Climactic Moments in Songs: More Than a Melodic Feature

Climactic moments happen in lyrics, chords and instrumentation – not just melodies.

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When we talk about the climactic moment in a song, we often automatically look for the highest note in the melody. That’s because it’s easy to find. And very often, that highest note will be a gathering-place for many different song components to show their most climactic moment.

Climactic moments are important, but some songs don’t use melodies that have a distinctive climactic moment. Nonetheless, those songs usually still have climactic moments, with one serving as an overall pinnacle for the energy of the song – that special moment. Without a distinctive high point in a melody, the duty often falls to some other aspect to define that special moment.

Climactic moments are what help to give your music a sense of form. It helps to define the beginning, middle and end by providing a spot that sounds like the purpose of the musical journey.

If your song melody doesn’t seem to have a specific climactic moment, here are other ways they can be created in a song:

1. Lyric. Joni Mitchell’s “Coyote” from her “Hejira” album is a great example of a song where the climactic moment comes more from the story that unfolds than any other aspect of songwriting structure. And it’s hard to point to one moment in that final verse, because it sounds a little different every time you hear it, but you definitely get a sense that it’s somewhere in “Either he’s going to have to stand and fight/ Or take off out of here/ I tried to run away myself/ To run away and wrestle with my ego…”
2. Instrumental. It’s easy to create an instrumental build that says, “Here’s what it’s all about.” Instrumental build comes from something as simple as a crescendo, or perhaps as a broadening of the upper-versus-lower note spectrum. In any case, listen to Imogen Heap’s “Tidal” from “Ellipse“. The melody does have climactic moments, but you can definitely hear that the ending is the climax of the song, and it’s instrumental and vocal sound that does it.
3. Chords. Sometimes, it’s the dramatic increasing of harmonic rhythm (the frequency of chord changes) that can help define the climactic moment of a song. Genesis’ music from the early 70s were long pieces that were structured with a certain amount of complexity. To create a final flourish and climactic moment in “Can-Utility and the Coastliners”, from their Foxtrot album, they take a climactic moment in the vocal line (Peter Gabriel) and then go one step further by speeding up the harmonic rhythm to a chord change every 8th-note. (Here is a short clip of the ending.)

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Written by Gary Ewer. Follow on Twitter.

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