Arranging (IMO)

Snowman999

Active member
For the most part Ramones songs are under 3 minutes, and the early stuff is under 2 minutes. They are what's known as the exception to the rule. There are others, but very few.

Since I don't speak in musical language, I hope I can make my point clear. Because it can only help when recording.

I've listened to a lot of unknown artists on this site and many others. With some songs I wonder, why wasn't this ever released? It's a great song. Are there problems within them that a record company wouldn't allow? Yes. That's one reason.

I believe the main reason is the arrangements. There aren't many records you can put on where you can listen to a verse or chorus, and there aren't musical changes within them that are distinct to that verse and chorus. That's what most of us are missing. Those little changes that make you want to continue listening, because the music is constantly changing.

When you're recording, think about what verse 2 has that 1 doesn't? How do I build that chorus up so the 3rd time doesn't sound exactly like the 1st or 2nd? It isn't just changing a vocal melody slightly that keeps it interesting, if the music remains the same.

Did you ever notice breaks are usually great in songs, even when they're simple? That's because it's a change. Your ears are hearing something different.

This may read like a common sense moronic point that everyone follows. But they don't. When you can listen for 20 - 30 seconds and its 2 guitars, bass and drums, and they're all straight forward and rhythmic, it might sound good. But it's probably not going to attract much attention.

Arranging is sometimes harder than writing a melody and chords. Ronson and Page are masters at it. Just listen to any Beatles song, holy Toledo, hats off to Sir George Martin. He barely goes two measures without something changing, and making it sound perfect.

This is just my opinion. I do believe it's the difference between a good song and a great song.
 
If you're saying that arranging is an integral part of actual songwriting, then I absolutely agree. I've long felt that songwriting in itself is somewhat overrated and also that band members of many bands down the decades didn't often get enough songwriting credit even though they didn't write the songs yet were crucial to the arrangement of the songs.
 
Yeah, I used to subscribe to the notion that something has to change from one section to another. If verse 2 immediately follows verse 1 with no chorus in between, it has to bring something different. A new guitar part, a different instrument, a fuller drum beat, something. I'd write and arrange my songs to do that and I used to preach it to others.

I kinda gotten away from the philosophy. Maybe it's laziness, maybe it's old age, maybe it's the need to just get a song recorded before I lose the moment. IDK... I should get back to writing like that, but you know... laziness, old age, no need. My songs aren't going anywhere....

On the other hand, there are plenty of songs out there that do well because of content or performance. One song that comes to mind has endured the ages and it is 20 minutes of the same riff.... Alice's Restaurant. It's the story that sells that song.
 
Songs have to have two elements to make them engaging.

The first is to have enough repetition to generate familiarity, and the second is enough change to prevent that familiarity from turning to complacency (and then disinterest).

So, yes, the arrangement is critical to keep the listener wanting to continue listening. That can be done using a variety of ways, e.g. structural changes (tempo, key changes, time signature changes and so on), varying the instrumentation, or varying the dynamics.

But, as Chili noted, when the story being told is the main focus, it really doesn't matter so much about other stuff . . . so long as it doesn't compromise the story.
 
Alice's Restaurant didn't even need music. It's a folk story, and a great one at that. I owned the vinyl, and we used to hear it each Thanksgiving on the way to Karen's mother's house. It's the same riff with little minor variations because of the length.

If you're recording for yourself, you should just do what you want. But, many people want to try and make this their living. One of the things holding most back (besides talent) is arranging. Everything is good, it just needs that push.

grimtraveller: The Band's drummer Levon Helm fueded with Robbie Robertson because Robertson got the royalty checks for songwriter, and he didn't get a dime. But, he arranged the songs. The same with Mick Ronson. Bowie's Ziggy Stardust wouldn't have been a fraction of what it became without Ronson's arranging. He died in debt.
 
Yeah, I used to subscribe to the notion that something has to change from one section to another. If verse 2 immediately follows verse 1 with no chorus in between, it has to bring something different
As the resident Mr Awkward, my response to that notion is that......it depends on the song. Some songs don't need continual and endless changes. You want the 2nd or following verses to be just like what has preceded it. And then there are those ones where that little {or big} incremental change is part of the song's progression and you look forward to it every time. Both work. Sometimes, one will notice neither.

The Band's drummer Levon Helm fueded with Robbie Robertson because Robertson got the royalty checks for songwriter, and he didn't get a dime. But, he arranged the songs. The same with Mick Ronson. Bowie's Ziggy Stardust wouldn't have been a fraction of what it became without Ronson's arranging. He died in debt
Yeah, it happens so often. Bowie is a good example actually and Dylan and artists like Suzanne Vega, Bruce Cockburn or even James Brown and Gil Scott Heron. When I listen to their stuff, I ask myself if they wrote every element of the music. The great bass parts, the violin riffs, the horn parts, the synth washes, whatever.
I think songwriting is a more collaborative sport than the punters realize. Perhaps song creation would be a better phrase for it.
 
