# I feel bad about composing 2 min songs...



## sIR dORT (Mar 19, 2019)

Should I? I think it's knowing that classical composers of the earlier eras could create compositions of much longer length that does it for me. I compose just for myself (at least for right now), and just wondered if I should try and compose longer pieces or be content with writing a two minute song as long as it has good content.


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## studiostuff (Mar 19, 2019)

Write medleys...


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## TheSigillite (Mar 19, 2019)

I've been at this for a few months and I'm still hovering around the 1min - 3 min song area. I usually just write little tid bits with new knowledge or skills i've picked up. I felt the same way at first. I was under this self imposed pressure of extending these pieces just because and it really only lead to needlessly extended pieces. Write what suits you and what makes you happy (at least for know, as you put it). Once you do it for pay, you'll write what is requested from you, but for now enjoy your creations no matter the time. I recently wrote a 1 min piece for my youngest daughter and she loved it. Just write. Soon i hope to implement some formal structure into my writing and then my pieces might evolve into longer more cohesive works. Best of luck!


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## dzilizzi (Mar 19, 2019)

Well, my first piece that didn't involve using AI to write was probably about a minute. It had a nice (okay, my opinion, it was probably barely okay) oboe solo. So I copied the whole thing, but changed all the instruments so the solo was now a cello and the string background instruments were now woodwinds. Then I said, oh it's still too short. So I copied it again changing the instruments to brass/horns and changing the solo to violin (changed the octave), thought it was too boring for the violin and moved notes around. 

I have no idea how good it is and I'm a little afraid to share it. but I enjoy listening to it.


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## CGR (Mar 19, 2019)

There's a lot to be said for creating, developing and then distilling an idea into a 2-3 minute track. Some of my favourite pieces of music are this length. I'm not just referring to pop/rock songs - check out some of Craig Armstrong's tunes from 'Piano Works'. Beautifully written instrumental themes which say what they need to say, and then leave - often in 2 minutes or less.

So many times I'll listen to a 5-6 minute track and after a while it just becomes repetitive and it's like "OK - I get it". Sometimes all the track needs is for you to state your theme/idea and not over-stay your welcome!


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## Saxer (Mar 19, 2019)

Listen to Beethoven's 5th. He's starting with this BababaBaaaaa and it's more or less all he uses to build a long track. Actually you don't need much to stell a story. When you have a motive you can do creative things with it. Repeat it, repeat it on different steps, transpose it, stretch it, shrink it, turn it upside down, reverse it, give it to different ranges, use it as bass figure, play it on different modes, make it big, reduce it, use ornaments, use fragments, make it a question or an answer, use it as one part of a dialogue, make it a part of a larger structure, harmonize it, reharmonize it, make it consonant, make it dissonant... and at that point you didn't even start to orchestrate.
It's a bit like jokes. Many jokes belong into categories. Lonely man on a small one palm island jokes. Boss & employee jokes. Cheating dad and smart children jokes. Woman at the doctor jokes. Car driver and police man jokes. Endless list of well known cliches. But the fun is to get something unexpected out of those well known situations. Use your ideas as a starting point.

Beside that it isn't wrong to write short tracks. But if you want to write longer tracks it's good to look how others did it. It's not a miracle.


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## JT (Mar 19, 2019)

Short songs are fine, but for your own sake you should try to expand your comfort zone. Do what Saxer wrote, turn your theme into as many variations as possible. Some ideas will work better than others, but nobody has to hear this except you. Just try different things. Let your ideas lead you to different places that you wouldn't have found on your own.


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## CT (Mar 19, 2019)

Tonight I happen to be taking a close look at a good example of how much you can do in just two or three minutes.


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## Robo Rivard (Mar 19, 2019)

miket said:


> Tonight I happen to be taking a close look at a good example of how much you can do in just two or three minutes.



It reminds me of the "Stabat Mater" by Francis Poulenc. Many short pieces pasted together.


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## ChazC (Mar 19, 2019)

Think yourself lucky - 2 mins is an age! I've been stuck mainly writing 30 second theme tunes for the past year or so!


