You can start anywhere with music, I think! It just depends on what's inspiring you in the moment. Often times, if I must work with a premise, that alone will usually inspire the instruments, and a lot of the times, the melodies too. For example, if you are tasked to create a post-apocalyptic zombie shooter track, you may be inspired by dark and heavy sounds. A dirty bassline could get the project started. Maybe you got some heavy drum kits you want to paint down to guide the instrumental rhythms. I find that a premise will usually guide you if it inspires you! Just think about a scenario involving the premise and stick yourself in it. How do you feel? How do you express that through music?
In general though, if you're making music just to make it, which I do a lot, I usually work the other way around and I'll let the sounds inspire me. Sometimes I'll just go scrolling through preset libraries, tweaking knobs and bashing keys until I find something that piques my interest! Usually, when I find a good sound, I'll be hearing the music in my head right off the bat. Sometimes it'll be a cool bass, maybe a cool synth, a lead or whatever else. It doesn't matter where you start, but wherever you do start will inform the direction of the rest of the track.
Important piece of advice, too! If you are making music for the sake of practice, or just for fun and aren't required to stick to any specific theme or mood, do not start over if your track doesn't sound like what you had originally intended. Instead, let the new direction of the song inspire you and embrace it. That is also a great way to add more variety to your track if you are feeling that it is becoming too repetitive or stale.
Another way to combat repetitiveness is to build upon your track. Usually, I will create a handful of different sections, say, an intro, A section, B section, C section. You can piece these sections together like, for example: Intro, A, B, A, C, A, B, C, Outro. Then, for every time a section repeats, add at least 2 new elements to it each time. The A section shows up 3 times, so the first time it will be more basic, the next time it comes in, it'll be a little thicker, and the last time it will be very big! Or just detailed in any way you see fit. That way, even though the sections of your song are repeating themselves, they are rising in intensity, or at least changing in an interesting way. For game music, starting with a fully fleshed out section is the way to go, and then swapping out instruments in subsequent loops to change the feel of the sound adds variety, even though it is repeating.
Anywho, I've been rambling too much. I hope this was helpful! Happy musing!
You can start anywhere with music, I think! It just depends on what's inspiring you in the moment. Often times, if I must work with a premise, that alone will usually inspire the instruments, and a lot of the times, the melodies too. For example, if you are tasked to create a post-apocalyptic zombie shooter track, you may be inspired by dark and heavy sounds. A dirty bassline could get the project started. Maybe you got some heavy drum kits you want to paint down to guide the instrumental rhythms. I find that a premise will usually guide you if it inspires you! Just think about a scenario involving the premise and stick yourself in it. How do you feel? How do you express that through music?
In general though, if you're making music just to make it, which I do a lot, I usually work the other way around and I'll let the sounds inspire me. Sometimes I'll just go scrolling through preset libraries, tweaking knobs and bashing keys until I find something that piques my interest! Usually, when I find a good sound, I'll be hearing the music in my head right off the bat. Sometimes it'll be a cool bass, maybe a cool synth, a lead or whatever else. It doesn't matter where you start, but wherever you do start will inform the direction of the rest of the track.
Important piece of advice, too! If you are making music for the sake of practice, or just for fun and aren't required to stick to any specific theme or mood, do not start over if your track doesn't sound like what you had originally intended. Instead, let the new direction of the song inspire you and embrace it. That is also a great way to add more variety to your track if you are feeling that it is becoming too repetitive or stale.
Another way to combat repetitiveness is to build upon your track. Usually, I will create a handful of different sections, say, an intro, A section, B section, C section. You can piece these sections together like, for example: Intro, A, B, A, C, A, B, C, Outro. Then, for every time a section repeats, add at least 2 new elements to it each time. The A section shows up 3 times, so the first time it will be more basic, the next time it comes in, it'll be a little thicker, and the last time it will be very big! Or just detailed in any way you see fit. That way, even though the sections of your song are repeating themselves, they are rising in intensity, or at least changing in an interesting way. For game music, starting with a fully fleshed out section is the way to go, and then swapping out instruments in subsequent loops to change the feel of the sound adds variety, even though it is repeating.
Anywho, I've been rambling too much. I hope this was helpful! Happy musing!