Mar 12, 2017 Hey @CreativeSXN For those of you who have created full projects or are in the midst of creating a project, what's your general process for putting it together?
Mar 12, 2017 The theme and artwork directs everything, there's usually a few different influences and experiences which serve as guides and then just progress cohesively until something good is made.
Mar 12, 2017 Usually I don't share much about my music on here anymore, but f--- it, I'm bored. Usually I just come up with 16-18 song concepts to start. I don't like thinking of a "theme" for a project, because I think the theme kind of works itself out. So I just take concepts, whether story-lines, life experiences, feelings, conceptual ideas, etc, then I just write out lines and/or verses that I feel at the moment. Simultaneously, I have producers who send me beats, and I kinda just work them into the song concepts. Sounds like a long process but it really isn't. Then if they don't sound right, I just scrap them. Usually end with like 10-12 songs I like. I'm currently working on 2 projects right now. Almost done.
Mar 12, 2017 I do creative for a living and a lot of people don't acknowledge it but once you start doing it for other people it becomes a job whether you like it or not, taking on """creative""" as a full time job is not what you sign up for when you study joining a creative field i used to love it as a kid, in grade 10-11-12 i used to make posters and cover art daily once you start getting paid for something and you start having to force yourself to love it you need to dig down deep though, and it's not for everyone. you need to be able to find a place within yourself that genuinely loves creativity and harvest it. i've met and worked with so many people in the last few years who front as "creatives" but they're just losers who failed high school art class but present themselves as misunderstood. it's one thing to be a creative dude, but to do it as a job you need to be able to turn that passion on and off like a switch. it's not a fun task, and it's certainly not an easy task. but it's rewarding if you genuinely love what you do and if you take the time to love to learn it.
Mar 12, 2017 in college, i joined one of the fastest growing firms in my area, but their business wasn't in a hiring cycle so after my term of free work ended they didn't hire me full time, but they took me on as a freelancer indefinitely, so I worked there for a few months before being hired by a sign shop as a freelance designer, so i worked there til i got a better offer as the creative director at a local office of real estate. worked there for a year but i got too many freealnce requests/jobs to balance that with my fulltime realestate marketing job + free time, so i left the real estate job and started my own firm where now i hire my own freelancers and kids from college for short periods to work for me i say the same thing to everyone who either wants to work for me or asks for advice, you need to really look at the s--- you're doing and see whether you want to be doing what you're doing in the next 10 years or not, because it was a huge wakeup call for me the first time i had to start working for a creative director. 99% of the "creative" jobs out there aren't creative at all, and are being dictated by someone else, and a looooooooooot of kids who get into design and brand work need to know that. when u join the field it's all renegade and saul bass s--- but i cant count the number of people who ive come up with or hired who i've seen lose the passion within hours or days, because the directive wasn't coming from them, and the truth is that not everyone gets to become the decision making guy so they get into the field thinking that's what they'll be, but in the end they wind up in a dead end job where you're crafting someone else's ideas. its a s--- field with a fake appeal, but if you have the ability to turn it on and off, and you can make yourself passionate about anything then it's a great job to have.
Mar 12, 2017 but fr im always just working on music and am working on multiple projects all the time so ill kinda decide in the process of working on a song which project it should go onto
Mar 12, 2017 Yeah I remember paying you for a cover to a mixtape like 6 years ago. You always did top notch work. I'm glad that you ended up owning your own firm and you're the creative director. That's awesome bro. I can relate to this post, but I went the other way. I wanted to be a sports journalist, got a degree, went into the job force, and all there was was freelance opportunities. I freelanced for a good 6 months, and it was fun but the pay was s---, so I stopped for a few years. Ended up getting back into it about a year ago, and I ended up being the chief editor of a Patriots' website. But, in all honesty, it wasn't as much fun as I anticipated, even though I controlled everything. Getting everyone on the same page, then I'd end up doing their articles for them lol. It was hardly a way to make a living (luckily I have a full time job anyways). So, I ended up just quitting my pursuit of journalism. I just have zero passion for it anymore. Still have my music passion. I've learned a lot over the years, focusing more on recording/visual entertainment rather than live performances. Building a network, adapting to the current music scene, which I was unwilling to do for years. Only thing is, I'm getting too old for it. I'm going back to school soon to get my masters in psychology, and hopefully gaining a huge pay increase from it. Hoping to release two projects before I start back up with school, but who knows.
Mar 12, 2017 i always start with a couple appropriately named songs, and then think of a concept/theme that ties those together, and can be expanded upon in more songs. Then I hit the artwork, and then I make the rest of the songs, constantly adjusting names/tracklisting as necessary.
Mar 12, 2017 i mean, when i sit and think about it... i think i've always made projects this way, even back when I first started producing. Even my least favorite projects i've put out were at the very least there conceptually, and were still cohesive because of the way I set them up. I think that overtime, i've just slowly refined the process, and I've gotten more picky about what I'll theme a project around. I've tried to get more personal/story-like in my themes/concepts than I use to. I'll also scrap entire projects on a whim now because of this. I've become too much of a perfectionist with my projects, and if I don't think a certain aspect is really working well or coming across as intended, it's out the window with the whole thing and I'll either start over or move on to something else.
Mar 12, 2017 normally i'll spend a few months coming up with a vibe/sound then work out the concept. once i have the feeling it's easy--i'll write/record the majority of the songs in the span of a week and then spend a few months mixing, tweaking songs, and adding in a few here and there. ends up being a 6-8 month process when it's all said and done.