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Yeah, it happens so often. Bowie is a good example actually and Dylan and artists like Suzanne Vega, Bruce Cockburn or even James Brown and Gil Scott Heron. When I listen to their stuff, I ask myself if they wrote every element of the music. The great bass parts, the violin riffs, the horn parts, the synth washes, whatever.
I think songwriting is a more collaborative sport than the the punters realize. Perhaps song creation would be a better phrase for it.

That sort of thing is why it's a pretty common arrangement in bands is to give the songwriter the "writer" split and the rest of the band the "publisher" split.
 
It's a hacky holdover from the days of "publishing" meaning sheet music, but Performing Rights Organizations (Ascap, BMI, etc) split the money they collect into a publisher's share and a writer's share. Originally, one share would go to the songwriter(s), and the other would go to whoever published the sheet music.

Nowadays, the sheet music is largely irrelevant, but the song as recorded is very important. In the case of a band with a set lineup (rather than hired studio musicians), it's important to give them a financial stake in the album even if they didn't write anything. So the usual solution is to give the band that made the recording the publisher's share of the songwriter royalties.
 
Lots of million sellers that don't make sense or are very repetitive. The idea of building to a height, then pulling back a bit before building higher ad infinitum is pretty common song structure but though it helps keep interest, IMHO what makes a song popular is that it connects with an audience on some kind of emotional level. If music is an art form then it is like all art, a form of communication. If you get the feeling across using lyrics, riffs, rhythm or any other way, then people respond. If people don't get any feel from any part then, yes, unchanging repetition can turn the listener off.

Plenty of recording engineers and producers have said something to the effect of "if your head isn't bobbing or your foot tapping you need to start over cuz somethings missing" and while I wouldn't say that is a literal truth, I would contend that if a song doesn't convey emotion in a way that the listener can co-opt as there own it's going to have difficulty even with all the best arranging.
 
For the most part Ramones songs are under 3 minutes, and the early stuff is under 2 minutes. They are what's known as the exception to the rule. There are others, but very few.

Since I don't speak in musical language, I hope I can make my point clear. Because it can only help when recording.

I've listened to a lot of unknown artists on this site and many others. With some songs I wonder, why wasn't this ever released? It's a great song. Are there problems within them that a record company wouldn't allow? Yes. That's one reason.

I believe the main reason is the arrangements. There aren't many records you can put on where you can listen to a verse or chorus, and there aren't musical changes within them that are distinct to that verse and chorus. That's what most of us are missing. Those little changes that make you want to continue listening, because the music is constantly changing.

When you're recording, think about what verse 2 has that 1 doesn't? How do I build that chorus up so the 3rd time doesn't sound exactly like the 1st or 2nd? It isn't just changing a vocal melody slightly that keeps it interesting, if the music remains the same.

Did you ever notice breaks are usually great in songs, even when they're simple? That's because it's a change. Your ears are hearing something different.

This may read like a common sense moronic point that everyone follows. But they don't. When you can listen for 20 - 30 seconds and its 2 guitars, bass and drums, and they're all straight forward and rhythmic, it might sound good. But it's probably not going to attract much attention.

Arranging is sometimes harder than writing a melody and chords. Ronson and Page are masters at it. Just listen to any Beatles song, holy Toledo, hats off to Sir George Martin. He barely goes two measures without something changing, and making it sound perfect.

This is just my opinion. I do believe it's the difference between a good song and a great song.

Dude.
There is a guy goes by the moniker emser.
This guy is a fn genius at crafting the most catchy tunes.
Making tune is possible - obviously.
I think we all know the cost to get your toes sucked by supermodels.
Well for me it's way too late for all that shit.
I settle for impressing my friend.. and being able to enjoy the freedom to pursue my passion at any moment that suits my sorry ass.
she will differ. - if not for her i'd be a rotting corpse hanging off the tioga falls railroad bridge.
the beatles? -- omg some of their less than 3 minute songs are, well.. obviously longer than 3 minutes cause they learned how to stop fn time .
bunch a salem witch blood drinking devils if you ask me.
right now for me i'm into dialog tunes.
i fn love the way you can craft a simple dialogue between two folks - or one... in your head - you decide. think Quintin T.
omg the options are endless.
yes - comercial?
you know what that takes - the endless promotion of your product.
late night treks across dry desert climes and wet morning moors with black birds eating your grub.
 
