# How Do You Save and Organize Ideas?



## Andrew0568

I'm terrible at sitting down and working on a full piece from start to finish. I have tons and tons of short phrases, chord progressions, loops, sound designs, musical ideas...but I never know the right way to save and organize them. Right now I have a bajillion random Logic sessions and sporadic Soundcloud uploads for listening in the car. 

How do you title ideas? Where do you save them? How do you organize?


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## nuyo

I have a project file with a piano in it. All Musical Ideas are in it. The file has multiple backups. So when I start a new track, I open it and pick a random idea that resonates with me at this moment.


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## Living Fossil

If you have "tons and tons" of short phrases, chord progressions etc. maybe the best thing would be a hard cut. Pick five _good_ ideas, or less, and put the rest in a folder called "ideas", which you hide somewhere you don't have to bother with it.
Drowning in too many unfinished stuff is killing creativity and productivity on the long run.
And you never get any routine, which mainly comes from the process of *finishing* pieces.

Personally, i have a yearly project folder.
Inside of this, i have a folder called "ideas" and one called "tests". (the latter is e.g. for comparisons of different plugins etc). Sometimes, i create folders inside of project folders that contain project related ideas.
But it's important to keep a balance between unfinished ideas and stuff you actually bring to an end.


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## szczaw

I had similar problem. My solution was to write a phrase librarian and scanner. I have four main categories: mono phrases, poly phrases, chord progressions, tracks with vst instruments. Scaner transposes 1/2 tone every phrase and chord progression 11 times incrementally and categorizes according to scale and key, each phrase has tags, rating, basic stats that be used to limit selection. I can easily get to let say phrases that are in D minor and start or end with a given chord. It's all done with scripting inside of a daw I use.


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## gsilbers

Andrew0568 said:


> I'm terrible at sitting down and working on a full piece from start to finish. I have tons and tons of short phrases, chord progressions, loops, sound designs, musical ideas...but I never know the right way to save and organize them. Right now I have a bajillion random Logic sessions and sporadic Soundcloud uploads for listening in the car.
> 
> How do you title ideas? Where do you save them? How do you organize?



I do "save as" and add a number and then go back and forth between ideas. once there is something more concrete ill change the name. 

so have one folder of similar ideas like pulses and inside each project folder. 
01dramapulse (some info)
02 drama pulse (loop)
03 drama pulse (chord)


even if each one has something specific they are all part of a pulse drama album or whatever.


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## jonnybutter

I bounce a quick mp3 with the main idea and name it the same as the Logic file. I try to be descriptive, but it can be hard at times! Anyway, with an audio file, you can just select it and hit the spacebar and hear what it is. Works for me


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## telecode101

...


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## Lazu

Scaler 2 is really good to organize Your chord progression ideas.


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## Hywel

On my hard drive I keep individual Cubase projects in folders which are themselves stashed in yearly folders.
Along with this plan. I also use Cubase's Media Bay with a filter set to MIDI Files and Projects and utilise the name, comments, album, rating, etc, etc columns to further aid my aging memory.
When I have something tangible, I also export an MP3 and transfer to iTunes, keeping the same titles, comments and year labelling.
I have about 1000+ of these mp3s cluttering up my hard drive and yearly folders going back to 1995.
Oh, and I also have the original sheets of paper with my musical doodles on that I also keep alphabetically and in actual physical, filing boxes, labeled by year.
How OCD is that?


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## ProfoundSilence

I'm very guilty of this myself, and I'm trying to come up with a system using a hero's journey like tags.


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## BassClef

Just a hobbyist here... my very simple little scheme...

Every little sketch I like (chord progression, melody, ostinato, instrument combination) is saved with the word "sketch" using the next available number. So it might be "72sketch". Then if I come back to that sketch and begin developing it into something bigger, I simply change the name to "72project". If I complete the project to a finished piece, I again change the name to "72opus" and at some point give it a name like "72opus Canon" but always keeping the number. This way every thing is chronological, so I see he next available number for a new sketch. And I can easily search for all sketches, projects or opus.


