#39 - On creating EDM
A couple of week’s ago, Kellogg’s resident DJ/Management Consultant, Rishi, hosted a music production session to teach a bunch of rank amateurs (including me) about how EDM was actually made. While the highlight of the night was making our own song (which is an absolute rager and needs to be played at the next big Kellogg event), I also learnt a lot about how EDM was actually made.
An EDM song has a ridiculous amount of layers
Whenever I’ve listened to EDM songs, I never picked up on how many different elements actually made up the experience I was listening to. As it turns out, songs can be made up of hundreds of different sounds, effects, and beats playing at the same time. These sounds can include everything from wooshing sounds to a recording of animals and insects in a rainforest. A lot of what plays is actually meant to fill up the frequencies of the hearing range and make the song feel more complete.
There’s no such thing as just “making a song”
You don’t just make an EDM song.
Instead, the development of a song falls into three steps.
The first, Composition, is when a songwriter actually comes up with the lyrics and the tune that jointly form the skeleton of the song
The second step is Production, where the complete song is put together. The producers will build out the initial tune by adding in all the broader elements that make up the song, from sounds, music, notes, and beats. Additionally, they find a singer to record the lyrics.
Finally, Mixing, is where the song is tweaked in order to make sure that it sounds loud and crisp when played on the infinitely different type of speakers and headphones that each of us use to listen to music
Different people have different skills and strengths in each of these areas. A rare few are triple threats.
Success in EDM comes down to how well you can use the technology to realise your creative vision
When Rishi showed us the EDM software that he used, I was blown away with how complex it was. I had expected it to be some sort of simple drag and drop thing but it was actually much much more than that. Within the main software, there were a lot of different modules that could help you do whatever you needed to do to make a song. You need to play notes and make a tune - there’s a module for that. You want to make a ‘thud’ noise sound less intense - there’s a module for that. Each of these modules themselves were incredibly complex, with more options than you could ever possible use.
Because of this complexity, success for many recent EDM artists came down to their ability to use the software better than anyone else.
In many ways, this is no different to any other form of art. But the level of complexity in making EDM is at another level. A skilled painter could most likely replicate a Turner, a Rembrandt, a Rothko, or a Picasso, despite their vastly differing styles. However, for a talented EDM artist to truly replicate another would be incredibly challenging. A painter would largely know what tools were available to a different artist, even if they didn’t know exactly how to use them. However, an EDM artist wouldn’t even truly know what tools were used, given the ridiculous number of options that are available to you.
It’s not easy to come up with a unique hit
The most fun and exciting part of the night came when we actually made our own song (with Rishi’s strong guidance and technical expertise). We started with a beat and slowly went around adding different things to the song (my contribution was the clock and ding at the start), going crazy whenever we heard the next iteration. After an hour of work, I think we came up with an absolute rager of a song. However, it still seems familiar to other EDM songs (*cough* Animals *cough*). Even though we had the tools to create a hit, coming up with something that was new, unique, and exciting seems very difficult and needs an incredible amount of creativity. To anyone who says that EDM is just playing around with computers, I dare you to try and do what we did.