p.161) goes so far as to say that ‘the song
is nothing before the arrangement’ - arguing that creation
‘occurs at the moment of orchestration, recording, and
sound mixing’ (Fitzgerald,1996:20-21). Cited by
(McIntyre, 2009)

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Do It All Yourself
So now we appear to have a practitioner who is both learning an instrument (or
instruments) and learning how to record them at the same time. And most likely they
are also learning to write their own music as well.
The result of this, and also of the decentralisation of the music marketing and
distribution networks, has seen a vast increase in the amount of music being produced
and distributed, and “the long tail” of current marketing strategies has a similar
reflection in the quality of produced work, with some produced work being of very high
quality, but an enormous tail of technically substandard work. “Mass participation could
be regarded as ‘watering-down’ the main core of musical talent” and “making it more
and more difficult for the genuinely innovative practitioners to be identified within such
a large crowd”. (Toulson, 2008)
This is not necessarily to say that this work is not successful – a well-written song, a
good hook, or some kind of magic that catches the public ears of the time will always
have more value than a well-recorded but inherently empty or boring piece, but the
problem has become one of sheer quantity of work produced, finding good product and
even more important for the artist – recreating the success of the work.
In the book “Futurehit.dna”, Jay Frank (Frank, 2009) talks about the new era of one-hit
wonders and how the cycle of technology has brought us back to the single rather than
the album, which makes sense in the current environment of downloadable and
streaming content, custom iTunes playlists and the like.
This will be the new norm in many genres (and has already been for a while in some
genres). This is great for the consumer as it gives them more variety for their money, but
more problematic for the artist and record label. There is more money in an album than
a song, which is why record companies have long used singles to promote the album –
“…in addition to lyric and melody, a contemporary
western popular music songwriter must also have
some domain knowledge of ‘form and structure,
rhythm, harmony, arrangement, performance and
production characteristics that enable their work to
be manifest in a material form’ (McIntyre, 2001:110).

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including the strategy of holding back single sales and airplay in order to sell more
copies of the album (Frank, 2009). However, if the single bombs, so does the album in
most cases. The artist loses momentum over the time-span of the album recording
process and there is no room for feedback from the first single to adapt for the
remainder of the songs on the album.
This becomes even riskier for the self-financed artist, but can be an advantage for the
home recordist/producer. They can release a song at a time, and conceivably improve
results for each single if they are also able to improve their technical and creative
practice.

25
The Democratisation of Music and the Audience
Over and above all this is the way people are connecting to the music. With the
expansion of disco in the late 70’s came the decline of the loud band and the increasing
use of turntables and a live DJ. Apart from being cheaper and more convenient from the
point of view of venue owners, a major advantage to this was in where the music was
intersecting with people socializing. With the advent of large PA systems, bands were no
longer just a background event to a night dancing and socializing. Volume levels grew
too loud and it is no wonder that the equivalent of a loud stereo was preferable to the
increasingly attention-dependent bands of the time. People could now more
comfortably switch between the music, dancing to their favourite tracks, or they could
choose to socialize, whereas a band was often expected to be the “show” that all were
focused on. This might have been the one of the first obvious steps towards the
increasing use of music as an environmental commodity, culminating in the modern
youth isolating themselves in their i-Products to accompany many aspects of their life.
As Cavanaugh states, “Personal computers are capable of synthesizing entire
symphonies, giving young composers tools that are a world ahead of technology
available only a generation ago…”, but this fantastic improvement in technology comes
with a not-so-positive flip-side. There is a potential disconnect between the available
technology, the ability to use the equipment and the knowledge in how to obtain the
appropriate sounds to achieve a desired outcome, if in fact the user even knows what
that outcome is. Logically, the increased decentralisation and democratisation of music
production means that much of the work produced remains derivative and imitatory,
based around styles that require minimal performance talent. This potentially saturates
the market with a large volume of work of much lower musical proficiency and technical
quality than what used to be allowed through the filter of the large record labels and
expensive recording studios.
Although we have decided that in this experimental scenario we are more concerned
with process than outcomes, when we discuss the larger world implications it bears
reflecting on the problems with creating fresh-sounding product.
Perhaps the produced music is fresh and novel to the person creating the music but to
the wider world-wide audience the value may be significantly less. Part of the issue here
is that historically there was a reliance on fresh ideas (some derived perhaps on musical
and production naiveté) to add novelty to the pool of written music. However since also

26
bringing the self-production aspects into the public domain - which is less forgiving of
the lack of technical expertise – the creator of works now has doubled the major
obstacles to overcome in providing an effective product.
Writing a good song and also having to create effective and suitable production to match
is now the order of the day, whereas before they might only have had to come up with
the song and find a team to do the rest. The songwriter has now also in many cases
become the producer.
The record companies, for good or evil and no doubt with some errors in judgment over
the years, played some kind of useful role as curators in deciding which songs were fit
for release, whereas the current environment favours the release of everything that gets
created, good or bad.
This switch to releasing songs as they are created is not such a bad thing, as it allows
some sort of feedback per song from plays or feedback from listeners to inform the
process of the next song. At this time the online music site SoundCloud allows
participants, who upload their songs for the public to access, to attach comments
directly to sections of a song, giving the feedback better context and hopefully informing
future writing and production efforts. It does not, however, have enough information,
except indirectly, to inform the writer/producer in how to achieve the updated desired
outcomes sonically. Also – comments are dominated by the “keep up the good work”
supportive type of statements, rather than informed criticism, which although flattering,
give no other value and in fact may even reinforce poor writing/production standards.
Improvement would appear to need other forms of information to be accessed or some
sort of educational process to be involved, unfortunately there is much mis- or dis-
information populating the web, as with music, anyone can consider themselves an
“expert” and upload often misleading tutorial videos. You can even find experts with six
months (or less) of production experience making and selling video tutorials.

