How We Remember Music

What is it about good music that makes it not just beautiful, but easy to remember?

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Written by Gary Ewer, author of “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” ebook Bundle.

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You might think of music as simply being a collection of pitches, some simultaneously (chords) and others sequentially (melodies). But it’s more complicated than that. The thing that turns pitches into music is patterns. We don’t just hear and enjoy notes; the patterns we form with them (which often involves the adding of rhythms) make them enjoyable and memorable.

Songs of any genre, from classical to pop to jazz and other styles, all require patterns to make them successful. The kinds of patterns that we’re talking about include:

1. Rhythmic patterns (mainly via drums, backing rhythms and melodic rhythm).
2. Chord patterns (the repeating of recognizable chord sequences).
3. Melodic patterns (short sequences of melodic shapes that repeat throughout a song).

There are other kinds of patterns that are less noticeable but often just as important, such as the tendency for verse instrumentation to be somewhat distinct from chorus instrumentation, which then repeats as the form unfolds. “Harmonic rhythm” is the term we use to describe how often chords change, and that’s another kind of pattern.

Patterns help us to remember music. Without patterns, music is relegated to being a mere succession of notes with little if anything for a listener to remember. In that sense, think of the word “pattern” as being more-of-less synonymous with “repetition.” Similarly, think of the word “memorable” as being more-or-less synonymous with “attractive.”

You’ll notice repetition everywhere in good music. Sometimes that repetition is exact, such as what you hear in the intro of Bruno Mars’ “Locked Out Of Heaven“. Sometimes repetition can be approximate, meaning that you hear a kind of “shape” that gets moved around; you hear different pitches, but they’re organized in the same way, such as with the chorus of P!nk’s “Just Give Me a Reason.”

Patterns in chords and rhythms are easy for songwriters to achieve. It’s second nature for us to consider that as being integral to good songwriting. But patterns with melodies are not as easy, because they need to be carefully integrated with chords.

So here are some important tips for incorporating repetition and patterns in your songs:

1. Repetition is important all through a song, but most important in the chorus. That’s usually the location of the hook that people will remember, and it’s crucial that you’ve given listeners something to remember there.
2. Make chorus hooks short and easy to sing. A listener is more likely to remember something they can sing themselves than something they can’t.
3. Though too much repetition can be boring, it’s more likely that a song will suffer from not enough repetition than too much. Don’t shy away from repeating lines of music that are catchy and repetitive.
4. Make sure your song uses a good mix of approximate and exact repetition.
5. As a study, make a lyric sheet of your song, and circle every spot in the lyric where some kind of repetition occurs. A good song should contain many circles.

Something else you can do, once you’ve finished a demo of your song, is to make a list of everything about it that is a pattern of some sort. In addition to repeating melodies, chords and rhythms, think of things like instrumentation, repetition of backing vocal ideas and other presentation-related ideas.

Without patterns, you’ve given the listener nothing to remember. An audience takes comfort in music where they hear the same things over and over. The challenge for songwriters is to get the balance right between new material and repeated material within the same song. Too much new material is hard to remember, and too little (i.e., too much repeating) is boring.

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Written by Gary Ewer. Follow on Twitter.

“The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” eBook Bundle looks at songwriting from every angle, and has been used by thousands of songwriters. How to use chords, write melodies, and craft winning lyrics. (And you’ll receive a FREE copy of “From Amateur to Ace: Writing Songs Like a Pro.“)