Thoughts on Music Production

Influences and ear training

I have found lately that listening to Trance/Psytrance music is training my ear in such a way as to help me create music in other, completely unrelated genres. I also enjoy listening to Berlin School music (Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze) to help me form my own personal brand of music, but the Psytrance music has a profound influence over everything else, because it's engineered to be snappy and definitive. I can borrow the composition structures and simply lower the tempo, replace the instrumentation to match my chosen genre, and determine what my overall structure will sound like.
I'm also trying to write at least one new song a day. I feel that it will provide me with much needed practice, even if I bounce from one genre to another. The act of composing a new piece in such a short period makes me less paralyzed than giving myself months of composition time. While I can appreciate that it takes a long time to develop "expert" music, I am finding that there can be some gems created when your time is limited. There's less time spent goofing off and searching for the right sound.
My next personal goal is to create an EP full of music that contains nothing but synth patches that I personally create and engineer. Currently, I only use one or two patches that I have created from scratch, and use modified presets that I find in my available synths (I use Arturia, KORG, and Native Instruments plugins for most of my music).