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The Knowledge Gap
So in reference to using a manifesto of rules, aren’t home recordists already limited by
their lack of knowledge of the production domain – why add more limitations?
Yes, they are limited by their own recording skills (or absence of them), but this could be
partially overcome by incorporating standard techniques and industry best-practice
rules into the proposed manifesto. The remainder is best discovered through practice or
taught through practice-based learning. It would appear to be the responsibility of all
practitioners in the music and technology industries to promote education and learning
in order to offset the knowledge gap as consumers increasingly become producers.
(Toulson, 2008)
There exists qualitative issues where the new generation has a skewed idea of what
music is actually supposed to sound like – the iPod/car stereo generation listens
primarily to mp3s on sub-standard stereo systems or ear buds and hence have little
experience with listening to the nuances of sound. Increases in online bandwidth and
data allowances have seen a resurgence in less-compressed or lossless formats, so
perhaps this will gradually improve over time and serve to improve the sonic qualities
of output.

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The Solo Artist
Working solo is often the norm in other artistic fields – like the arts and photography -
so why are there so many problems with songwriting/production compared to, say,
painting or capturing a picture? Many of these issues do not arise around more
performance-based genres such as singer-songwriter and, as mentioned before, EDM.
With singer-songwriter performers, writing appears to be based more around the voice
and instrument. The production aspects generally come later, once the song has already
been formed. In this scenario, the issues are more technical and often based around
capturing a decent performance of the song, perhaps with some sort of embellishment
to add interest. In EDM and electronic genres, much of it is loop-based anyway, so some
standard structures are already set in place within each genre.
One of the issues is that music writing and production probably bear more resemblance
to film. Both have a significantly higher level of complexity than photography or
painting. Film and music have an extra dimension of time, which not only adds extra
layers of complexity as they must continually change over that time (and lets not forget
the ear is vastly more sensitive than the eye in changes over time – it takes only 24 or 25
snapshots a second to fool the eye into perceiving continuous movement, but the ear
needs about 44,000), but it also involves the contextual analysis of the relationship of
each individual part - and the sum of all the parts - in relation to what comes before and
after it in time. This multiplies possible outcomes by quite a significant factor.
Our brain operates somewhat like a “difference engine” in this regard, somewhat like
the frog’s eye mentioned by Anthony Korner (Cited by Tamm in Eno’s Vertical Colour of
Sound 1988). Like film, songs are internally contextualised – in other words the order,
not just the presence, of their components is highly significant to the final reading, for
example the order of chord changes, and the order of sections like verse or chorus
within a song. Other contextual aspects are in the relationship of the melody to a time
grid as well as harmonically to a musical root – that may also be changing across time.
The typical observer appears to read less cultural and historical context into most music
than into film, unless the lyrics have specific message that reflects some kind of cultural
or political importance. In other words – people seem to often accept a style not for its
inherent cultural meaning, but because they find some other personal affinity for the
music. People who listen to reggae music may not necessarily listen to the words,

29
appreciate the meaning or appreciate the rebellious role that music played back in the
era that it came from. Does the Herbs song “French Letter” now represent nuclear
protest or is it just a familiar song your parents played as you were growing up?
The emotional connection many listeners have with music could then come instead from
stylistic imprinting and warm feelings for those early years. This can create a different
basis for a relationship with the music or song. Individual songs in any genre may have
an independent identity outside of the source artist or genre – for example look at the
interestingly-wide variety of songs that appear in film, generating a fresh succession of
fans that normally would never appreciate (or even listen to) that style of music
delivered independently.
People can also love a song and disregard or disagree with the lyrics/meaning, or simply
choose to create their own reading of the meaning.
Returning to the difference-engine idea, it can be seen that the movement between two
chords has a different emotional effect if you change one of the chords – it is
comparative – and we are sensitive to both the short-term instantaneous change, and
the long-term structural change between, for example, a verse and chorus. This vastly
increases the possible outcomes of every creative decision in the piece – for every
change in any part throughout it - and hence the number of variables that must be
considered, in either film or music.
Luckily, some existing musical conventions within each genre remove some of the
amount of detail that must be considered. Still, the choices are huge, and it is easy to
become lost in some errant detail, and lose direction or vision of the bigger picture,
especially without the dynamic reality-check of a collaborator to point out any
oversights or whimsical diversions.
The time involved in a film or music project can be huge. Working with other musicians
tends to make it a parallel process rather than a sequential one. Working solo increases
the hours involved, risking the extension of the completion time well out of what could
be considered the “sweet-spot” where inspiration is running hot, and into that danger
area where fresh new ideas for the next song begin to take priority.
When this happens, the first song may never get finished.
Speed can be of the essence when working solo, in fact it appears to be a very significant
issue affecting project completion – perhaps a “make–or-break” parameter.

