On Randomness
There is a very simple technique that can make your music sound more rich and organic, keep things fresh and interesting for your audience and yourself, and even make decision-making easier. All you have to do is apply some randomness.
Randomness is useful any time you want to add a human touch to your otherwise mechanical MIDI. A texture feels more natural and realistic when there are minor imperfections and variances.For example, a MIDI snare drum can sound like a machine gun when the velocities and rhythm stay exactly the same on every single beat. This robotic precision never occurs in real life, so it ends up sounding fake and artificial. Adding a touch of randomness to the timing and velocity (aka loudness) of each note can make the drum sound real.
Randomness is also very handy for your overall workflow. It’s a great tool for making decisions for you when all of the choices are of roughly the same outcome.Let’s be honest, sometimes the specific result of a decision doesn’t really matter. For example, what key should you start your piece in? If you don’t have a specific reason for a certain key (such as another song your cue needs to transition with, or a performer who sounds best in a certain key), then it really doesn’t matter what key you start in. So just pick one at random and move on with it!Here are some ways I use randomness:
Roll a die.I have a 12 sided die on my desk. It’s clear and has a smaller 12 sided die inside. So by rolling this die, I can get two randomly selected numbers from 1 through 12, which just so happens to be the number of notes in the chromatic scale. So I simply assign each number to a pitch, 1 standing in for C, 2 for C#, all the way up to 12 for B.So let’s say I roll 8 and 11. I can then start looking for ideas that start with the notes G and Bb. Obviously, this is not a life-changing technique, but when you start a brand new cue and are staring at a blank screen or page, having /something/ to start with can be extremely motivating. The point is not to be forced to strictly follow the results, but to get the creative juices flowing by giving yourself a starting point. It’s remarkable how much easier it can be to come up with interesting ideas that start with G and Bb than to come up with ideas with no constraints at all.One time I had to write a track with a vibrant circus feel. I wanted it to feel constantly fresh and unpredictable, so I wrote about six little ideas ranging from one to four bars each. Then I rolled a six-sided die to choose which idea went first, then rolled again and again, adding each “chosen” section to the form until the piece was the length I wanted.I then went through it and made some changes and tweaks, for example, if one idea came up too many times in a row, but for the most part, the randomly selected organization of the piece is what I went with. It was a level of unpredictability and freshness that would have been hard to force manually, and it gave me exactly the feel of a circus that I was looking for.
Use an LFO with random output and assign it to another plugin or your synth.I used this approach just last week on a library track. Using a small metallic percussion sound, I ran it through a 16th note arpeggiator with the velocity set to a random amount within a certain range. The result was a lively and exciting rhythm that felt constantly fresh and invigorating.
Make a numbered list and ask Alexa or Siri for a random number. This could be a list of cues you have to work on, for example. Can't decide which cue to write first? Let chance decide.
What if you used randomness in your music? Or even in other areas of your work and life? Perhaps you have a to-do list with twenty items and you don’t know which task to tackle next. Number each item in the list and let randomness decide what you should work on next! This technique works really well for me when I have a long list of "someday/maybe" items that I want to make a dent in but don’t know where to start. By letting a random number decide for me, over the long run I end up making progress on projects that otherwise might sit idle.
For me, it's in writing and production that randomness is the most useful. In some ways, an unpredictable outcome within a predictable framework is what good music is all about. As Beethoven put it, "Between ourselves, the best thing of all is a combination of the surprising and the beautiful."