P.C.C.O.M.
PERSONAL CONTRACT FOR THE COMPOSITION OF MUSIC [INCORPORATING THE MANIFESTO OF MISTAKES]
This is a template for my own work and not intended to be a definitive formula for writing music, either by me or by other people.
1. The use of sounds that exist already is not allowed. Subject to article 2. In particular:
- No drum machines.
- No synthesizers.
- No presets.
2. Only sounds that are generated at the start of the compositional process or taken from the artist's own previously unused archive are available for sampling.
3. The sampling of other people's music is strictly forbidden.
4. No replication of traditional acoustic instruments is allowed where the financial and physical possibility of using the real ones exists.
5. The inclusion, development, propagation, existence, replication, acknowledgement, rights, patterns and beauty of what are commonly known as accidents, is encouraged. Furthermore, they have equal rights within the composition as deliberate, conscious, or premeditated compositional actions or decisions.
6. The mixing desk is not to be reset before the start of a new track in order to apply a random eq and fx setting across the new sounds. Once the ordering and recording of new music has begun, the desk may be used as normal.
7. All fx settings must be edited: no factory preset or pre-programmed patches are allowed.
8. Samples themselves are not to be truncated from the rear. Revealing parts of the recording are invariably stored there.
9. A notation of sounds used to be taken and made public.
10. A list of technical equipment used to be made public.
11. Optional: Remixes should be completed using only the sounds provided by the original artist.
Matthew Herbert (2005)
revisited 2011
The above checklist feels not only constricting, but is also a little too academic for my tastes, and I can't follow it to the letter. (By "no synthesizers", I'm hoping he meant "no preloaded factory synth patches".)
But it gave me some mental relief that I wasn't the only one concerned with originality in composition and sound design, trying to avoid being derivative wherever possible.
I've been using drum samples from some nice clean sample kits, but then I'm tweaking the hell out of them. And I may start with a preset synth sound, but it's usually just to get the juices flowing, and I'll either alter that until it's something unrecognizable, or restart at the bottom, from the oscillators on up. And sometimes I come across a sound that's not mine, but fits perfectly with what I'm doing, and then I may just alter it out of spite anyway.
I feel like a work is not "mine" unless it's all self-generated somehow. I assume this is a mixture of ego and some kind of hyperintellectualism about art, but it was nice to see someone spelling out a similar feeling about originality and music creation.
Simply cutting and pasting blobs from commercially available sound libraries doesn't feel like artistry to me. (Before you go off on me, I know there is an art to it, and I'm not knocking DJs and remix artists, etc. because that's a craft unto itself.) But personally, I need to know that something I create wasn't just me moving someone else's puzzle pieces around, and calling myself a "musician". There has to be more to it than that, at least there has to be for me, in order to feel like it's worth spending my time on it.
So I'm going to work on my own set of rules, which I hope will: give me enough freedom to create whatever the hell pops into my head; is constrictive enough to force me to be more creative and resourceful when I need to be; and original enough that I don't feel like a blob-pusher, mimicking the work of others.
That way, when I present something for others to listen to later, saying "Look what I can do!", I can say it with a certain amount of pride, because I know I wasn't just rearranging furniture - I made the furniture too.
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