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## NekujaK

I have a folder where I save all my unfinished starts, etc. But over the years, I've come to the realization that I rarely ever revisit or develop these into full compositions. When faced with a project, I almost always prefer to start from scratch and create something new, fresh, and relevant to the project.

That's not to say that the process of dabbling around and coming up with unfinished ideas is unproductive. Quite the contrary. Not only is it enjoyable, but it provides an opportunity to flex my creativity in a non-pressure situation, and enables me to experiment with production techniques and explore libraries I've been ignoring. No effort goes to waste, even if I don't finish something, I usually learn something in the process that I can apply on a future project.

I've accepted that some musical ideas will simply never become fully fledged compositions, and that's perfectly okay. They still served a purpose while I was working on them.


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## jcrosby

I also have a folder I use, mine's called "Unused Concepts". I used to be really bad about letting it just sit there. Now I go through it every month or two, solo and export any useful layers. If there are some really good percussion sections I'll pull them into Quicksampler, slice them, drag the Midi to Logic's Apple Loops browser so I essentially have a rex file for later use.. (I even do this with licensed project stems). For unused ostinatos or harmony I'll export the midi if it's good.

This folder fills up pretty fast these days as well. I've been mostly writing for trailer briefs the past year, some tracks don't make the cut, others may have been poor starts but have really good signatures or layers.

Necessity makes it easier to find a purpose for these... If something's totally useless I move it to an external archive that also has an _Unused_ folder. (I'll go through this once or twice a year too to see if I missed something that was actually pretty decent.) The tracks that have enough meat on them to make them worth finishing get moved to folders I have for specific music libraries, in each are a "To Be Completed" folder... Ive actually wound up finishing and repurposing some of these tracks and placing them so you should really try and break the habit of just letting them sit there...

Also, someone else mentioned Scaler which is invaluable. If there's a really good one in the bunch I'll do the same, open scaler, capture the harmony and save it to folders I've created based on genre.


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## pinki

Great question btw
I use DP's extensive Clippings which in DP10 got a real boost with a new browser view. I also use this for notes: 
Milanote


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## JohnG

Folders:

"Terrible" 
"Worse"
"Really, Super Terrible"
"Embarrassing"
"Might Be OK In Another Composer's Hands"

etc.


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## Gerbil

Manuscript paper stuck all over the walls (and plenty in the bin).


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## InLight-Tone

I did that for 10 years, barely finished ANYTHING. Always finish a track, if it's an idea worth putting the time in. Evaluating worth is another can of worms you need to figure out. We change so much in even a few months time. A track is a snapshot of your current skills at this moment in time. Keep moving forward...


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## visiblenoise

I have no ideas to save

pa rum pum pum pum


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## bill5

Living Fossil said:


> Drowning in too many unfinished stuff is killing creativity and productivity on the long run.
> And you never get any routine, which mainly comes from the process of *finishing* pieces.


Disagree entirely. That may be true for you but it all varies. I have many bits and pieces (more so lyrically than musically but both) and for me it's a treasure trove of things to dive into when I'm looking for ideas or things to add or help complete something. And far more often than not, when something pops in my head, it's a snippet, not a whole or even half a song. Often those pieces help me finish a song and sometimes I'll grab several of them, seeing a connection, and there's a song.



> But it's important to keep a balance between unfinished ideas and stuff you actually bring to an end.


No argument there, but again what the balance is varies for everyone. Not all of us are commercial artists, after all. We don't "need" to finish anything in particular at any particular time. To me trying to force that, THAT is what dampens the creative process.

Back to the OP...it's really a simple case of organization. I have folders, mostly by genre, to keep things tidy.


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## PaulieDC

Andrew0568 said:


> How do you title ideas? Where do you save them? How do you organize?


GREAT question.