30
Working within a formal, collaborative or band-based production approach already
comes packaged with some in-built limitations that help constrain direction and focus. A
band would generally have a collective awareness of their own operative genre and
therefore also be aware of the resultant “allowed” limitations of instrumentation, style
and production standards within it.
The natural tensions between the members of the band would hopefully pull the musical
direction back to some sort of consensual norm. A more formal and traditional
approach, for example using a producer assigned by a record label, would usually have
strong direction towards specific aesthetic and commercial outcomes. Any of these
approaches might still be improved somewhat by being more cognizant of more of the
possible rules of play that are available, or perhaps the addition of options that have not
been considered or of which the players are yet unaware. Some models of innovation
require a degree of pushing the boundaries of existing work or by carefully cross-
pollinating genres, and so long as any of the active participants are doing this, there
would be some kind of movement in what is hopefully a unique and innovative
direction.
The most problematic writer could very well be the solo artist working alone. At best
they have their own clear vision and ideas to guide them, and at worst they can be spun
by the vagaries of the influences of whatever they listen to. The longer the process takes,
the more likely outside influences could change the outcomes. For instance, the artist
might start with a piece that is structured as a chill-out tune, then become increasingly
bored with the piece over time and after listening to some heavier rock music,
subsequently decide to add some layers of distorted guitar to their chill-out tune. Then
later on, they may be influenced by the authenticity of some vintage blues and decide to
throw away much of the existing instrumentation to make it more “raw”. And thus the
process continues.
This could potentially lead to something fresh and unique, but more often than not, (and
not helped by lack of technical or production skills) these continual later
additions/replacements might not match the original foundations or structure of the
track, and what may be left is a “soup” of too many diverging influences. The focus has
been lost, if indeed it was ever identified.

31
Some solo artists do appear to retain a solid idea of their musical focus, especially if they
identify strongly with a particular musical genre, or perform their music live. One may
look towards sub-genres of dance music to see that there are some related norms and
conventions that help structure a piece and provide a set of rules to guide output.
So from some of the previous evidence, it appears that the biggest risk with working
solo would appear to be not so much with solo artists, but with solo songwriters who
may be more stylistically agnostic, or have no idea yet of their own stylistic norms, or
perhaps have never even questioned them.
In this case, it would seem logical that in order to devise and use a set of limitations as a
tool for guiding musical and production “direction”, it would also be wise to identify the
current location in a type of “genre-map” so the starting point is made evident.
Looking at the key differences between the two main types of operation (band/formal
and solo writer), it can be seen that the solo artist/writer potentially lacks the degree of
creative limitation and tension, but is also dominated by technical limitations. Perhaps a
solution could be found that applies selective creative limitations but also adds some
industry best-practice techniques or awareness.
With these thoughts in mind, my initial goal for the upcoming production experiments
was to adopt a fast pace of production, to choose a set of chords and basic song
arrangement in advance of laying the first part down, and to try to define where those
important defining locations in genre-and-identity space might lie, to help define “feel”,
instrumentation and production values.
Creating A Genre-Space
There is almost always a set of rules that defines the limits of play. Unless they are
overly complex, the rules may allow more focus towards other aspects of the “play”. In
fact, looking at the above examples, the lack of rules does not necessarily equal more
innovative, interesting or enjoyable play. Setting up a structure beforehand may help set
the mind to applying more time to exploration within the constraints, or in intuitive
play, rather than trying to decode the patterns of the “game”. Any musician who has
tried jamming along on a song that they don’t know, (while all the other members do),
will easily understand the difficulty, unless it conforms to some well-known structures.

32
Reflecting on this idea, I could see that it would be important to outline a limitation-
based structure to inform the rules of play from the very beginning of the “game”. In this
way, all creative (and technical) decisions could then be informed as the creative
process progressed, in relation to some pre-determined “targets”. These targets would
need to be defined somehow as points in music (genre) and production-space that could
allow some sort of map to be drawn. Just like having a chord progression to follow may
make it simpler to intuitively jam, having some songwriting and production-based
structures might help inform the song’s production. Furthermore, this map could be in
more than one dimension, allowing a circumscribed area of genre or identity-space to
work within.
So - how would this source point on the genre-map (or identity) be chosen? Without an
outside influence to help decide, a good option would be to self-define it in relation to
some external parameters – in this case some external music-stylistic nodes.
So logically, the initial point of the map, or source, would need to be defined as the
chosen artistic “identity”. Note that I use the word “chosen”.
Looking at many successful artists and albums, it can be observed that some correspond
to one primary stylistic focus for each given project. Artists may choose to adapt their
musical focus from project to project, but in most cases each project revolves around a
single fixed nexus of musical style. For example, there is questionable choice in mixing
extreme styles within the same project – perhaps a blues song, a dance number, folk,
hard rock, punk and metal songs mixed together into the same project might show
musical diversity and skills in a songwriter or performer, but unless they all matched a
strong theme (for example a compilation or soundtrack album) it could make it more
difficult for a listener to feel like listening to more than one of the songs at any given
instant.
Here again, the constraints of other band members, a producer, or a record label would
automatically help contain the extremes of a project’s artistic style, but a solo
artist/writer is more inclined to be inspired by the artists they listen to and perhaps
follow their own current listening habits which may include a variety of musical styles.
I’m guilty of this myself, and many of the solo songwriters I have worked with appear to
value stylistic variety and many do not have a strong awareness of their own “core”
musical identity apart from that defined by their musicianship and playing abilities and

