Making an Energy Chart For Your Song

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Song energy is a subtle quality that’s hard to define. In the end, it comes down to this: song energy is the sense of forward motion in music, whatever keeps the listener engaged and listening. In loud music, musical energy is easy to identify. We notice the energy more as the drums get busier and play louder, and as the singer sings higher.

But musical energy is a vital quality for all music, including songs that are very gentle and quiet. In fact, you could make a case for saying that soft songs need you to consider energy even more, because song energy is always going to be about what keeps a listener listening.

In most cases, here are the things that contribute to a sense of energy in music

1. increasing volume;
2. increasing instrumentation;
3. changing instrumental performance style;
4. increasing the basic beat (i.e., making the basic beat busier);
5. raising the general pitch of the voice and accompanying instruments;
6. increasing harmonic rhythm;
7. lyrical progression (i.e., how the lyrics change over the course of the song);

The first four of those contributors are items that are usually addressed at the recording stage of the music, and if you’re doing your own recording or creating a demo, you’ll want to give them careful consideration.

The last three in the list are elements of music that you control directly in the songwriting stage. Here’s what you can do about each of them to ensure that song energy is generally moving upward. Keep in mind that no song uses all of these technique, but one or two of them should be noticeable in most songs:

1. The general pitch of the voice and accompanying instruments. Most of the time, we’re talking about the melody here. From the start of the verse to the end (or at least near the end) of the chorus, the melody should move in an approximately upward direction. But this can also apply to your accompanying instruments and backing vocals as well.
2. Harmonic rhythm. This term refers to how often the chords change. Most songs, particularly in rock and pop, change chords every four or eight beats. You can generate some energy and create momentum by shortening that time up, switching to a change every two or four beats, especially in the chorus.
3. Lyrics. Most songs have two or three stages of lyrical development. Verse lyrics will describe or otherwise tell the story. Chorus lyrics make an emotional commentary on that story. If your song has a bridge, a lyric’s emotion intensifies and pulls the listener along in that wave. The up-and-down energy that comes from moving from the end of the chorus back to the next verse, and then considering all the other fluctuations that happen throughout the song, acts as a kind of musical pump that makes music more interesting.

Energy is something that listeners perceive easily, even if they don’t always realize it, or know specifically how it’s being generated. It’s a useful exercise to make an energy chart for your song. There are lots of ways to do this, and I’ve listed one possibility below. Before you make a demo of your song, try this:

1. Record a simple performance of your music. Even if the end product is going to use a full instrumentation, record a stripped-down one-instrument unplugged version, one that allows you to hear the melody, chords and lyrics unencumbered by production.
2.  Listen several times as objectively as possible. Imagine that this is the final ready-for-prime-time version.
3. Write out on a piece of paper the form of the song, like this (opens in a new browser tab or window).
4. Find the most energetic, exciting moment in the song, give that a 10. (Hint: it’ll likely be in the chorus or the bridge, or at least should be.)
5. Based on that ’10’ rating, start listening to the song once more, and give approximate values to each of the other sections.

Once you’ve done that, you may want to convert those numbers to something visual, like a line drawing. You’ll be able to see how the sense of energy and momentum change at a glance.

If you find that the values you’re giving for each section seem to be very similar to the one you gave your most energetic moment, you may have identified a problem. It’s time to look more closely and see if any of the following issues are happening:

1. The verse and chorus melodies sit within the same basic range. Solution: make the verse lower or the chorus higher.
2. The chords are changing too quickly, or not quickly enough. Solution: experiment by reworking the chord progressions, to see how harmonic rhythm can work for you.
3. The lyrics aren’t captivating. Solution: Always ensure that the all-important moving from narrative to emotive lyrics is happening. It’s crucial to most music.

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Written by Gary Ewer. Follow on Twitter.

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