Here's my dilemma: What about an idea that hits you when you aren't sitting at the studio desk? If you hear ANYTHING that pops a melody or chord change in your head, what medium do you use to retain that? That's the workflow I'm trying to establish. I suppose a voice memo or quickly dictating into a Note on my phone gets it saved, but then I work best if I can sit down one night and go through what I've collected and pick what's most usable and get it in Cubase. THAT part of getting things saved in Cubase is fine, I keep a Sandbox project for snippets and stuff. It's the middle collaboration/collection part. I guess that'd be whatever I stored on the iPhone, I suppose I just answered my own question. Digging out voice memos and notes and remembering what hit me at that moment is the part that doesn't work. I'd love a simple app with a keyboard to play in the idea and save it in cloud of choice (OneDrive for me). Then later I'd like to directly import those idea files right into Cubase or DAW of choice and start running with it. Anyone know of something like that? I develop software but not iOS or Android, otherwise I'd be hammering that out.

ANYWAY, how do you all store ideas when not in the studio? Or do you at all?

==============================================

*UPDATE: @method1 to the rescue with the solution (on the next page somewhere): CUBASIS 3! I own it, I thought it was iPad only. Never even thought to check... perfect solution. *


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## method1

PaulieDC said:


> GREAT question.
> 
> Here's my dilemma: What about an idea that hits you when you aren't sitting at the studio desk? If you hear ANYTHING that pops a melody or chord change in your head, what medium do you use to retain that? That's the workflow I'm trying to establish. I suppose a voice memo or quickly dictating into a Note on my phone gets it saved, but then I work best if I can sit down one night and go through what I've collected and pick what's most usable and get it in Cubase. THAT part of getting things saved in Cubase is fine, I keep a Sandbox project for snippets and stuff. It's the middle collaboration/collection part. I guess that'd be whatever I stored on the iPhone, I suppose I just answered my own question. Digging out voice memos and notes and remembering what hit me at that moment is the part that doesn't work. I'd love a simple app with a keyboard to play in the idea and save it in cloud of choice (OneDrive for me). Then later I'd like to directly import those idea files right into Cubase or DAW of choice and start running with it. Anyone know of something like that? I develop software but not iOS or Android, otherwise I'd be hammering that out.
> 
> ANYWAY, how do you all store ideas when not in the studio? Or do you at all?



Cubasis? 
Granted it's more than just a simple app but since you already have cubase the integration is there.


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## Batrawi

nuyo said:


> I have a project file with a piano in it. All Musical Ideas are in it. The file has multiple backups. So when I start a new track, I open it and pick a random idea that resonates with me at this moment.


That's what I started doing lately. just sketching with a piano putting each idea in one track. I give a quick name (just something to remind me) then maybe create a folder track, to group multiple tracks that fit certain mood/emotion (like: mistery/sad/funny/romantic etc..)


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## bill5

PaulieDC said:


> Digging out voice memos and notes and remembering what hit me at that moment is the part that doesn't work.


This is what drives me nuts. I'll have something hit me but no matter how detailed I am in describing or just singing/humming a melody or whatever, or even capturing at my desk in a basic way, when I go back to it, often I don't really recall or quite get "that sound" that popped into my head at the time. I wish there was some way I could record that sound that's in my head. There's really no solution either..


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## PaulieDC

method1 said:


> Cubasis?
> Granted it's more than just a simple app but since you already have cubase the integration is there.


Oh for pete's sake. I just bought that on sale last week, but I thought that would be iPad only. It ISN'T, I just popped it on my iPhone! This is exactly what I was asking for, lol! Holy moly, huge thanks! Yep, I'm Captain Obvious at his best...


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## marclawsonmusic

I have a tons of ideas recorded on my iPhone while sitting at the piano. Every now and then I offload them to MP3, store them in an 'Ideas' folder on my computer, and add them to a long running Excel file I keep.

When I want to start something new, I scan Excel or listen through some of the ideas and pick one I want to work on.


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## marclawsonmusic

bill5 said:


> This is what drives me nuts. I'll have something hit me but no matter how detailed I am in describing or just singing/humming a melody or whatever, or even capturing at my desk in a basic way, when I go back to it, often I don't really recall or quite get "that sound" that popped into my head at the time. I wish there was some way I could record that sound that's in my head. There's really no solution either..



