Less Is More
I Can’t Finish My Song
To my musicians,
We’ve all heard the saying “Less Is More”. This is usually targeted towards musicians who like to write complicated intricate music and that’s ok. You should make the music you want to make but do you have difficulty finishing a song? Do you constantly add and change parts of a song and never end up releasing it? If this sounds like you, you are not alone. I am guilty of constantly changing and adding to a song that eventually I give up and never release it.
A Mentor’s Wisdom
I had an opportunity to work with a famous indie music producer and he challenged me to write 4 songs in 1 week. However he set a limitation that I can only write in the simple song structure of
Intro
Verse
Chorus
Verse
Chorus
Bridge
Chorus
Most songs are written in this structure with varying degrees but it’s the most common. He said that the most trouble musicians had was sticking to their original idea because the next day they would want to change it into something else. Since I only had 1 week to write 4 songs, the minute a verse or chorus or bridge was written, that was it. No Changes! If I had another idea, he told me to save it for another song. I worked quickly, efficiently and tried not to judge myself in the process.
My Results
After that week, I showed the songs to my producer and he was thrilled of the outcome. I was actually excited as well because I had 4 songs that I felt were finished. Every song was a gut reaction to how I was feeling at that moment and I didn’t have time to analyze it. It was like capturing lightning in a bottle. Apart from having 4 completed songs, I also had a handful of ideas I wanted to add but do to the limitation set by the producer, those ideas became other songs.
Less became More
My producer said that now that I set a limitation of song structure, I can begin playing with that structure to make songs more unique to myself. But to always set some sort of limitation so you actually finish the song and not over analyze.
If you are someone who has trouble finishing songs, try setting some limitations and work within that vessel. Some things I do is write out a song structure or pick 3-4 instruments that I can only use. This gets me to think creatively with the options I have instead of having Analysis Paralysis.
Hope this helps and if you’d like to read more about helping to finish your songs, please read