33
habits. This identity could be confused further by, for example, artists that are
categorized as “singer/songwriter” simply because they have been constrained to
playing acoustic guitar and singing, but aspire to larger productions for their music.
So from this I realised that although there can be some degree of variety within a
project, it would be more effective to define a central focus or at least set an area of a
genre-map to work within for a given project to allow creative decisions about direction
to more easily made.
In retrospect, making sure there
was a bigger gap between the
chosen artist and my self-identity,
plus perhaps opening up the genre-
map at least one more node (with
another artist) could provide a
slightly larger range of options but
still be well-contained. More
powerfully, by creating a map
between two slightly disparate artists (perhaps even across genres) perhaps some
additional creative tension and innovation can be generated between the two extremes.
When I performed the experiment, I used one artistic node and one technological or
“production” node or set of rules, which still appeared to provide some effectiveness.
(The production “rules” might have included limiting the chords used or the
instrumentation.)
Figure 2 - Two Artist Reference in Genre-Space
Note: These diagrams are early visualisations, in reality the technical restrictions were
another complete set of nodes defining the Operating Area across a separate dimension.
Figure 1 - One Artist Reference in Genre-Space

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So the goal of creating a map or structure like this was to provide some reference points
within genre-space to easily allow decisions that would hopefully generate creative
movement. It would allow experimentation within a defined musical/production area,
without defining an exact outcome. It had to be something like this, otherwise the notion
of “play” would not easily arise.
But what would happen if there was a “happy accident” – in other words an unexpected
but pleasing aberration or mistake that pulled away from the defined operating area
within the genre-space? This is a well-known and desirable aspect of the creative music
production process.
In gaming, it’s typical to incorporate the use of wild cards and chance within aspects of
gameplay. In music, it can be the playing of an incorrect note or notes, or chord, or of
missing the timing in a way that creates something unpredictably pleasing and unique.
To ignore these outliers would be to potentially throw away some of the most valuable
outcomes. Creating an innovative work is all about fresh, unique takes on what would be
normally predictable outcomes, so it would appear that any beneficial random aspects
that appear should ideally be retained.
In reality, we have as many dimensions in our genre-space to choose from as we need,
the key factor could be more about keeping the “rules” simple enough that play can
occur as intuitively as possible.
Similarly, what if this artificial structure became too restrictive and the player simply
wanted to break one or more of these defined “rules”?
Again, the main goal appears to be to improve a sense of creativity, productivity and
focus. If the “player” wishes to break the rules, then in some ways this could also be
considered a positive outcome, as long as the player is aware that a) they are breaking
the rules, and b) they should still follow the other rules in play.
In a sense, a player may have a wide range of experience and skills, and more
experienced practitioners might be more capable of working within more complex rule
sets and desire ever more complex rules. However, the danger of having too few rules,
or of just ignoring them, would effectively diffuse or disable the whole point of the
exercise.

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When we look at the real reasons for setting rules, it is to create a focal area that is
simple enough to stay within while experimenting, and to create some artificial barriers
that we feel we must strive against to hopefully create innovative moments. So to ignore
those rules is to take away the reasons for having them in the first place.
Remember, this type of limitation-based structure is implicit in most professional music
production scenarios, but is spread across an industry-based team, members or
agencies becoming the advocates for various parameters. For example, the producer
becomes the “player” that is responsible for genre and creative standards. The label is
the player responsible for commercial standards and acceptability. The artist is
responsible for the performance and perhaps the songwriting. When these agencies are
absent, so are most of the reminders to operate within structures that would normally
be considered in leading to successful creative and commercial outcomes.
Setting Up the Experimental Process
Based upon my prior research into creativity and potentially desirable outcomes, and
taking into account handlability and play based within a genre-space defined by identity
and other defined “locations”, I began to look in more detail into how the proposed
Manifesto could be structured.
The obvious first step was to pin down artistic identity and also the area of genre-space
this project would reside within.
I firstly had to identify the key stylistic and genre-based identity. This appeared to be a
simple enough task, but was more difficult in practice than in theory. As a songwriter,
seldom are our musical influences of such a narrow-enough area of genre or style to
allow a selection of a single musical identity. Most people are led by mood when it
comes to choosing a piece of music to listen to, and for some, the songs could
conceivably vary between styles as wide as hardcore metal or a soothing classical piece.
Writers are no different – there might be a range of styles that are expressed at various
times, depending on mood. Working within a band structure makes this a much easier
decision than when working solo. In a band, there is generally a collective musical
identity born at the same time as the band is formed (“Guitarist wanted for rock-band”),