I mostly hear melodies, so I spend a few minutes to figure out the chords, and then record a voice memo with 4-8 bars of melody / chords on the piano. That is normally enough sonic information to jog my memory.

But sometimes I have these voice memos where I am humming or groaning or singing and I'm like, 'what the hell was I thinking?!?!' So I totally get it.


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## bill5

lol yeah I have my share of those


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## Hywel

Regarding file/project titles - I have gone through phases...

I started my early projects with Idea 1, 2, 3... Song 1, 2, 3… etc - not terribly memorable.

Then I started using creation dates - again not terribly memorable because I had June 6th, June 23rd, August 4th etc, etc.

Somewhat more useful was my next naming scheme which was to name based on something that had happened recently or a place I'd visited eg Before the Snow Arrives, Highclere, Broken Toe.

All of these titles are "working titles" so when I finish a piece, I change the name from June 23rd to something more interesting for the project. Although finding an appropriate title for a project can be more challenging than writing for the project itself!

Just recently I have been picking titles from glossaries of astronomical, geological and geographical terms as my working titles!

Probably worth restating what I said earlier about Cubase’s Media Bay – I find adding a star rating useful for individual ideas and adding a note in the comment field with for example “nice tune and chords in the A section, strings added but consider brass in B section development” or “nice Signal pulse and groove, but needs work on melody”


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## bill5

Hywel said:


> All of these titles are "working titles" so when I finish a piece, I change the name from June 23rd to something more interesting for the project. Although finding an appropriate title for a project can be more challenging than writing for the project itself!


Funny, I think I'm better at coming up with song titles than I am for the actual material. I have tons of titles which will probably never be used...but some do, and some are about an idea I had for a song, so I can go back later and it sparks or reminds me and I can go from there. 

Meaningful naming matters a lot with things in progress though; mine aren't overly detailed, but enough to give the gist of what it's about, like "prog rock intro," "jazz song idea," "ambient background," etc.


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## Mark Kouznetsov

I have two main folders with my projects: FINISHED and IN DEVELOPMENT. I also have around 20 or so basic ideas (some are almost done). Once a month or so, I pick 3-4 of them and finish them. If I have a writer's block, I just go in the 2nd folder, pick and again, finish it. All the 4 chords progressions and other small stuff get wiped out once a month when I load all of my small ideas and take a listen. If it's worth it, it'll stay on my hard drive and again, I'll soon come back to it and finish. If it's just alright, it gets wiped out. As you constantly come up with new ideas at the same time as trying to clear your backlog of older ones, just get rid of those little things you won't use, be honest with yourself. If it was really worth it, you would already do something with it.

Oh, and also. Name it. Even temporarily. But not as Song 1, or cool arp. Name it as a track. After something: like, i don't know, Mountain Top. Or Rainy Afternoon. Or something. Then, you either get an idea for development. Or you never will. And you can always change the name later.


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## bill5

Mark_Kouznetsov said:


> just get rid of those little things you won't use, be honest with yourself. If it was really worth it, you would already do something with it.


 That depends on the person and not necessarily so. I have things that were stashed for sometimes years and I went back and did something with it. I have little to lose by keeping something and little to gain by tossing it - but I do agree that it's a question of degree. As you say, be honest with yourself. I have had things that I knew just weren't working and tossed.


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## Mike Bonta

Usually I come up with ideeas improvising at piano. When I feel that I found something intresting I record it on my galaxy watch then I give a name to the file according to its mood or my imaginary scenario.
Very often when I work on a project I use those ideeas.


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## Hywel

bill5 said:


> That depends on the person and not necessarily so. I have things that were stashed for sometimes years and I went back and did something with it. I have little to lose by keeping something and little to gain by tossing it - but I do agree that it's a question of degree. As you say, be honest with yourself. I have had things that I knew just weren't working and tossed.


I agree, I never delete stuff that I work on. Yes, during the writing process I might come up with ideas that never even get recorded BUT once recorded I don't delete. I have often come across something from years back while I've been listening to the mp3s I made that I've decided to work on again or change in some way, or even just to use the chord progression with a different melody, etc, etc.
I recommend making mp3s of anything you have recorded and listening back on it after a period of time,... you may find a hidden gem that you never realised you had at the time.


