Previous Installment: 13 Ways to Round Out an Incomplete Lyric
Part 1 of this series: Check Your Idea Spigot
![4804803927_c043061b2f_z by Amy Loves Yah[12]](http://lyricworkroom.com/words/wp-content/uploads/livewriterpics/a8e54b4ae716_13072/4804803927_c043061b2f_z-by-Amy-Loves-Yah12.jpg "4804803927_c043061b2f_z by Amy Loves Yah[12]")
So far in the Finding the Kink in Your Song Hose series—which contains absolutely no triple entendre—we’ve talked mostly about lyrics and snags in the creative process itself.
Something Old, Something New
As elaborate and varied as techniques of music composition can get, on a fundamental level you have only three choices at any given time as you develop a piece of music.
1. Repeat a previous section.
Repeat a slice of music from some point earlier in the song. Most songs contain quite a bit of repetition, with choruses being basically identical and the song’s verses being very similar to one another.
2. Repeat a previous section—but alter it.
The alteration can be obvious or subtle. For example, maybe as the verses of your song progress, you add excitement by raising the volume a bit and adding new instruments to the mix each time. Or maybe you arpeggiate the chords during the first verse, but strum them during the second. Any alteration can potentially add interest, so experiment freely.
3. Introduce totally new material.
Give your listener something entirely new. Songwriters often use bridges to give the listener something unexpected and relieve the repetition of verse/chorus/verse. Then they use the first strategy above, repeating the chorus—but leading up to it, transitioning into it from a different place than the listener has yet heard.
Conclusion
No matter how skilled you become at crafting contrapuntal lines in the style of Bach, and no matter how complex or difficult a song gets, you can always return to these three options.
- Repeat something.
- Repeat something, with alterations.
- Play something totally new.
I know these seem obvious, but they’re so obvious that some songwriters forget about them and overcomplicate things. At the heart of every successful song is a balance of recognizable material and new material.
But of course we can get more specific about the process than this—in Part 5 I’ll share more hints for composing—including tips for setting a lyric to music.
Hey, thanks for this. Composition is something quite new to me but i always try to make the next phrase new, which over-complicates the song, but well, need more experience.
A song that doesn’t repeat any sections is “through-composed” and there’s actually a pretty rich tradition of that in classical music, so you’re not alone!
I need more composition experience too. I definitely gravitate toward lyric writing more than music. 🙂
That’s true for some classical music, but the most famous classical songs have repetitions. When a piece is only played once, the listener has only a single listen to latch on to a lyric or melody. I think it’s only fair of the artist to repeat sections to make them stick out or even to segment the song.
This blog is awesome btw
Through-composed pieces have traditionally been art songs, not popular songs–as you say.
Repetition does provide you with a greater chance of having a sticky, catchy song. But I think some exciting songs could be written by asking the question “How can I make certain parts of this song memorable even if each section occurs only once?”
Thanks for reading, Alex!