The Creative Process

Music is a communication medium for conveying emotions, so if you have conveyed them in a piece of music then there isn’t really a need to explain them in writing, none the less I think it is interesting to know what an artist was trying to achieve and communicate. For this reason I try to write track descriptions that convey both the mood of the track, which is fairly easy and the inspiration or meaning of the track, which is harder. If someone listens to a track and it means something different to them that’s fine and probably equally valid.

Some tracks start with a specific idea of a mood, atmosphere or scene that the music is written to convey. Other tracks simply evolve with no conscious effort on my part to convey anything in particular, with the feeling coming from the sub-conscious. The pieces are sometimes built up over quite a long period of time and the ideas often tend to develop together with the piece. I always carry a notebook with me to write down any ideas I have, sometimes the best ones come when I am away from the studio, sitting in a café or on a train.

Although no two pieces are written in the same way, the starting point is often to create some new sounds, during this process I usually end up playing something I like, in which case I record it. For pieces with beats I like to create the drum parts early in the process, because the rhythm of these will then influence the timing of new parts that I record keeping a consistent rhythmic feel to the various parts within a track. Where I am programming the parts, a process where I enter the notes directly into the sequencer, a process analogous to writing on manuscript paper, I spend a considerable amount of time making subtle timing shifts to make the parts feel played.

Charles Kirk
July 2005