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## Brocktoon

I would suggest watching Deadmau5 masterclass. There's a lot of stuff there, but I like listening to his process of making clips every day. I personally assign all my clips in separate folders based on how they sound (happy, sad, etc.) and then I keep a kind of nonsense folder. Its fun to go back to that one from time to time!


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## CGR

marclawsonmusic said:


> I have a tons of ideas recorded on my iPhone while sitting at the piano. Every now and then I offload them to MP3, store them in an 'Ideas' folder on my computer, and add them to a long running Excel file I keep.
> 
> When I want to start something new, I scan Excel or listen through some of the ideas and pick one I want to work on.


Same method here, but with file names matched to a Logic session/file, and without the Excel file. A quick and easy way to preview ideas, copy to a USB stick and listen in the car or on my laptop.


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## GtrString

I don’t work like that. If I get an idea, I start a project, and record some stuff. I try to get as far as I can in one session, and then save that as a work-in-progress. Over time, a number of those projects pile up, and I choose to finish the best 10-20% of them. That way I feel confident it is some of my best work, and not just any random shi* I could come up with.

I basically improvise everything, untill it is in a fixed form, and I like my work to be intuitive in the moment, so it feels more like a true «record» of what happened. Over the years, I can hear that I had certain ideas and themes going over periods of time.


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## TomislavEP

A bit haphazard, I'm afraid. Whenever I come up with a short motif or a phrase, I usually capture it using my (now ancient) Yamaha PSR-3000 arranger keyboard. I often find this quicker and more spontaneous than going directly to my DAW. I also use the phone when at the real piano or any other acoustic instrument.

While I have an "Ideas" folder on my system, once I have the whole composition worked out, I typically record it as a solo piano piece first then work from there, if the piece is not intended to remain this way. Most of the time, I don't keep different versions of the same project unless I plan to have several different-sounding arrangements.


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## el-bo

Andrew0568 said:


> I'm terrible at sitting down and working on a full piece from start to finish. I have tons and tons of short phrases, chord progressions, loops, sound designs, musical ideas...but I never know the right way to save and organize them. Right now I have a bajillion random Logic sessions and sporadic Soundcloud uploads for listening in the car.
> 
> How do you title ideas? Where do you save them? How do you organize?


Here's what you _shouldn't_ do: "NewOne"; "Newest"; "Dubbything"; "D'n'B 1"; "Newthing"; "newambient"; "Padthingy"; etc. etc. 

I get the feeling my project folder is in a worse state than yours 

Have started to keep a second duplicate folder, which contains up to five current projects. I also have to keep reminding myself that sound/patch-design sessions are just that, and don't need their own project. Just need to remind myslef to save patches, channel strips and stacks, then just move on


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## Nimrod7

Interesting topic! 

I had a folder with countless of random ideas as separate project files, but that didn't make any sense, since I was forgetting what each one was, and I had to open them to go through it. 

What's working for me the last few months: 

- I have a folder named Theme Ideas filled with projects which their filename is based on mood / feelings / style: E.g. I have Love, Evil, Sad, Happy, Hero, Marches, Boss Fights, etc
- When an idea pops in my head, usually I hum on the phone.
- Then, when in Studio, I open the relevant mood project file, and I record the motif in a separate midi region (just piano), and I might give the actual midi region a better description. 
- I am deleting the file from the phone, so only fresh ideas remains there...

That's helpful, because I can just open a single project when I am looking for a specific style / mood / theme, and there are tons of ideas I can go through until something resonates.


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## Gerbil

I've always been a bit of a ramble and compose person so don't tend to do it at the DAW. If the idea's strong enough then I'll jot it down in my notebook once I'm back home, but rarely keep snippets on the computer because I wont go back to them.