36
thus perhaps making stylistic decisions more about how far away from the bands
musical center to stray. Working solo, the stylistic possibilities become much wider, and
the choices correspondingly more difficult.
When writing as a solo artist, there is first the question; Do I own a unique musical
identity? Though an artist may write across a variety of styles, is there some sort of
overlap or commonality between them where the artist’s unique signature resides?
Close listening to previous works is recommended to help identify those aspects. It also
means some strong reflection by the artist on what is most important to them musically.
Asking others for artistic suggestions may help, or it may confuse matters. To the
listener, everything is compared to known or familiar artists, and playing the same track
to multiple people will generate some wildly different comparisons. This could be useful
as it might expand the possible production options beyond the initial idea or perhaps
suggest a popular artist that could be a useful comparison come marketing time.
Value might be found in various musical or production-related aspects like a particular
type of drumbeat, a cool guitar rhythm, melodic style or an overall “sound” or vocal
delivery that is admired. Do all of these combinations jigsaw together into an overall
style that might sit within a particular artist’s genre, or perhaps more than one? Who is
an artist that might fit somewhere in that same range? Identifying one or more
musically-related artists creates reference points on a map that can be used to
triangulate a musical/production location that can be aimed towards at any stage of the
writing/mixing process, and with careful navigation could possibly help avoid blatant
sound-alike imitation.
Once an identity is established as an anchor-point, the same information that led to this
decision could also inform the selection of the other genre-based comparative artist.
In this manner, it becomes do-able to create some sort of “contained” definition (or
vision at least) of a center of identity for the artist to use as a sort of music/sound
anchor for subsequent creative decisions.

37
Experimental Outcomes
I spent some time listening back to some of my previous material, identifying musical,
arrangement and production-based themes that ran throughout my work, or aspects
that I felt a strong (or renewed) identity with. It was an interesting process as I had
never approached my prior work from this point of view.
Melodic riffy basslines, strong vocal melodies often with lush and interesting harmonies,
twangy surf guitar and some synthetic elements. Alt-pop-rock arrangements with a big
chorus and bridge, or arranged in ABAB format with a refrain rather than chorus.
I wrote all the identified aspects down and then used them to inform the next phase.
These choices helped eliminate a vast proportion of my potential comparative artists.
In the end, I went with the band “Air” circa 1998’s Moon Safari, as many of my desired
production attributes were encompassed in this album, and I particularly loved Air’s
retro-futuristic atmospheric and emotive vibe, use of synths while retaining elements of
authenticity, and overall mix ethos as a comparison.
At this point I began to have some doubts over the development of my overall process.
Would having an identified artist as a key anchor in my desired genre-map cause me to
be overly imitative or derivative? I hoped that the other differences between us would
be enough to retain my own unique identity, besides, my songwriting is completely
different to Air’s, mostly the production aspects are being used as a guide to my
decision-making, with myself as the other key anchor. Also, it was not just Air I was
using as a target, it was Air’s location in genre-space that I was using – ie it was not just
that band but also the overall style around it.
As it turned out, most of the tracks sounded nothing at all like Air, even though I applied
some of the initial aspects to my decision-making process. They still sounded like “me”.
After these first two key identification aspects, I needed to decide on some best-practice
engineering and production items.
Since I have been an engineer and producer for many years by trade, I have much of this
integrated into my workflow anyway. But I realised during the analysis of my artistic

38
identity that there were many production techniques that I once used (and loved) that
I’d simply forgotten about.
I began making up a list of some generic best-practice engineering production
reminders, and placed some of these workflow-based tools either in the production
category, or under a new wild-card category. I created this because I realised that I
needed to create some openings for both planned experimentation and any fortuitous
random opportunities within the creation process, alongside some bigger-picture
conceptual aspects – contrast and dialogue being good examples.
The experimental aspects were designed to be chosen as rules at the beginning of the
process, while some of the others were reminders to be mindful during the process.
So the first use of the Manifesto was partly reminding, partly self-informing, partly
production workflow guidance, and some stylistic rules to guide musical direction.
Some key reminders were part of every session; short recording sessions that capture
the significant elements of the song as fast as possible, try to emulate a musical
conversation (some songs had bass, drums, rhythm guitar and vocal melody guides put
down in 30 minutes), keeping mostly completed first takes and only repairing gross
errors, biasing towards early and authentic capturing of ideas with a maximum “feel”
and a minimum of self-censorship.
Before I began each track, I made sure I had a chord pattern in mind, and stuck to a
mostly pop-based song arrangement, with some variations around breakdowns/bridges
etc.
For songs where “groove” was critical or technical skills were needed to improve in
order to perform a piece (and here lies one of the many unique and lost roles in the
professional studio; the professional engineer/producer’s inherent instant critiquing of
work and driving of performers to higher technical standards), looping around 4 or 8
bars with attention to achieving something akin to Gadamer’s state of “play” and
locking-into the feel and style was used instead.
Attention to tone and recording quality at this point was minimal, as the creation of
parts, feel, and overall direction is arguably more important than tone and quality which
can then be subsequently generated or replaced. In this sense, each song is half-demo

