How To Write Songs That Sound The Way You Want Them To

How To Write Songs That Sound The Way You Want Them To

By Ryan Buckner

 

When you write songs, do you sometimes have a hard time making them sound exactly how you want them to? Do you ever find yourself saying “This doesn’t sound right” when you listen back to one or more sections in your music? Truth is, this happens for all songwriters at one point or another regardless of their experience level. However, you can overcome this challenge and start writing more expressive songs by mastering the concept of “unity and variety”. By understanding how to create a balance between unity and variety you will be able to make your music much more interesting and expressive.

Defining “Unity And Variety” And Using It In Your Music

Any time someone listens to a piece of music they are either consciously or subconsciously listening for a balance between unity and variety in the music. In fact, your ability to creatively use these elements will play a major role in the response you get from your listeners (as well as the overall quality of the music in general).

So what is unity and variety in music? “Unity” refers to the idea of repetition, staying the same or using similar ideas during a piece of music while “variety” refers to creating a sense of novelty in a song by adding new ideas, patterns or musical elements. By maintaining a solid balance between both unity and variety, you can effectively engage the listener and keep them interested in your music for a long time. A good balance will essentially utilize the “safe” comfortable feeling of repeated ideas while also mixing in the surprise of new ideas to add tension and interest. If you have ever had the experience of writing a song that seems to lack interest or doesn’t transition well from section to section; you most likely have a poor balance of unity and variety in one or more elements of your music. In fact, many people struggle with this problem. For example, here are various ways that songwriters write music that is “unbalanced” by using too much or too little unity or variety:

1. The rhythm in the notes for a particular part of a song are unpredictable and seem to have no tie-in to the feel of the song as a whole (this happens commonly when people program notes into a sequencer without really think about what they are doing) = lots of variety/no unity

2. A melodic idea is repeated over and over with little or no variation = lots of unity/no variety

3. The songwriter writes song lyrics that utilize very predictable ideas that follow clichés with little or no innovation = lots of unity/no variety

4. The music sounds really “strange” due to an over abundance of “out of key” notes that have no specific reason for being in the music = lots of variety/no unity

5. The different sections in a song are repeated several times over without any major variation (same lyrics, same melodies, same chords, etc.) = lots of unity/no variety

If you want write better music and overcome many of the common challenges that prevent songwriters from writing music as they want to, check out this eBook about creating a song that sounds the way you envisioned it.

How You Can Use Unity And Variety In A Balanced, Effective Manner

To learn how to write songs that are highly expressive, it is useful to understand how unity and variety are commonly misused (see above) and how they are effectively used to make a song more interesting. . In order to do this, you will need to learn how to both create and change the expectations in the mind of your listener. The basic idea of this is that you use “unity” to build up one set of expectations and then add in a sudden change by using “variety” to present the listener with something they had not anticipated. This idea is simple on the surface, but its complexity comes in the fact that you can apply it to literally any musical element or situation.

The truth is, unity and variety is not exclusively used only in the realm of songwriting. This idea of balance in musical ideas or patterns exists because of our universal ability to perceive symmetry in nature. As humans, our brains have evolved to notice symmetry over time because it has proven to be highly advantageous to do so. For example, our ability to notice symmetry in patterns has helped us locate things to eat, stay away from danger and gain other useful habits that have helped us survive.

Since unity and variety are not exclusive only to music, you can learn a lot about it by looking into other non-musical areas. To help you gain a better understanding of this important concept, I have provided a list of examples outside of the musical realm that use unity and variety in an effective manner. Additionally, I have included some ways that you can use the information in the topics below to improve your songwriting:

How Unity And Variety Is Used In: Sports

Sports and other games that involve competition are ripe with examples of unity and variety. Take for instance: baseball. In this sport, the essential most important part of the competition comes down to the pitcher versus the batter. Both sides have various opportunities to utilize information in their head in order to ‘best’ the other side. From the side of the pitcher, there is one crucial concept that must be understood and mastered in order to achieve success: The pitcher must know “how to change the batter’s expectations”. To do this, the pitcher needs to change the location of where he throws the ball and/or change how fast he throws the ball. When it comes to changing speeds, this is commonly done by putting together a sequence of consecutive fast pitches followed by a pitch that is much slower. Since a fastball only gives the batter little time to locate and hit the ball (about .2 seconds), he must react very quickly if he wants to put the ball into play. By throwing a pitch that is significantly slower, the batter’s timing gets messed up. This greatly increases the pitcher’s chances of striking the batter out or getting him to make poor contact on the ball (and get out).

How Can You Use This Information To Write Better Songs?

By “changing speed” in your music, you can effectively throw your listener a curve ball and engage their interest through the element of surprise. One way you can do this is by writing a song in a slow tempo and creating a section within that song that either speeds up the tempo or uses “faster” note rhythms. For example, consider the song “One” by Metallica that uses a slow/moderate tempo throughout until the end of the song where a drastic contrast is created.