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## Jeremy Gillam (Mar 19, 2019)

dzilizzi said:


> I have no idea how good it is and I'm a little afraid to share it. but I enjoy listening to it.



Share it! Dare to suck!

Sometimes when I think I should write longer/more complex/more adult/more classical/more contrapuntal/ more whatever music I end up just getting overwhelmed and write nothing, or what I do write is very bland and I chuck it. But when I focus on making 1 bar or 4 bars or 8 bars sound as good as I can it usually leads me somewhere that I'm more satisfied with, regardless of length. Often I just throw in some markers and figure out what I want to the structure to be, then I populate each section with some synth/sound design or percussion elements before I actually get into harmony, and God-willing, counterpoint. Everyone's "way in" is different, but for me the production and the way things sounds is important and also inspiring, so spending time on that first can help me sneak up on the actual notes.


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Mar 19, 2019)

I don't like long pieces. It's a kind of masturbation. Nobody wants to hear that. I wouldn't expect folks to sit through +30 minutes of something I noodled out, and I most certainly wouldn't feel bad for not doing it, or perhaps struggling to do it. Even most symphonies are burdened with meandering nonsense that should have been left out for the benefit of everyone.

I love it when a strong musical statement is elegantly distilled into 2-4 minutes of music. That's a thing of beauty. Writing like that also really forces you to listen carefully, waste no time, work everything out in detail, eliminate anything that's half-baked and sub par and get to the point. I think it has more value than "oh from here I can modulate on for 15 minutes".


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## Vardaro (Mar 20, 2019)

A song theme, however good, starts and stops. A symphonic theme can creep in unannounced (at least on the surface) but its ending is open ended, lending itself to evolutive transformations


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## Parsifal666 (Mar 20, 2019)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> I don't like long pieces. It's a kind of masturbation. Nobody wants to hear that. I wouldn't expect folks to sit through +30 minutes of something I noodled out, and I most certainly wouldn't feel bad for not doing it, or perhaps struggling to do it. Even most symphonies are burdened with meandering nonsense that should have been left out for the benefit of everyone.
> 
> I love it when a strong musical statement is elegantly distilled into 2-4 minutes of music. That's a thing of beauty. Writing like that also really forces you to listen carefully, waste no time, work everything out in detail, eliminate anything that's half-baked and sub par and get to the point. I think it has more value than "oh from here I can modulate on for 15 minutes".



I think it's safe to say Mahler is the exception?


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## mikeh-375 (Mar 20, 2019)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> I don't like long pieces. It's a kind of masturbation. Nobody wants to hear that. I wouldn't expect folks to sit through +30 minutes of something I noodled out,



Well I for one certainly enjoyed Beethoven's Wankfest in C minor the other day and as for Mahler, he must've had a strong prescription for his glasses and yet boy, what climaxes.
Your right Jimmy I probably wouldn't sit through 30 mins of _anyone's_ noodling, but 30 mins of music written by a master?


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## pmcrockett (Mar 20, 2019)

If your goal is to write longer pieces, I'd suggest thinking a lot about the large-scale form of the piece and about how you'll introduce, develop, and repeat your musical materials before you even start writing. If you're able to get the big-picture stuff out of the way first, the process of writing the actual notes becomes more and more like following a script to fill in the blanks between key points and less like creation ex nihilo. And I find that approaching things this way makes it much easier to write long stretches of music that hang together properly.

Before I start a piece, I like to actually construct a timeline with verbal descriptions of what will be happening in the piece at any given clock time (usually in increments of 5 to 45 seconds). At this point, I'm basically dealing with the rhythm of the piece's overall pacing so that during any point of the actual note writing process, I know where I'm headed and when I'm supposed to get there. I also usually try to come up with the major themes and their variants, orchestration paradigms, large-scale harmonic shifts, and general harmonic language at this point. I find the less I have to think about these things when I'm actually writing the piece, the better.

The ideal is that the piece should already basically exist before you even start writing it down, because once you start putting notes down, it becomes much more difficult to make large-scale creative changes without having to do a lot of rewriting. Best to be comfortable with these large-scale decisions up front, because then you won't have to second guess them later.


