FLIPSIDE
  • Home
  • About
    • Marketing & PR
    • Music >
      • About Productions
      • Talent Development Program
    • Combat Sports
  • Music Store
  • Courses
  • Media & Blog
    • Blog
    • Podcast
  • Contact

WHEN WRITING SONGS, LESS IS MORE

4/24/2019

0 Comments

 
We all have had that moment we when come up with a catchy hook and thinking to ourselves "ok what's next?". It's always great to stick to a simple rule that Max Martin had mentioned numerous times in his very few interviews! Keep it simple and balanced. These 2 elements in production can turn a "just nice" song into a hit. That's what we all always wanted to have right? A timeless music creation process that never goes out of fashion and it's always helpful. Here I explain what is my understanding of Max Martin's Rule of keeping it simple and keeping it balanced.
Picture
Keep It Simple. Never forget the fact that the less is always the more. When you're making music, you like to show off what kind of complex chords progression or complicated melodies you can do that except yourself and maybe Mozart, nobody else is capable of performing or singing them! That is exactly where you're wrong. Look at the majority of big hits especially the ones that were the debut of entering a new writer in the industry, you'd realize most of these songs have ridiculously easy and memorable melodies, chords and even the arrangement. Listen to that solo guitar or that intro piano melody. How simple are them? This simplicity might be the most important key for a song to be memorable (of course only from songwriting point of view. The production and performance quality are not in our consideration here). One of the key elements for a popular song is that every one can easily sing along to it and possibly perform it. Each time your song is being covered, there is a chance for it to get more popular. Bare in mind that huge percentage of cover musicians might not be as musically trained as you are, yet them, covering your song can contribute a lot to your song to become more popular! So, simply make it the way they can cover it, and listeners can sing along!
Keeping It Balanced. The balance is super important element in a song. When we are talking about balance, we are referring to the amount of complications in each part of the song. For example, if your verse is very crowded or melodically it's too complicated with lots of up and downs, you would want to keep your chorus simpler and let your listener to breath and give a short rest to their brain to process what just happened in the complicated verse. Of course they might not know it but their brain is processing it in the background. Or on the other hand your verse might be not crowded at all and all (or most) of the notes are pretty draggy, then you'd need to create the hype in your chorus. Make it big. Make it punchy. Make it sound as if it's the climax of your song. Make it the way that wakes your listener up, and let it be like a snap to them, saying “hey focus on this song”. And then again cool down in the next verse.
This balance will keep your listener interested in keep listening and looking forward for the next phase and the next changes. These up and downs will keep your song away from being “flat” (of course not musically, but the mood) and that makes it more memorable for the listener. This way they will keep listening to it over and over, because psychologically, humans tend to enjoy these changes in level of excitement.
 
Tip. This one is another great tip I learned from those very few interviews of Max Martin and I applied it on my music, well, because I trust the man! It is to never introduce so many sounds at the same time. This one has nothing to do with the writing process and it's more about the arrangement and production but look at your music as a movie and look at your sounds and instruments as the characters of this movie. You should never introduce more than one or 2 (if they're from the same instrumentation family) at once. Bring in one sound, let it go for a few bars. Let your listener to understand and digest this new sound, then introduce the next one. Like this your listener wouldn't feel overwhelmed and also your song keeps being interesting because it will have more elements to introduce as the time is going by, and again, subconsciously your listeners will keep listening and looking forward to see what happened next. 

Author

Hangi Tavakoli is our in-house established and professional music producer with more than 14 years of experience in music production, mix and mastering, recording engineering, live sound designing/engineering, lyrics writing and music arrangement. He has produced more than 1000 and written more than 3000 published songs to-date, including some major hits in international scale. ​​

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.


      SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE WEEKLY UPDATES.
      We have one new FREE article on every Tuesday and Friday about music, music industry and the business aspect of it. Subscribe to our email squad to get notified on the updates.
    Subscribe

    Podcast


    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    October 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016

    Categories

    All
    Artist Interviews
    Music Industry
    Others
    Press Releases
    Songwriting


    RSS Feed


ABOUT FLIPSIDE

ABOUT PRODUCTIONS
​
ABOUT MARKETING
​
NEWS
BLOG
PODCAST

MUSIC STORE

FOR ARTISTS

OUR ARTISTS
MUSIC RELEASES
TALENT DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
MUSIC COURSES

CONTACT

hangi@flipsidepm.com
​+65 8558 9773
​

Mon - Fri 9:00am - 8:00pm

SUBSCRIBE

    Receive news and updates in your inbox.

Subscribe to Newsletter


©2014-2023 Flipside Productions & Marketing Pte Ltd
All rights reserved.
  • Home
  • About
    • Marketing & PR
    • Music >
      • About Productions
      • Talent Development Program
    • Combat Sports
  • Music Store
  • Courses
  • Media & Blog
    • Blog
    • Podcast
  • Contact