I’m not a song writer but I do have a fair amount of background in jazz and some metal, and while jazz requires a lot of practice to internalize music theory, and both being music with « real » instruments require a significant amount of practice, the writing felt pretty similar. I’d collect riffs, melody fragments, sit down and experiment with chord progressions (very very nerdy and brainy), and then I’d assemble them and see if they fit or not.
The concepts I experiment with when making techno are on a similar level of braininess / research. I will have « theories » that I pursue over many bleeps bloops until I feel I have exhausted the subject. They don’t have words / story per se, but there is definitely a lot of concept and evolution to it.
The « four on the floor » and repetition part of techno can be deceiving. There is definitely some extremely formulaic techno out there, but for many songs, there might not even be a kick, and for sure there never is a loop that is the same as the previous one, as sounds will continuously evolve.
I’m pretty lacking in terms of musical talent, I ultimately left jazz and metal and real instruments behind because I just didn’t « get it ». Techno has taken me 15 years of on/off attention to finally « find myself ». (for what it’s worth, I would personally file four tet and floating points under jazz, not techno, save maybe for a few tracks :).
Genres are so very odd: I feel I can now take a 909 backbeat and a stupid 303 and have some real techno, but doing the same 10 years ago would have sounded… off.
I hope my comment didn't come off as an attack and certainly admire what you've accomplished!
So long as the medium of techno allows you to embed your own creative characteristics, then I think that's a great form of expression (as opposed to churning out formulaic techno... though there's really nothing wrong with that, either).
In fact, setting constraints on yourself is a great way to inspire creativity and nuance (e.g. there's a lot you can do with a single note - rhythmically, harmonically, effects, dynamics, etc).
I also agree that after a certain point, genres become too simplistic of a model to describe music. I'm happy that you've put so much thought into this.
Don’t worry I didn’t and now I hope my answer didn’t come off as defensive! I just love talking about constraints and what makes a genre, because it’s so hard to pinpoint.
I’m not a song writer but I do have a fair amount of background in jazz and some metal, and while jazz requires a lot of practice to internalize music theory, and both being music with « real » instruments require a significant amount of practice, the writing felt pretty similar. I’d collect riffs, melody fragments, sit down and experiment with chord progressions (very very nerdy and brainy), and then I’d assemble them and see if they fit or not.
The concepts I experiment with when making techno are on a similar level of braininess / research. I will have « theories » that I pursue over many bleeps bloops until I feel I have exhausted the subject. They don’t have words / story per se, but there is definitely a lot of concept and evolution to it.
The « four on the floor » and repetition part of techno can be deceiving. There is definitely some extremely formulaic techno out there, but for many songs, there might not even be a kick, and for sure there never is a loop that is the same as the previous one, as sounds will continuously evolve.
I’m pretty lacking in terms of musical talent, I ultimately left jazz and metal and real instruments behind because I just didn’t « get it ». Techno has taken me 15 years of on/off attention to finally « find myself ». (for what it’s worth, I would personally file four tet and floating points under jazz, not techno, save maybe for a few tracks :).
Genres are so very odd: I feel I can now take a 909 backbeat and a stupid 303 and have some real techno, but doing the same 10 years ago would have sounded… off.