using zettelkasten for music composition

Last updated Dec 17, 2022

Use the zettelkasten slip-box system to enhace productivity in writing music

Reading B-Ahrens-2017 led me to think that academic writing is not all that different from music writing. Listening to music is like reading. So when you listen to something, reframe it in your own context by picking chords / rhythm from it and applying it in your own styles. File away the little idea of music you came up with. Repeat this everyday and create a system of external scaffolding for music ideas which are often even more fleeting than thoughts (what did I just play that sounded awesome?).

Creating a first draft of the music composition should only consist of rearranging music notes to fit a song. Then you can undertake further refinement. Once you build your library of music notes, you can become prolific in music writing.

• Implement into my own music writing and see if the problem of facing a blank DAW goes away.
• Become more productive with song writing
• Write a blog post about how zettelkasten links to music making

Implement a zettelkasten-like system in the following way:

Folder-BPM Folder-Key Note-YYYYMMDD-# *.mp3 Folder-Reaper

• I think BPM is more fundamental to the song than key, so that makes the top level of hierarchy.
• Key changes can happen within a song, so that is next level of hierarchy. Also it is easy to see from the folder structure which key will fit with other keys based on relative minors, 4ths, 5ths, etc. So it is easy to pull musical ideas from.
• Maintain an mp3 file of the rendered music idea:
  • mp3 is small in size
  • you will rerecord after composition anyway so thats ok
  • you can drag drop into DAW to make a musical idea
• Maintain the project files in the same subfolder for use if needed
  • useful to solo tracks
  • good to get midi out for drums / synths etc
  • record tracks in mp3 for file size

Good workflow design Conventional writing methods are flawed right from the start treating music composition as a routine chore