There’s an interesting history behind why pop songs tend to be 3-to-4 minutes in length, and it has to do with the nature of the medium: typically, a 10-inch record spinning 78 times per minute, as you would have had when rock & roll was in its infancy. That usually meant that it was not […]
Back when I was a music student at university, composition was my major, so I was writing constantly. My main instrument was (and is) trumpet, and so I was also practicing when I could get the chance, and I was involved in many ensembles. It didn’t take me long to notice something interesting: When I ran […]
As a songwriter, you’re going to encounter your fair share of frustration mixed in with the joy that writing music should give you. Writing something that works and sounds great gives you an incredible rush of excitement and confidence, and so when you find that your next song isn’t working, you can feel a bit […]
Last week, I wrote about earworm melodies, and how chords (specifically open cadences) can play an important role in keeping a melody rolling around in a listener’s mind. That got me thinking about songs in general: What keeps people listening to your songs? I’m not talking about the larger topic of what keeps people coming […]
On November 3, both the CNN and BBC, as well as many other news outlets, reported new research, published in “Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts“, into the issue of earworms: what makes an earworm, and why some songs are more likely than others to possess the characteristics of an earworm. CNN refers to […]
Every time I hear the opening bars of “Thus Spake Zarathustra“, by Richard Strauss, even after decades of being familiar with it, I still feel an incredible sense of awe and amazement. You may not know that title, but you do know the piece: it’s the theme from “2001: a Space Odyssey.” Context is everything. […]
