Dan Schwartz and others from the Stanford Gradute School of Education published a study in 2010, about Parallel Prototyping and its better results. (ACM transactions on computer-human interactions 17 No4)
What when I wanted to release an album and was working on 8 songs at a time? Starting them, working out the melody, adding chords and bass to parts of them keeping in mind their individual genre and personality?
Maybe I will start with 8, but only really work on 2 or 3 at a time. Opening the different sequencer projects OR… better… one project with all the different songs.. if instrumentation is not a big problem. Consistency in the instruments and vocal effects for example is better in this case + less context switching.
IN the book Design your life, parallel prototyping or making 3 different life possibilities for the next five years of our life is suggested as an activity that has always been found to produce extra ordinary, pleasantly surprising positive results.
Instead of just iterating and adding to one preconceived solution, combinations are possible, leading to hitherto unseen and unthought of openness and final results.
Now, isn’t that fun, to know that we did avoid the possible trap of having limited ourselves? Or even worse having been stuck with the idea that we were mono?
There is reality to multiple life skills, income streams, pursuing interests.
When practising songs on the guitar, I advise students to have just two at a time to reduce complexity. one song in the note collection phase – very first steps. Second one already in a phrase delay reduction phase, trying to get to sound the way it is sung, by keeping a strong feedback loop and producers mind to ones own playing and how it compares with the original song or the music you have in mind.
That makes sure that the same kind of mental resources are not used in an inefficient manner, making sure songs get finished, made into a video as part of closure. Keeping things real.
3 Life alternatives. Different income sources, but done to finish.
Options gives freedom and changes the way we think. It could be anything. My experience is just knowing that I am ready for other options improves my work in the main work I am doing or having been concentrating one. New life, from composing alternatives.