Hi mate!

This is very good idea and this is my way for this photo, because I want to keep on experimenting.

Very nice image. I bet there will be a wide range of emotions/music coming from this picture. I can see anything from sad/gloomy to beautiful/heavenly.

Great! Please share the experience here!




Nice perception of the picture.

You can see in this picture the four elements at work "Earth, Air , Water and Fire" Now is time to translate each one into music!!!!!!

Ok guys guys here we go!!!!

https://soundcloud.com/rickynine/earthairwaterfire-mp3

Hi Ricky! Awesome work!! Thanks for being the first brave for this photo. Your track moves through different atmospheres and vibes starting rom a more percussive section that is totally connected with the Jungle. I wonder how the following sections appeared, are them also part of the photo or they appeared after composing the first section? How was the composition process?

I want to congratulate you because the quality of the composition is outstanding, you have skills to write film music.

Hi gabriel and thanks for the kind words, I split the photo into the the four basic elements Earth , Fire , Air and Water. So in the same order i wrote each section of the song starting with the "Earth" which is the most dominant element on the photo. I used the classical guitar for that "organic sound" which is very warm and full, then i jump to the next element which is "Fire", You can see that by looking at the sun in the picture struggling to shine through the clouds. Then i use "Air" so i use the electric guitar with some delay and reverbs to give it that airy feeling. Lastly is "Water" which is another dominant element of the photo, but in this case water has taken the form of clouds. So i use some octave playing and flanger to give it that sense of something wet and fluid. I tell you this exercises have open a pandoras box for me, I never have thought of having a visual stimulation by using photos to write songs. Thank you so much for this!!!!!!

Fantastic!! Great example and explanation mate. I think that composers, players and even producers would take a lot from these approaches. Imagine a whole band creating or arranging their songs using these concepts! Now effects, techniques and sounds start to make sense because they are telling a part of the story. Do you note how deep your music becomes when you think like this?

This is reason while i love having you guys here at this community and i give you all a sincere Thank you!!, I found through this exercises that if you have a purpose and direction your music creativity goes out the roof. Here i post the same track without melodies just to help out the other guys here with some inspiration. Hope it helps and enjoy!!!!. The first two parts of the song are in the key of E minor the last two are on G major.

[attachment=36253:EarthAir...acktrack.MP3]

This post has been edited by Ricky9: Mar 12 2014, 04:53 PM

I'm so glad of having waken up something new in you. It was the original purpose of this thread and as this is my first experiment I wasn't sure about what was going to happen.

The backing track is beautiful, let's invite everybody to create some melodies over it!

Hi Ricky!

Very awesome version with so many elements on it, it's not easy to get so many elements and atmospheres for short compose! Maybe you have more wisdom and secrets with this picture, because you have taken it
I feel right now very hard to get something else, than just some noise without nothing special and true feelings. But I'll try to get something for this one on sunday. Maybe I'm just too tired or something and need more sleep.
This is first picture without peoples on it, so maybe that's the reason for my difficulties, even it's very nice picture.
But these kind of difficulties are good learning process, that's the way I'll take it!

Hi Gabriel, hope you guys are doing fine. Thanks for the reply, I tell you that this exercise is been a great eye opener for me, i really thought that by use my sense of hearing i could get inspiration to write, but i was wrong. I finally know that i need visual stimulation to get the inspiration. I guess its somehow connected since i do photography.For this and many things to come i thank you!!!!



Hi SlowFinga i thank you for your kind words. You are a very talented young man and i know you just tired, just put this on the backburner and relax. You will see that after a break your mind will be clear. Remember this; music creates different emotions when we hear it, so lets reverse the process by finding something that stimulates emotions on us first, Then the music will be created from within.

Thanks for very kind words and we are still so young (time goes so fast..too fast). I'm just a few years older than you
Of course very often many guys like me...are mentally much more younger than numbers...
I'm not going to take any pressure and just relax and enjoy with this one later!

How much you use your Boss GT-10 and do you use many presets or modify hours for good sounds by yourself? I also have it, but I'm lately used more Guitar Rig 5 and Ezmix 2, because I'm lazy and like to play more than fix hours after hours for good sound from my GT- 10.
It's still pretty new for me, because I got in on last december

This post has been edited by SlowFingaX: Mar 13 2014, 04:03 PM

I thought that it was cool to do this new exercise with a picture without people because it could be trickier at first. However it opens our mind to new horizons and avoid focusing always in a same point of view. There are some questions that we can do from a picture like this one.

1. How would I feel if I'd be there?
2. What kind of people lives in this place? How do they feel? Are they happy? What do they do?
3. What makes you feel the landscape?
4. Are there animals? What kind of animals? What are they doing?
5. Insects? Is there a march of ants? Awesome! Let's musicalize the march of that army!
6. Native people? Do the do music? How does it sound?

just some brainstorming that can make me think on different musical ideas...





I can assure that next workouts will show you that not only visual stimulation is needed.

Hey slowfinga, i do all my recordings with the GT-10, But i connect the GT-10 via usb to the laptop. If you wanna do it that way you have to download the driver from the boss website. then you have to select the GT-10 from the input menu or asio driver within the app you use to record. If you want to learn how to use it more let me know its a great multieffects pedal. They are a few tweaks for the GT-10 you need to do to get a great sound. Let me know if you are interested on using it more and i walk you through it.

Hello friends!

Very nice ideas Gab like always!
I made first version which was total metal mayhem (it's not ready)...with thinking...dark clouds.. storm bom bom..bam bam..and then starts to little by little...change...more rock version..and then.....softer.... situation before that storm.
March of Ants army would be nice, even the picture on my mind is funny (little helmets and pike and other weapons), mainly from animation Antz right now I think. But those guys isn't lazy like me sometimes

Thanks Ricky for your offer about teaching some good tips for GT-10. I already have USB cable and use it with laptop. I tested many times those presets and some downloaded patches and some are ok sounds....also used GT-10 FxFloorBoard, but if I have 2-3 hours time in the evening to play guitar..I don't like to fix...2 hours to find good sound, just testing...without knowing, what I'm excatly doing.
Lately I used my GT-10 like external soundcard for Guitar Rig 5 and Ezmix 2 (I'll get ok sound much more faster from those softwares).
I can ask more about GT-10 with private messages to you, so this topic isn't full with GT-10 things. Here we can talk more about this creativity workout.



This post has been edited by SlowFingaX: Mar 13 2014, 09:01 PM

This sounds very interesting mate. When can we hear anything??

I wrote something gloomy I think. Today gonna record it and Ricky , your work is great man !

Here's my idea:
https://soundcloud.com/rteuman-1/idea-jung

Hi Renan! Very nice composition! It has a melancholic feeling, and I wonder what were you thinking while you were composing it. It's curious but watching the picture and listening to your song made me think on the plane that recently disappeared. I imagined some survivors in the middle of that jungle, lost, sad, but starting to move, to learn how to live there until somebody finds them.

how was the composition process?