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## jules (Mar 20, 2019)

Hey, what's wrong with short pieces ? It's the future...


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## sIR dORT (Mar 20, 2019)

Saxer said:


> Listen to Beethoven's 5th. He's starting with this BababaBaaaaa and it's more or less all he uses to build a long track. Actually you don't need much to stell a story. When you have a motive you can do creative things with it. Repeat it, repeat it on different steps, transpose it, stretch it, shrink it, turn it upside down, reverse it, give it to different ranges, use it as bass figure, play it on different modes, make it big, reduce it, use ornaments, use fragments, make it a question or an answer, use it as one part of a dialogue, make it a part of a larger structure, harmonize it, reharmonize it, make it consonant, make it dissonant... and at that point you didn't even start to orchestrate.
> It's a bit like jokes. Many jokes belong into categories. Lonely man on a small one palm island jokes. Boss & employee jokes. Cheating dad and smart children jokes. Woman at the doctor jokes. Car driver and police man jokes. Endless list of well known cliches. But the fun is to get something unexpected out of those well known situations. Use your ideas as a starting point.
> 
> Beside that it isn't wrong to write short tracks. But if you want to write longer tracks it's good to look how others did it. It's not a miracle.


So what's the balance then between variating a theme and overkilling it? CGR made this point and I agree, but at the same time, I think you can repeat a theme several times/ways and not bore the listener, so how do you know it's been enough?


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## Parsifal666 (Mar 20, 2019)

sIR dORT said:


> So what's the balance then between variating a theme and overkilling it?



There's Star Trek the Motion Picture (done _*oh*_ so right). The fact that it's SUCH a great theme doesn't hurt (not to mention there are several other knockout themes in that score that have little to do with the main musically, at least until they are wonderfully worked in later in the score) BUT....

check out Damien: Omen II where Goldsmith took the amazing, famous chorale from the first and basically pounded it into the ground (and not always in interesting variations). He never wrote this cannibalistically or as belaboriously before or since...and I've always wondered if he himself was aware of this beating-a-dead-horse anomaly in his repetoire.

But before I get too crazy, allow me to proclaim I _*love*_ Jerry's music so much, and thought Omen II was overall scary fun both as a movie and score.


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## dcoscina (Mar 20, 2019)

sIR dORT said:


> So what's the balance then between variating a theme and overkilling it? CGR made this point and I agree, but at the same time, I think you can repeat a theme several times/ways and not bore the listener, so how do you know it's been enough?


Try to not just think in terms of straight recapitulation but rather deconstruction. My composition professor from my college says said that if we were stuck, try writing the main expository section or climax and work backwards. Listening to Shostakovich's 11th Symphony these last few days, it's clear he was able to work up to his main material by teasing and hinting at the exposition. He stretched out the piece by using elements of his thematic material. Not surprising, much of his symphonies come off as tone poems even though they do adhere to symphonic structure.


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## SchnookyPants (Mar 20, 2019)

mikeh-375 said:


> Well I for one certainly enjoyed Beethoven's Wankfest in C minor the other day and as for Mahler, he must've had a strong prescription for his glasses and yet boy, what climaxes.
> Your right Jimmy I probably wouldn't sit through 30 mins of _anyone's_ noodling, but 30 mins of music written by a master?



Mike - You know your way around notes. With_out_ including your massive catalogue of commercial work, what are the times of your longest and shortest works?


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## pmcrockett (Mar 20, 2019)

To me, appropriate length is entirely relative to the piece. At seven minutes, "Hey Jude" is far too long, and at one hour, Reich's _Music for 18 Musicians_ is a bit too short.


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## Michel Simons (Mar 20, 2019)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> I don't like long pieces. It's a kind of masturbation. Nobody wants to hear that. I wouldn't expect folks to sit through +30 minutes of something I noodled out, and I most certainly wouldn't feel bad for not doing it, or perhaps struggling to do it. Even most symphonies are burdened with meandering nonsense that should have been left out for the benefit of everyone.



Now you're teling me.