39
and half-finished recording, or perhaps more akin to the sketch that goes down upon
which the painting is layered. At this point anything could still be changed upon later
reflection, but with enough material set down to be able to determine whether it
generates an appropriate emotional reaction or not.
Overall, on a personal level, this was a substantial success. I found that the tighter my
constraints via the Manifesto, the more ideas I had and the faster they flowed.
There were times when I was sprinting to get ideas down – while I was playing the bass,
I had a guitar idea in my head and had to quickly get it down while it was fresh and
immediate; while I was doing the guitar I suddenly got a vocal melody, while I was doing
that I had ideas for lyrics and harmonies etc.
In this way I was often getting the basic components of a song down in around half an
hour or so, still with a decent amount of tidying up and experimentation with song
arrangement needed, of course, plus further development of production ideas and
progression of ideas through the song.
Overall I created the core of around 30 tracks during the Masters Project timeframe, of
which about 23 songs made it into the “short-list” for completion of lyrics and the like,
and with a final outcome of 10 tracks that mostly conformed stylistically to my goals.
I found that the Manifesto rules were good starters for the creative writing process, and
apart from the general ones which suited most of the tunes, the others (especially from
the “wild-card” category) were chosen randomly as I felt before starting each song. If I
felt strongly about defying a rule because I had a better idea, or if it caused a clash with
something else in a song, I would ignore the rule. The main thing was to help me
overcome my potential writer’s block, and overcome my limitations around
perfectionism and completion. The rules also reminded me about best practice, and
what the priorities should be during the recording process.

40
Conclusion
Through examination, we have seen that although collaborative processes are typically
superior to solo work in regards to creative output, there are times when working alone
is desired or enforced through various reasons. There is evidence that there are unique
difficulties associated with the solo writing and recording processes compared to
working within conventional collaborative music production structures, and that these
difficulties are not ones that normally promote a creative tension that generates
innovative ideas, in fact there is a lack of creative pressure that may hinder creative
processes through lack of direction, rather than the more obvious technological and
socio-economic pressures that have tended to enhance innovation in the past.
The lack of things like external critical feedback, time limits on the recording process
combined with a huge surplus of technical options can promote a loss of direction and
focus.
We have observed that the developments in music technology has significantly affected,
and is now considered part of, the creative process in the music industry, and if that is
so, then the writing process must also surely reflect the appropriate use of that
technology.
Taking into account Gadamer’s aspects of Play and Bolt’s ideas around handlability and
use of tools, it is clear that setting some structural rules for the writing and recording
process did not risk any of the potential creative outcomes. In fact they matched the
desired outcomes very closely, with the Manifesto rules/guidelines becoming a set of
user-selectable tools, ideally selected prior-to or during the writing process. This
promoted some of the more conventional beneficial creative approaches like “jamming”
and prioritising aspects of performance and play, as well as overcoming some of the
technology-based writing issues by incorporating some concepts around industry best-
practice.
It was then a relatively simple matter to tailor some structured rules within a writing
and production Manifesto to guide the writing and production process in a beneficial
way, overcoming the identified problems with working solo, whilst also including some
technical recording and production rules of best practice.

41
The results of the experimental use of the Manifesto showed that, in this particular case
anyway, the use of a set of guidelines or rules of practice appears to have been very
successful in practice, with significant observed improvements in creativity, speed and
overall focus in the writing and production of an album.
I did come to realise that not all of the small experiments used in each track were
entirely successful. Well, they were successful in that there was a valid informational
outcome, but in some cases the song itself was not as effective as it might have been due
to the application of the experiment. For example, in the track “Deus Ex Machina” my
experiments with adding multiple layers (seven) of the same riff with different
instruments was certainly impressive, fun and interesting. But in retrospect, it was too
“washy” and diffuse when combined with some other aspects (reverb on the bass drum),
so some of the layers were removed in subsequent mixes of the song to “tighten it up”.
It would be interesting to see how others fare using the same manifesto tools. I have
included a “Song-Starter Worksheet” (Appendix 3) that uses some of the manifesto
elements to help guide a creative process.

42
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Frank, J. (2009). FUTUREHIT.DNA. Nashville: Futurehit.
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Gadamer, H.-G. (2004). Truth and Method (second edition). (J. W. Marshall, Trans.)
London/New York: Continuum.
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Creativity Applied to ‘Writing Records’.
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culture: http://summit.kein.org/node/191
Senior, M. (2011). Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio. Oxford, UK: Focal Press.
Shuker, R. (2001). Understanding Popular Music 2nd Edition. London and New
York: Routledge.
Sinnreich, A. (2007). Configurable Culture: Mainstreaming the remix, remixing the
mainstream. Retrieved May 17, 2011, from ARAM SINNREICH:
aramsinnreich.typepad.com/SINNREICH_DISSERTATION_FINAL.pdf
Tagg, P. (1987). Musicology and the Semiotics of Popular Music. Semiotica 66-
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Thomson, I. (2011, Summer). Heidegger's Aesthetics. Retrieved January 17, 2012,
from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
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http://www.robtoulson.rt60.co.uk/publications.php
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London: Arnold Publishers.