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## Hywel

For years I used to open projects (in my case Cubase Projects) from within the Finder Folder window on my Mac. For the last several years however I have found it an awful lot easier to open Media Bay within Cubase which I filter to ONLY show Cubase Projects and the specific folder hierarchy that contains my Project library by year written (dates back to 1993).
Within the Media Bay, individual Projects are notated with any comments I make about the project eg development or mixing suggestions for the future. Also within the Media Bay I rate the projects and attach tags with various properties to each file for instance I have a tag called Workshop which contains the 5 or 6 projects currently in development.
Perhaps a bit OCD...


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## Chris Harper

I always keep everything I have started working on unless I decide it was really terrible or uninteresting, and even then I try to come back to it a couple of times before I make the decision to delete it. I really try hard to finish anything I put time into, for the sake of efficiency. I like to use abandoned projects to create “challenges” for myself. For instance, I set an arbitrary time limit to practice composing quickly. I might challenge myself to finish a piece in 60 minutes, then open a project at random and start the clock. Or I might challenge myself to totally change the arrangement and write in a style I don’t normally write. Doing one of these challenges often leads to unexpected results (sometimes even good).

I tried using a spreadsheet, but that got out of control quickly. Now, I only keep a spreadsheet of completed work. I have tried giving descriptive names (“Weird Disco Jazz March”). I have tried numbering and dating projects, and none of these has been any more organized than the other.

I like the idea of bouncing MP3s of unfinished songs, and I need to do more of this. Sometimes I will open the Unfinished Songs folder on my phone and play them while I’m driving around. Sometimes I get ideas this way, but if not then at least I remind myself it’s still there.

And I definitely have more trouble naming songs than writing them. Sometimes it takes me a few days after I finish a piece to come up with a title. I find this to be quite annoying.


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## bill5

Chris Harper said:


> I might challenge myself to finish a piece in 60 minutes


Good grief. I rarely finish a piece in 60 days.



> I definitely have more trouble naming songs than writing them. Sometimes it takes me a few days after I finish a piece to come up with a title. I find this to be quite annoying.


Count your blessings! I rock at song titles. I have a zillion. A few even have songs attached to them. I'd much rather it to be the other way round.


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## Chris Harper

bill5 said:


> Good grief. I rarely finish a piece in 60 days.
> 
> 
> Count your blessings! I rock at song titles. I have a zillion. A few even have songs attached to them. I'd much rather it to be the other way round.


LOL I should point out that I’m not talking about complex, fully orchestrated pieces. I write a lot of different things. Some are much more time consuming than others. A more complex orchestral piece will take me days of full time work to complete. For something more like production music (drama, quirky, “uplifting” pop, hybrid, whistling banjos, etc.) I can knock out with much more efficiency. A lot of people have no interest in writing that kind of music, which I totally understand.

But I definitely get a serious benefit from writing quickly. I used to struggle to finish any songs at all because I second guessed everything I did. By focusing on efficiency and speed, the music flows out more freely. I stop worrying about writing the perfect piece. Instead of agonizing over details, I focus on finishing the piece and make a mental note of what to do differently next time. Tying this back into the thread topic, I would say that turning unused ideas into potentially flawed songs is the best way I have found to manage them. Sometimes the results are good, but worst case scenario is having a song I’m not totally happy with instead of an idea sitting unused. For me, there is only one way for me to find out if a song idea is going to work. I just have to write it.

This is such a great thread topic. I love reading about how others approach writing music. To me, it’s far more fascinating than comparing sample libraries. <shows self out>


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## bill5

Chris Harper said:


> turning unused ideas into potentially flawed songs is the best way I have found to manage them. Sometimes the results are good, but worst case scenario is having a song I’m not totally happy with instead of an idea sitting unused. For me, there is only one way for me to find out if a song idea is going to work. I just have to write it.


Great attitude. If only I shared it.  Something about it being "final" and recorded and out there for the world and unchangeable freaks me out so I agonize over details.