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## MartinH. (Mar 20, 2019)

Parsifal666 said:


> check out Damien: Omen II where Goldsmith took the amazing, famous chorale from the first and basically pounded it into the ground (and not always in interesting variations). He never wrote this cannibalistically or as belaboriously before or since...and I've always wondered if he himself was aware of this beating-a-dead-horse anomaly in his repetoire.



Thanks for that recommendation, I'm listening to it right now and feel reminded of the Bloodborne soundtrack in some way.


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## mikeh-375 (Mar 20, 2019)

SchnookyPants said:


> Mike - You know your way around notes. With_out_ inclding your massive catalogue of commercial work, what are the times of your longest and shortest works?



Hi Boot,
Hope all is well. At the risk of being called a wanker of epic proportion, 47 mins for my first wankfe...errr... Symphony (obviously written with one hand) and perhaps 4- 5 mins for some other stuff.


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## Michel Simons (Mar 20, 2019)

mikeh-375 said:


> Hi Boot,
> Hope all is well. At the risk of being called a wanker of epic proportion, 47 mins for my first wankfe...errr... Symphony (obviously written with one hand) and perhaps 4- 5 mins for some other stuff.



The stamina....coat...door...gone...


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## mikeh-375 (Mar 20, 2019)

michelsimons said:


> The stamina....coat...door...gone...


Didn't say the symphony's any good Michel, get back in and grab a beer.


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## JMJ33101 (Mar 20, 2019)

mikeh-375 said:


> Hi Boot,
> Hope all is well. At the risk of being called a wanker of epic proportion, 47 mins for my first wankfe...errr... Symphony (obviously written with one hand) and perhaps 4- 5 mins for some other stuff.


You wrote a whole symphony?


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## mikeh-375 (Mar 20, 2019)

JMJ33101 said:


> You wrote a whole symphony?



2 actually JMJ. I am classically trained though....


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## JMJ33101 (Mar 20, 2019)

I’m starting my first one. I just finished the First movement


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## sIR dORT (Mar 20, 2019)

dcoscina said:


> Try to not just think in terms of straight recapitulation but rather deconstruction. My composition professor from my college says said that if we were stuck, try writing the main expository section or climax and work backwards. Listening to Shostakovich's 11th Symphony these last few days, it's clear he was able to work up to his main material by teasing and hinting at the exposition. He stretched out the piece by using elements of his thematic material. Not surprising, much of his symphonies come off as tone poems even though they do adhere to symphonic structure.


I like that, seems like a much smarter way to approach it. Will definitely keep that in mind as I write. In general, there have been some great answers in here, so thanks guys!


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## 5Lives (Mar 20, 2019)

Your music should be as long as it needs to be. And not a second longer.


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## creativeforge (Mar 20, 2019)

sIR dORT said:


> Should I? I think it's knowing that classical composers of the earlier eras could create compositions of much longer length that does it for me. I compose just for myself (at least for right now), and just wondered if I should try and compose longer pieces or be content with writing a two minute song as long as it has good content.



Consider this?

*Blake Ewing playlist *_(48 tracks, many under 3 min)_


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## DANIELE (Mar 21, 2019)

I'm often struggling on problems like this concerning time, quality and many other things (like you could see from some of the threads I opened). Especially because I work all day long and it is a bit difficult to have consistency on writing some solid track. I'm working on an "exercise track" from over a month doing a little every day. It is started like 3 min length and now it is something like more than 4 minutes long.
I listened to 7 minutes tracks and they never annoy me. You could do many variation on a theme or you could write some kind of exhibition of many more or less correlated themes, like a sort of "diary" as Hans Zimmer call it in his masterclass. Doing this could have many benefits on you because you find many different ideas you could re-use later and you don't fall annoyed after some time.
You should approach this more like an exercise but I think it should be very useful to overcome your limit for future tracks.
By doing something bigger should should make easier for you to do something smaller after it.
Listen to this for example:


And last but not least planning is the key, like someone already told you.
I wrote a template in excel (I'm pretty good with excel) where I split my track in section and I give each section different attributes (and even a shape), it is a very quick file to use and it is not so limiting for creativity (there aren't time costraints for example but only a length attribute). It is very useful when you came to compose.

