Anatomy of a Hit
Experienced "ears" in the business are those executives who are able to "hear" a hit. A big part of it is the spirit and intensity of an artist. But even more so it's the fundamental STRUCTURE of a song. To be honest: if a song has the right structure even a kid on the street can pick it out.
Those golden ears often prefer to hear a song in it's raw form without a fancy demo to obscure the underlying inspiration. An acoustic guitar or piano and a vocal should be enough. Even in electronic music: LESS is more when showing off the underlying strength of your songs.
If you song doesn't pull in the listener in its most basic form then it probably won't be a hit.
Throughout history – ALL great music has certain basic organizational features in common. For this discussion we will focus on the way this is done in pop music.
Note of Clarification: Obviously I'm an 80's kid – so the examples I'm using come from my youth. But you can try the same exercises and experiments with YOUR favorite genre. The patterns are essentially the same.
Click to open up this convenient link in another window and instantly listen to many of the song-examples we use in this course. www.Playlist.com Just enter the name of the song into the "Playlist" search window. By clicking on the little arrow the song starts to play.
The songs examples mentioned here for discussion are property of their respective copyright owners.
Putting Them Together
The normal mistake is to use the analytical mind to come up with filler material to hold together a few inspired phrases. This is what wannabes call a song. But this does not make sense to the whole brain which craves circular loops known in music as theme and variation.
A powerhouse hit song is composed of repetitions of several strong musical phrases. In some cases such as "Born In the USA" by Bruce Springsteen, the song features only a single basic phrase pounded into the brain over and over for the entire song. ( Over 15 million albums sold. )
Note: for the purpose of this discussion, a musical phrase is a melodic/chord progression. We are not specifically referring to the words, but more to the tune and the chords that back it up.
If you would like to check out "The King of Pain" by Sting and the Police. You will find essentially two phrases repeated throughout the entire song.
Try listening to any of your favorite pieces and count the number of phrases used in the entire song. You will find that they are all STRONG ( also called active ). The same goes for lyrics – it's better to repeat impactful-phrases than to fill in with mediocre statements. Repetition builds memory.
Basically you can label each distinct phrase as follows: A,B,C,D. Listen again to the examples above.
And then listen to "Head Like a Hole" by Nine Inch Nails.
You will find various patterns of arranging these phrases.
Another great example to start off with is "Free Fallin" by Tom Petty.
In Country music: check out these best sellers: "Fast Cars and Freedom" by Rascal Flatts, "Otis Redding" by Sara Evans, and "Friends in Low Places" by Garth Brooks – (20 million albums sold).
If you listen to New Age Jazz check out anything by Craig Chaquico – for example: "Native Tongue". Just download it and listen, especially if you've never heard this phenomenal musician – make sure you can really hear it good – its like musical champaign & caviar. Pure class! Craig is the ex guitarist from Jefferson Starship. He offers a great example of these patterns in music without words. You may need to actually download this one rather than searching for it on Playlist.com
Click on this link to hear just how far back this goes.
- Submitted by Visitors - "Gone" by tobyMac.
Even in such diverse genres such as hard rock, blues, folk, hip-hop and the best selling rap etc. etc. etc… you will consistently find that your all time favorite music, in some way always conforms to this essential model.
As you listen to examples of great music: label the distinct phrases used and write out their patterns. Here are some popular arrangements of musical phrases -
AA BB AA BB CC DD
AB AB AB AB CD CD
AAAB AAAB CCCD
AAAA AAAA BBBB BBBB
Take note of how the phrases are arranged in groups.
Take the time to identify the order that the phrase-groups are repeated as well.
Staying Inspired
Knowing these secrets can be the absolute SUICIDE of creativity. Because thinking this way short circuits the natural inspirational processes in the brain.
For this reason we highly recommend that you separate the brainstorming stage of songwriting from the "producer" stages. Read Whole Brain Songwriting in order to discover how the human brain works the best when engaged in the creative process.
Most musicians might be better served to engage an analytical creative partner (called a producer/arranger) to help structure the inspiration as it flows. In this way the creative and analytical processes are separated into two or more distinct individual brains. The song bounces back and forth gaining dimension, richness, and structure. Please read Creative Partnerships for smart strategies on how to build your own collaborative songwriting teams.
Remember this. Great music happens when the eternal soul-self is revealed through interacting with the traumas and thrills of being human. If your music is not firmly rooted in your soul experiences of life, it will likely not go down in history as anything worth remembering.
Developing Your Skills: Find Examples
It's important that you go out and find at least 10 examples of your all time favorite music and write out their phrase-patterns. If you go through the trouble of performing this exercise, you will experience a crucial "AH HAH" moment, where everything suddenly starts to make sense. Once this happens your view of the music world will fundamentally shift.
Strategic Note: DON'T get involve in building up the full band parts until you have the basic song laid out.
- QUESTIONS:
- WOULD YOU BE COMPELLED TO BUY YOUR OWN MUSIC?
- DOES IT DRIVE YOU TO INSPIRATION EVERY TIME YOU PLAY IT?
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