It’s not terribly surprising that most people can tell whether they’re hearing a chorus or a verse. That’s a good thing, because songs don’t come with signposts that say, “This is the verse…”; “This is the chorus.” What I find interesting is that even non-musicians can tell. Songs normally start with the verse, but with […]
“Nights in White Satin” (1967) is one of The Moody Blues’ biggest hits. Most people know it in its “single” version — a bit over 4 minutes in length. But its full-length version, complete with orchestral introduction and interlude by the London Festival Orchestra, is a multi-sectional work of more than 9 minutes – a […]
Good moments in music are good because they make us believe that even better moments are coming, and so we want to keep listening. The inverse of that is true as well: bad moments in music make us believe that nothing better is coming, and so we give up listening and click to hear something […]
Mozart improvised. Mozart had good days and bad days. In fact, much of Mozart’s compositional process, if you research the topic, looks a lot like the kind of songwriting process we see today: a lot of experimenting, keeping good ideas, throwing out bad ones, and so on. So let’s take a look at some of […]
These days, boredom is getting a lot of attention. It used to be that boredom was considered to have no redeeming qualities. Being bored simply meant being disinterested in whatever you were up to, and that you haven’t found anything to grab your interest. More recently, psychologists have been conducting research into the benefits of […]
There are ways to make sure that the various sections of your song connect well together. Some of them are obvious – like keeping a consistent key throughout, or keeping the tempo the same, and so on. It’s possible (and relatively common) to have various sections in different keys, but the connection comes from the choice […]