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## Soundbed

Andrew0568 said:


> I'm terrible at sitting down and working on a full piece from start to finish. I have tons and tons of short phrases, chord progressions, loops, sound designs, musical ideas...but I never know the right way to save and organize them. Right now I have a bajillion random Logic sessions and sporadic Soundcloud uploads for listening in the car.
> 
> How do you title ideas? Where do you save them? How do you organize?


Not a direct answer but Mike Monday has a course called “The Leap” which goes over how to consistently generate and organize regular releases from start to finish.

What you’re asking about involves a combination of tools and techniques and practices and habits. He lays out a total system.


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## LauraC

I also keep everything. I come up with names (sometimes using a word generator) and the only identifier is mood (e.g. upbeat, sad, scary, Nordic, etc. ). When I’m taking a break from active writing, I’ll go through them randomly and pick one to finish; *or* sometimes I come up with a compelling melody/chord progression and put it at the top of my list so I get to it sooner rather than later.


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## Hywel

Naming things I find is one of the hardest things of all for me... OK if you have a sensible project on the go with a particular end point and theme, but what if you've just come up with an amazing piece, spontaeneously in the last hour or so and now you need a representative name for it before it gets lost in the depths of the hard drive... I just go blank I'm afraid.


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## isaac

szczaw said:


> I had similar problem. My solution was to write a phrase librarian and scanner. I have four main categories: mono phrases, poly phrases, chord progressions, tracks with vst instruments. Scaner transposes 1/2 tone every phrase and chord progression 11 times incrementally and categorizes according to scale and key, each phrase has tags, rating, basic stats that be used to limit selection. I can easily get to let say phrases that are in D minor and start or end with a given chord. It's all done with scripting inside of a daw I use.


I'd love to hear more about this if you're willing to share!


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## jcrosby

jonnybutter said:


> I bounce a quick mp3 with the main idea and name it the same as the Logic file. I try to be descriptive, but it can be hard at times! Anyway, with an audio file, you can just select it and hit the spacebar and hear what it is. Works for me


Basically same approach... I export a bounce every few _dot_ versions that correlates to the project dot version (1.1, 1.4, etc). If an earlier version wound up being better (which occasionally happens...) it's easy to revert to that version without losing the later version, in case there might be something in the later version that's worth exporting to audio, or importing as a track...


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## OHjorth

One project, separate piano tracks with ideas that are categorized under busses named after genre or other functional descriptions. Busses are coloured.


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## Macrawn

I've got a bit of a weird system that works for me and probably nobody else. Studio one when you go to open a song has a recent files list that stretches pretty long. I'm making the music for myself so I have that luxury. So when I want to work on something I scroll down the list and pull up a file. I often don't even remember what the file is. If it sounds anywhere half decent I'll work on it a bit. Then close the file and repeat the process. Sometimes starting a new file. What happens is the best most promising projects stay to the top and the worst ones end up dropping off the list. Eventually the best ideas get finished. I'm also not constantly starting something new and archiving it, but there is a slow steady feed of new ideas coming in. 

A couple of things I've noticed working this way. If you are waiting for a perfect idea, there isn't one. Sometimes an idea needs to be pushed a little to see if it pans out. Just archiving every idea might be good for a film composer because you need on demand work for some random situation, so I can see "happy, sad" folders might work, but not for someone like me composing for myself. So in truth a new idea is useless unless it gets time to breathe and grow. 

A folder of 200 ideas may as well be deleted if I don't have a process to cycle through them and pick ones to develop. 

So I guess what I'm saying is, you don't need an organization system. You need a development system for your ideas, and to give yourself permission to just work on something knowing it isn't perfect from the start. It really can turn into something close to "perfect" through the process. Idea fragments are flawed by nature. 

Take 10 random kids. Can you tell which one will grow up to be the one that makes an impact? It's often the one you don't expect and hardly ever the one you pick.


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## MusiquedeReve

Andrew0568 said:


> I'm terrible at sitting down and working on a full piece from start to finish. I have tons and tons of short phrases, chord progressions, loops, sound designs, musical ideas...but I never know the right way to save and organize them. Right now I have a bajillion random Logic sessions and sporadic Soundcloud uploads for listening in the car.
> 
> How do you title ideas? Where do you save them? How do you organize?