on the adding changes, that's something sometimes so subtle but it works in holding a freshness to the 3 minute pop tunes in general it seems.
folk music could be maybe more stripped down, if its hardcore folk like acoustic /vocal only...then not much to add other than overdub a lick or two.

as for the royalty cash wars , that movie of Beware Ginger Baker, he really goes off on that a little, about getting nothing for his large input on the songs. He changed the tempos that completely changed the tune but he got nothing in songwriter royalties.
when I was 6 or so, the Beatles stuff I thought wow! those guys played all the instruments! but then decades later find out George Martin did so much and the orchestra parts weren't done by paul,joh,ringo,george..lol
 
In the 60s-80s there were radio hits with songs that began with a couple of quick verses, then into a chorus which was repeated ad nauseam until fading out after 2-3 minutes of repitition.

Then from around the 90s on, I hear lots of songs that seemed to be all verse with no changes for 3-4 minutes. Some may have a small bit of chorus or some type of bridge, but not much. Monotony.

All of the above got major radio play and sold well.

My personal style is to have at least one break - a lead guitar break (I still believe in those) - at minimum. Usually that along with a couple verse-chorus transitions. Maybe a bridge here or there. 3-4 minutes each.
 
The grandaddy of all of this stuff is classical music. They call it musical form in music theory. The usual "ABA" or "AABA" format is very old but classical composers really formalized it, and what people do today is usually some slightly degenerative version of that.

First "A" in "AABA" is the initial statement of a melody/counter melody, or verse/chorus today. Then a repeat. Then the "B" part is the musical development that they call a "bridge" today, but back in the classical era this is where the most interesting musical things happened, and where the music was taken to unexpected places. Then the last "A" is usually a simplified version of the beginning that just restates the original theme and brings everything to a nice resolution that feels final and satisfying. Of course they did a million variations of this all the way to the modernists who finally threw the form away completely and just wrote what was basically random nonsense, but of course that never caught on and so they went back to a simple AABA format just like they do for virtually all songs today.

You can find lots of literature about this stuff online if you dig around for music theory on musical forms, or the history and development of musical forms.

The atomic psychological level of all of this is that repetition gives the brain something to latch onto and something to create a context for everything else in the music. If there is too little repetition, the music seems to make no sense and doesn't really go anywhere comprehensible. If there is too much repetition, it's just boring. So there has to be some balance of repetition and novelty. Classical composers accomplished this by modifying melodies and taking them into different keys and putting them to different chords, or even reconfiguring them in fugues by reversing them, speeding them up or slowing them down, and things like that. Today you more commonly see things like added instruments on the first repetition, or an added lead part in the background or something like that, and bridges often seem totally unrelated to the opening material, or are just a guitar solo in rock music, etc.
 
Why do some 2:30 songs feel as long as some 3:30-4:00 songs?

It's gotta be their construction, right? That's my theory.

There's something good happening in those arrangements.
 
thats for sure...well written with energy....this morning I think of Pretty Woman riff Roy Orbison and then the sons of that, Day Tripper and Satisfaction...
all high energy, with bridges, upbeat and fast and over in a 180 seconds?!!!
 
Why do some 2:30 songs feel as long as some 3:30-4:00 songs?

It's gotta be their construction, right? That's my theory.

There's something good happening in those arrangements.

They are the total package. Melody with at least one or two lyrics that refuse to leave you and magnificent arrangements. The thing is a lot of those songs do not have a ton of overdubs. But, the musicians are so talented, they're all in their own right playing more than rhythm, keeping each measure fresh. It's great to listen to 50s music. It sounds simple and it's not. Those musicians are top of the line, and that type of talent is hard to come by.

Many songs you hear on this site and other sites like this have the basics to great songs, I know I've heard quite a few excellent songs on here. They just don't push them over that edge from good demo song to something you'd play on repeat (my own work is included). It's the reason I wrote this thread in the first place.

Arranging is just as important as writing the lyric, melody and chord structure. It's also it's own art form.

London Calling put out a deluxe 25th Anniversary set and the second CD has demos of many of the songs. To think that album was created from those demos is mind shattering. You can hear the great songs. But, I don't have the foresight to go from that demo to that recorded version. That's great producing, which goes hand in hand with arranging.

Making great music is HARD.
 
Why do some 2:30 songs feel as long as some 3:30-4:00 songs?
"Good book" and "Good guys" by Melanie are like that. They feel longer than the 2+ minutes that they are.
Then I remembered that they're both so short that it used to drive me to distraction that they were so short and over so quickly. So some time in the late noughties, I got Audacity and the only reason I use it is to edit songs, either to make them longer by repeating parts that I particularly like or shortening by editing out bits I really dislike. Now lots of short songs aren't 2:30 any more ! And I'm no longer driven to distraction. :thumbs up:
 
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