44
Appendix 1: Some Key Problems around Solo Writing & Production in
the Home Studio
Too much of everything; Too many tracks, parts, melodic lines. A result of “nibbling”
away at a track over extended time, almost unlimited virtual resources, boredom, lack of
focus. Sometimes several songs worth of content within the same track.
Losing idea of what’s actually good in the song. The latest addition to the song is
usually perceived as the best part. Probably the biggest destroyer of self-written and
produced tracks, as an effective mix becomes near impossible. Made worse by getting
too used to everything being present in the song (sometimes called “demo-itis”), it
makes removing excess parts almost impossible even if done by someone else.
Too many musical/production options. Modern DAWs such as Apple’s Logic Pro have
thousands of instrument sounds, almost unlimited tracks and numerous built-in effects.
This can be a creativity-killer as musical direction can become a meandering and
unfocussed doodle. Hours can be expended exploring instrument patches.
Cut and Paste. Loop-based production has become de-rigeur. Even young bands now
often appear to expect to only record small parts and duplicate it to other sections of the
song. This affects performance standards (and eventually playing ability), stylises
(simplifies) the performance, objectifies “parts”, can make songs sound repetitive and
boring (and usually in straight 4/4 time) and can undermine the use of tempo changes
throughout a song, risking “feel” and “groove”.
Fix it later. Timing and pitch repair tools inspire quantisation of both time and pitch,
potentially robbing feel and vocal delivery nuances, as well as sidestepping discipline
and good practice in getting good takes to begin with. Editing has always been a part of
audio, it’s just a question of to what level of detail it is taken. It also defers creative
decisions, moving additional creative load to a later point where the decisions are
hardest; due to burn-out, boredom, running out of time and money etc.
Automation. Hailed as one of the biggest aids to mixing, it has become so visually
dominated that people tend to trust their eyes over their ears, and draw lines rather
than use eg recorded fader movements. It has removed some of the performance
attributes from mixing, and tends to bias towards fewer dynamics and more
compression compared with “manual” mixing. If each part has an acceptable “window”
of acceptable level, automation often appears to be accepted when it only just reaches
the window.

45
Appendix 2: Writer/Producer Manifesto V1.2
Manifesto “Rules”
1) Locate key parameters of own artistic identity.
2) Identify genre-based artist/rules relevant to project.
3) Select a musical production palette/tools.
Recognise and incorporate artist’s stylistic and genre elements (These were my own
chosen elements from self-analysis of genre and identity):
Incorporate genre flavours in at least one or more instruments (or the vocal timbre).
Use arpeggiator or glitch delays in songs
Incorporate live percussion
Include guitar track/s – focus on “surf” sound (tremolo/reverb)
Real (melodic) bass where possible
Strong vocal melody with harmonies
Emotive, avoid simple major keys, use inversions/alt root/sus2 and sus4 where possible
Put key lyrics on “spotlight” positions in lines
Powerful choruses/strong contrasts
Make sure the song key and tempo is correct
Choose one or more bands as primary and secondary genre references. (Air)
Structural: Incorporate Principles of Contrast and Tension and Release
Create effective detail in song arrangement – in both macro and micro scales, including;
Creating strong contrast between verse and chorus
Arrangements include bridge/solo or drop section if possible
Explore rhythm element timing and dynamic level to create strong grooves
Use contrasting aspects per section, such as dense/sparse, close/far,
complex/simple (using parts or effects), loud/soft, enharmonic (or complex
harmonic)/harmonic, tonal/atonal, distorted/clean, complex time/simple time,
vertical/horizontal.
If there are no goosebump moments in the song – keep trying contrast items
Best Practice Production Elements
Begin the Mix during recording process to ascertain ideal context (rather than eg level)
for each part, and know better when the song is complete.
Song elements should have a “conversation”.

46
Limit the amount of takes per part.
Limit the time for the entire recording/mixing process
Occasionally semi-Master during mix to get good idea of final sound and context.
Everything goes “up” in the chorus (should also have highest vocal note)
Commit to “sounds” as song progresses rather than deferring until Mix time
Identify the catchy hooks early and feature them
Do the vocals early so the rest of the song builds around them
Make sure a recognisable and memorable hook exists within first seven seconds of song
Be brutal and take out everything that doesn’t add to the song (Even if it was the initial
idea!)
Start mixing from the last (biggest) chorus
Add a “production hook” of some type early on to catch the ear
Strongly separate depth of field – near/far elements
Bias towards “character” and “texture” rather than cleanliness of recordings
“Motown” it - only three things at once – rhythm, melody, sweetening
Perform the mix (rather than automate) - & use clip gain/duplicate tracks when possible
rather than automation
Focus on the emotive nuances rather than technical attributes of vocal performance (but
fix any notes that break the “flow”)
Match compressor release and reverb decay to song tempo
Don’t use any standard presets, beats or loops (tweak them or start from scratch)
Match the vocal phrasing with the drums
Add snare “ghosting” to add depth to groove
Prioritise time & effort on the important (and audible) bits
Lock the rhythm guitar to the drums
Adjust individual track timing to lock the groove (including snare, bass etc)
Play all the way through the song then play parts until you get them right
Chorus should hit at approx. 1 minute (Online plays not counted until 1min!)
Introduce variety at 2min mark (people can lose interest at this point)
Wild Cards: Some Experimental Devices
Lock the bass to the bass drum
Use another song as a template for ideas – esp. chord changes and transitions.
Add random, but musically relevant and “in-time”, sounds to the mix.
Deliberately start with an idea that appears to have minimal initial possibilities.
Explore different approaches to section transitions