I save it named as follows:

BPM_KEY

_e.g._ 110_Amin

This way, I can quickly also easily see if I have any ideas that might fit well in one piece together based upon tempo and key -- which may lead me to actually finishing a piece one day lol


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## jblongz

I handle a ton of ideas in Ableton by storing them in scenes (if the sound template is the same). Logic does this now where you launch each ideas as a set of love loops in the grid.


Andrew0568 said:


> … I have tons and tons of short phrases, chord progressions, loops, sound designs, musical ideas...


This is the dilemma that Ableton Live solves for me to this day (and Bitwig). As for Logic, their implementation of Live Loops is a similar way to stash endless ideas that are not committed to the final arrangement. Having the option to drag phrases and loops from this sort of repository within the session is great. 

Where Ableton and Bitwig shine on this method is the ease of dragging and dropping these tracks with content between current and other saved projects. I have a folder called “Vibes” in my user library which contains sub folders of phrases, loops, fully mixed drum kits with a starter rhythm, etc - ready to be dropped in to the project currently loaded.


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## Emanuel Fróes

Andrew0568 said:


> I'm terrible at sitting down and working on a full piece from start to finish. I have tons and tons of short phrases, chord progressions, loops, sound designs, musical ideas...but I never know the right way to save and organize them. Right now I have a bajillion random Logic sessions and sporadic Soundcloud uploads for listening in the car.
> 
> How do you title ideas? Where do you save them? How do you organize?



My answer is not surprising: music theory looks like the issue here.

I have some ideas for organization, but may change the topic a bit, because it essentially touches another subject .

I don´t use to do this so much anymore: any idea i have to finish somehow.

*Depends on which phase of development you are.* A beginner should be more patient and ambintious with some pieces, while having some short exercises done in note more than one day, in my opnion.

You also have to understand the cause of not finishing. Often the cause is simple: technique. Forget the people speaking about walks... Walking is for Tchaikovsky: he had technique, then he walked to FEEL something that helped him decide for a MORE PERFECT result. He would be able to finish something assap if required, I bet.

_Forgetting the piece and moving on can help, meditation or jumping in the water may help, but will not help more than having the technique your piece wants ; ) And by technique i include even the technique of feelling something!_


*So, WHEN i do save ideas, I save as NAme of the PIece +INCOMPLETE. If it is too short, i send to Logic Loops. If it is a motive for brass , i call like BR MOTIVE Adagio in C Minor. And I pray God that this helps me use it...*

This is by the way a new technique I try to develop, and was on my youtube GOLDPILL videos list, to show to people in detail. If it works, i may save more ideas ; ) but then use them!

I am just reseaerching the file organization of the loops browser, and waiting for a detail that makes it even more awesome and interesting for the workflow - principally for non-beatmakers classical composers, who happened to know how to read music.

But the beatmakers will give some great ideas, if you learn how to convert them to your goals; maybe you find ideas about saving ideas... And i imagine that a DJ has to be very organized with samples.


I also had a project called IDEAS: everything comes there.


And what happened? THe ideas stay there very happy and never go to nothing...

Let me quote something from my lesson material:

_We wait for the idea worth being finished, but the truth is: if you finish it, this makes your bad idea a great idea, while the best idea waits._


We should look for better ideas, but after we finished something fast. If you take to long to compose, then the contrary is important: wait to have a great idea, compose less quantity and more quality, like Ravel. But for film composers this approach looks like a luxus...

Filmcomposers and Co. are makers of Gebrauchsmusik (the music we use), so it is important to master craft and technique.

If the ideas you save and organize find a place, I appreciate it very much. In my personal case, i have so many ideas "saved" but never remember them, i am always finishing something that came along and said: man, if you are not ready now, it will be another idea waiting forever...

Just few incomplete pieces i have in my head burning me to be finished assap, it is a hell. BEcause those pieces i did not want to rush, they are especial.

And the problem is here: today, when you feel like they are toooooo especial and the best you could have done..... they may break up with you.





Kind Regards


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