How Unity And Variety Is Used In: Visual Art

When an artist is painting a picture, she knows that she can utilize the contrast between light and dark to capture the attention of whoever is looking at her work. Let’s say you were painting a picture of a calm day on the beach. On the beach there is plenty of white sand and brightly colored beach towels by umbrellas… but off on the horizon you decide to paint in dark, ominous clouds. If someone were to look at your painting, chances are they would look at all the bright colors on the beach (unity) and their eyes would quickly notice the dark clouds in the background (variety). Immediately afterwards, chances are they would come to the conclusion that storm was coming.

How Can You Use This Information To Write Better Songs?

To use a similar method of contrast in a musical context, identify a part in a song you are writing that has been used several times (could be a certain lyric, song section or melody…). Then, when the time comes to repeat it again, change it in a subtle, yet very distinct way. For instance, if you have repeated a series of chords many times throughout your song, try changing the instrument that plays these chords. So, if the part was being played by guitar throughout the song, you could have it be played by piano instead during its final repetition.

How Unity And Variety Is Used In: Movies

Have you ever seen a movie that has a surprise “twist” ending? This commonly happens when a main character in the film makes a fundamental change in his outlook or decides to take an unexpected path. This is a prime example of the effectiveness of using unity and variety to set up and change one’s expectations. The more comfortable you become with the personality of a certain character, the bigger the surprise when he or she makes a drastic change in behavior (and in effect tell your friends to go check out the movie for themselves).

How Can You Use This Information To Write Better Songs?

The Picardy Third, a technique made popular during the classical period, is great way to express “plot twist” in a song. This technique essentially comes down to changing a single note in a chord during your song (usually a chord at the end of a section) to change it from what was expected to something entirely unexpected. Most commonly this means changing the final chord in a song that was mostly in a minor key from minor to major. For example, ending on A major instead of A minor. This will create a totally different mood in the listener and provide a heavy contrast to the rest of the song.

How Unity And Variety Is Used In: Building Muscles

If you have any experience with weight lifting and muscle gain, you understand that your body becomes used to the same exercises if you repeat them enough (unity). As a result, your muscle gains will diminish until you can find a way to surprise your body by forcing it to do something it is not “prepared” for. In order to start seeing gains once again you must “surprise” your muscles by trying new exercises or strategies that will work your body in new, unexpected ways (variety).

How Can You Use This Information To Write Better Songs?

To make a correlation here between music and the weight lifting example I mentioned above, I am going to describe a common, yet highly effective formula used in songwriting. Chances are, most of the ballads you have listened to in your lifetime have followed a similar process to the following:

The beginning of the song uses only vocals combined with other instruments like guitar, piano, synthesizer etc… but NO percussion. The song then proceeds through the verse and chorus without percussion. Then, after the chorus has finished for the first time and the verse repeats, the percussion comes in. This provides a sense of surprise, contrast and direction the music.

The reason that this formula is used so often is that it sets up the expectations for a soft, easy listening ballad and then suddenly contrasts this with loud drums that come in during the second verse. Like with adding weight resistance to spark growth in your muscles, this formula adds in a sudden shock to the listener to gain their attention and set the foundation for new growth in the direction of the music.

Learn more about how to write a song step by step by learning about the different parts of a song.

How Unity And Variety Is Used In: Comedy

Well, it may not be very funny to get into the technical aspects of ‘why’ making jokes works to get people to laugh… but for the sake of songwriting, I am willing to make the sacrifice :)

When it comes to comedy, there is one simple formula that just about everyone understands at a ‘gut’ level: “premise” + “punch line” = funny. That said, often comedians will take this approach one step further in order to get a big response from the crowd. Rather than follow this basic formula, they will add onto it by adding on an additional punch line to really surprise their audience and make the joke even funnier. This is accomplished by adding on a punch line right after the first punch line is delivered that adds on an entirely different perspective to the joke. By doing this, the comedian creates a whole new dimension to the joke, surprising the audience and getting big laughs. (For great examples of this, I recommend the standup comedy of Dave Chappelle. He frequently uses this delivery style as part of his main approach to comedy.)

How Can You Use This Information To Write Better Songs?

Just like delivering a punch line for a joke, the chorus in your music is often a very important part of the song that requires great attention to detail in order to truly engage the listener. A great approach to changing your chorus in a way that adds a whole new dimension to the music is to change it up in when it is repeated for the final time. One way that you can use this idea is to repeat the chorus as usual; then during its final repeat, move all the notes up by a half step. This will give your chorus a new, refreshing feeling and help you to finish the music strong.

After finishing this article, you should have a much greater understanding of how unity and variety work together to set up expectations and create contrast for your listener. By having a strong working knowledge of this, your songwriting skills will drastically increase and you will be able to create great songs with better consistency. Any time you create songs, song sections or smaller parts within these sections; continually think about how you can use unity and variety in a creative and balanced manner to make your music engaging for the listener.

Find out more about creating a song that sounds exactly how you want by overcoming frequent songwriter mistakes.