So, to recap:

Try some kind of "diary" structure and try to expand it, you should remember not to do this indefinitely;
Plan your moves so you are not concerned about it when you wrote.
I hope it helps.

Best,

Daniele.


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## Parsifal666 (Mar 21, 2019)

You know, something I've learned over the years is: don't overthink what you're doing. When you're writing, orchestrating, arranging...there's a clearly demarcated line between editing and second-guessing.

I often start writing with inspiration: I'll get motivated by something, get an idea, and then have what I call a "splat draft" which is basically a thinly orchestrated getting-down of what I'm hearing in my head. I don't think about time, key signature...I'm not even particularly concerned with making sure all my "t"s are crossed and "i"s dotted. GI just get down what I need to, with just enough restraint to make sure my ideas are as coherent as possible,

From that point, it's almost entirely about where this new creation takes me...which means that it (the new ideas) are typically guiding me. It could end up a minute or less, stretching out into ten...

none of that matters, really. If you're confident it's good, if _*you*_ feel it's great, don't judge yourself according to other composers, rules, anything. Try to let the creation take you (I know this might sound a little hocus pocus, but it isn't. Really).

My four symphonies are at times off-puttingly dissonant, too short, too long, overly consonant, Romantic, Dodecaphonic, Baroque, cinematic, at times Wagner/Beethoven/Bruckner obsessed, other times on a Bartók roll...all because that's where the music took me.

So maybe the music doesn't lead you as I described. I guess my main point is: unless you are writing on a super tight, director-breathing-down-your-neck-with-input, highly paid schedule don't sweat the small stuff, the nitpicky crap. Some might at this point opine that the sweating occurs during the editing; however, even then never let yourself go down the rabbit hole. I think the ever estimable @Rctec has written here about sometimes it being too easy to get caught up/distracted by getting that perfect bass drum sound, a mightier low end, etc. This can obviously suck up a lot of time (though it can also be super fun ). Worry about all that after the second draft, perhaps.

Most of this is entirely about what I do, and might be completely antithetical to your own ways. Take what can help and shit-can the rest.


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## mikeh-375 (Mar 21, 2019)

Parsifal666 said:


> Y
> My four symphonies are at times off-puttingly dissonant, too short, too long, overly consonant, Romantic, Dodecaphonic, Baroque, cinematic, at times Wagner/Beethoven/Bruckner obsessed, other times on a Bartók roll...all because that's where the music took me.



4 - wow, nice Parsifal. You know the way some symphonies get names like 'The Titan' and 'The Pastoral', well from the description of your symphonies, perhaps you could call one 'The Mercurial'. I'm thinking of calling my first 'The Almost' and the 2nd, 'The Improvement'.


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## jbuhler (Mar 21, 2019)

Parsifal666 said:


> My four symphonies are at times off-puttingly dissonant, too short, too long, overly consonant, Romantic, Dodecaphonic, Baroque, cinematic, at times Wagner/Beethoven/Bruckner obsessed, other times on a Bartók roll...all because that's where the music took me.


This description is so great. I suspect I would like your music.

With longer works, my struggle is almost always figuring out whether a passage is veering off course because I've lost control or because the music knows better than I do where it needs to go. Once I've got the line of the whole piece down, editing is usually a process of simplifying and reinforcing.


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## Parsifal666 (Mar 21, 2019)

mikeh-375 said:


> 4 - wow, nice Parsifal. You know the way some symphonies get names like 'The Titan' and 'The Pastoral', well from the description of your symphonies, perhaps you could call one 'The Mercurial'. I'm thinking of calling my first 'The Almost' and the 2nd, 'The Improvement'.



I could call any of mine "The Big Suck" and be completely justified.



jbuhler said:


> This description is so great. I suspect I would like your music.
> 
> With longer works, my struggle is almost always figuring out whether a passage is veering off course because I've lost control or because the music knows better than I do where it needs to go. Once I've got the line of the whole piece down, editing is usually a process of simplifying and reinforcing.



