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How Do You Save and Organize Ideas?

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