47
Make the bass melodic - link the vocal melody and the rhythm
Use silence as a hook (eg carefully-timed end of notes, end of sections)
Try swing and shuffle feels to see if they work better for a song
Create rhythmic envelopes
Granulation and glitch
Sample a part and re-play it as a new part (re-contextualisation)
Layer parts to create additive tonalities – eg basses, kicks, snares, guitars (each layer
playing exactly same part).
Mono vs stereo sounds
Convert string instruments to lush pads or textures
Use octaves in layers to adjust tonalities
Use a vocoder on non-vocal part
Insert silence between sections to force creation of sections (or extensions)
Add or subtract layers per section to create contrast
Sidechaining in a non-typical (ie EDM) way
Adjust the tempo per song section for best feel or groove
Use vocal “sounds” instead of instrumental lines
Insert arrangement gaps that need to be filled.
Combine contrasting elements that occur at the same time (eg slow/fast, big/small,
complex/simple)
Double or halve the song tempo
Front-heavy vs back-heavy accents/rhythms per section
Try second-to-last chorus as “break-down” chorus.
Mono vs stereo instrument tracks (too many stereo virtual instruments clutter a mix)
Try a different key – does the key suit the vocal or force a new vocal timbre?
How about a key-change in the song.
Think About Structural Elements and Process
If there’s a vocal – does it have precedence over everything else?
Play what you “hear” in your head not what you would normally “doodle”
Match vocal phrase lengths and chordal elements in regards to “stable vs unstable” song
attributes (sad songs=unstable/unresolved)(ref. Pat Pattison)
Pay close attention to effectiveness of section transitions, with builds, lead-ins etc where
necessary. If it doesn’t “move” you, change it until it does.
Bias towards the “performed” rather than the contrived – find the “play” zone – listening
to the whole music track is essential.

48
Incorporate “texture” and “character” whenever possible.
Avoid the 4/4 grid wherever possible (and avoid rigid 100% quantisation).

49
Appendix 3: Song-Starter Checklist
This worksheet helps you create songs. It uses the concept of “directed play”. In other
words writing your music becomes a game or a jam, but you need to have some structured
rules in place to help the gameplay.
The more you can be explicit in what you’re trying to create, the easier and faster the
decision-making process will be. Feel free to diverge from your guidelines (ie cheat!) when
you come up with a better idea.
It doesn’t matter if you need to leave any of these items blank – just move on, or put the
first thing you think of in there - you can always change it later. You can also re-use filled-
in parts of this form for other songs you are working on in the same style, which will make
things much faster.
This form also contains some other songwriting aspects to keep in mind as you go.
Working title: (just pick anything if you need) eg Port in a Storm
What’s the concept? (One sentence – what’s happening in the “story” - make up
something quickly if need be – you can change it later). Eg He’s always coming home
drunk.
Possible Metaphor: (“x is y” – can give song a fresh twist.) eg large swells make it hard
to navigate/nautical theme.
Possible Subtext: (potential political/social commentary) eg drinking age is too low
Ideas for the main chorus line: (This might be the title)
Style
Genre (+Tempo): (this also relates to your artistic identity and other current projects)
eg retro jazz groove 128bpm
Possible reference:
Added Flavours: (What you are blending in to the main genre) eg trip-hop /funk
/surrealist /soundtrack
Possible reference:
Time signature: (pick one; 4/4, 2/4, 12/8 etc) eg 7/8 verse, 4/4 chorus
General Reference tracks: (artist or song that contains some of these
styles/flavours/sounds) eg Air for retro vibe, Salmonella Dub for arrangement ideas, bass
lines.

50
Production ideas
Main focus: (probably vocals, but not always) eg lead vocals
Possible reference:
Texture/Tone/Character: (which instrument/s will have character, which will be
clean)
Possible reference:
Eg. chord piano – maybe use tape echo? Vinyl-sounding drums?
Contrasting elements: (quiet/loud, dense/sparse, onbeat/backbeat vocal phrasing,
repetition/break, major/minor, fast/slow –> this can be manipulated via percussion or
pace of bassline). Eg Sparse and minor verses, more dense chorus.
Possible reference:
Include Effects: (any key effects you want to use or experiments to try) eg try spring
reverb, short delays on vocals, flanger on keypads.
Possible reference:
Transition types: (eg climbs, builds, pre-chorus lifts, breakdown and hit,
smooth/minimal, added build sounds – this relates to arrangement) eg add a lift before
chorus? Put some whooshy sounds in transitions to add drama?
Possible reference:
Remember to work around three “tracks”: Rhythm, Melody, Sweetening to help
eliminate excess parts.
Arrangement
Happy/Sad/Stable/Unstable: (Look at your chosen concept – this will influence
section, bar and lyric line lengths) eg offbeat/unstable verse, more solid decisive chorus
Possible reference:
Song Form/Structure: (An idea of how the song will be put together - ABABCAB or
intro/verse/lift/chorus/intro/verse/chorus/bridge/verse/chorus/chorus)
Possible reference:
Bridge/Breakdown/Solo section: (what will you do at the 2min mark when it may get
boring?) eg Breakdown
Possible reference:
Key: (nice to know what key the singer’s voice works best in – otherwise just pick one
that suits) eg Am
Chords: (if you know– it’s good to have at least a starter chord here)
Eg Verse: Am, E, Am, G, C Chrs: Em C

Awash In A Sea Of Musical Ideas Using A Manifesto Of Rules And Guidelines To Increase Creativity And Direction In Solo Music Writing And Production

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