If it's not an aimless jam -- and often it is an aimless jam -- I usually start from just one module or musical element. I often try to get a module to do something new. [...] Once I'm happy with my "experiment" I usually bring in other elements to build a piece of music around that.
-- the-erc
That's basically the same I do, I find I learn a lot more if I try to have my patch grow into something more similar to an actual track than leaving it as it is.
So far I've been practicing by forcing myself to produce full tracks from start to finish, in the last twelve months I've uploaded more than 30 'tracks' to my Soundcloud account. I wouldn't call them 'tracks' really, as they're more like practices or experiments, nothing I would publish on Bandcap or feel proud about. But hey, I'ts been tons of fun so far and I've been learning a lot.
-- Exposure
I'm debating wether to upload the results of my patching as I'm not sure it could interest anybody. I don't feel I'm producing anything valuable yet, if not for my own personal learning.
Plus, not recording things can also be a mistake, even if it's obvious that the "screwing around" in those cases is just that. But at the same time, if you have the take in your DAW...well, hell, ANYTHING'S fair game once it's on the hard drive. So it doesn't work in of itself...but what if you dubbed a few more things onto it? Or what if you used it as a layer in some other work? Or chopped it into loops?
-- Lugia
I agree, and maybe a downside of this approach of trying to make anything into a "track" is that many of the sounds I get from patching around could be useful in the future if recorded by themselves.