That sounds like a really efficient way of doing things.


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## mikeh-375 (Mar 21, 2019)

Parsifal666 said:


> I could call any of mine "The Big Suck" and be completely justified.



'The Big Suck' eh! So, you've admitted to a cinema/film influence, may I enquire as to what sort of films you watch? . Sorry OP, I'll shut up now.


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## Parsifal666 (Mar 21, 2019)

mikeh-375 said:


> 'The Big Suck' eh! So, you've admitted to a cinema/film influence, may I enquire as to what sort of films you watch? . Sorry OP, I'll shut up now.



LOL!


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## BradHoyt (Mar 21, 2019)

One thing that bothers me is when a piece is 4-5 minutes long and you realize that your best and most favorite part is at the 4 minute mark. Now of course there's nothing wrong with this.  In fact, many times this is what happens when you make good decisions when writing music. It's just that most listeners have short attention spans so they never get to that part, and if they do, they're not listening...


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## Parsifal666 (Mar 21, 2019)

BradHoyt said:


> One thing that bothers me is when a piece is 4-5 minutes long and you realize that your best and most favorite part is at the 4 minute mark. Now of course there's nothing wrong with this.  In fact, many times this is what happens when you make good decisions when writing music. It's just that most listeners have short attention spans so they never get to that part, and if they do, they're not listening...



It depends on whom you're writing for; the people I aim for with my non-commissioned work ask for a lot from music. I mean, I love a good beat like anyone else, but I really demand a lot from music as a whole; I want it to be a journey of some sort and/or something I can learn from (even if it's just something about myself). I love hearing all the subtleties left by accomplished composers (the best film composers do this too, sneaking up with unbelievable adroitness with brief but exciting harmonic twists and risks, slight changes in orchestration, flirtations with Durchkomponiert, and so much more).

The people with short attention spans are the people I get _paid_ to write for, so I expect very little from them, which is tit for tat (though of course I add little twists in there all the same, couldn't live with myself as a composer if I didn't).


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## CGR (Mar 21, 2019)

I have nothing against long-form compositions, especially if there is real development and interest in the writing, arrangement & instrumentation. I just hear a fair share of tracks where an idea is lazily repeated and under-developed, and for me uninspiring to listen to, so I just switch off. Bit like having a conversation with someone who just harps on about a subject, essentially saying the same thing.


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## dzilizzi (Mar 21, 2019)

I remember years ago, there was an interview with the guys from Van Halen. They were asked why all their songs were about 3 minutes long. Their response - "We get bored easy" 

But when I got into radio, I think they liked the shorter songs because they could play more per hour and still have a lot of commercials without losing listeners. If you didn't like a song, it was over fast and you didn't have to go looking for another station to listen to. There wasn't as much competition with the classical stations, so you either just kept listening or shut off the radio and listened to a cassette or CD.


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## BradHoyt (Mar 22, 2019)

Parsifal666 said:


> It depends on whom you're writing for; the people I aim for with my non-commissioned work ask for a lot from music. I mean, I love a good beat like anyone else, but I really demand a lot from music as a whole; I want it to be a journey of some sort and/or something I can learn from (even if it's just something about myself). I love hearing all the subtleties left by accomplished composers (the best film composers do this too, sneaking up with unbelievable adroitness with brief but exciting harmonic twists and risks, slight changes in orchestration, flirtations with Durchkomponiert, and so much more).
> 
> The people with short attention spans are the people I get _paid_ to write for, so I expect very little from them, which is tit for tat (though of course I add little twists in there all the same, couldn't live with myself as a composer if I didn't).



You articulated my thoughts better than I did. I think I may have come across as a little cynical  ...and you reminded me of how grateful I am for critical listeners.


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## MattCurious (Mar 22, 2019)

The best advice I've had from pro composers, engineers and producers was, literally: "Write something you think sounds good." 

Because you have to be able to trust your own judgement at least that far. After all - anyone you ask to buy your music is being asked to share that judgement.

What that's meant for me (I write library / production music) is that I stopped thinking about length and started to think more about whether the track has said everything I wanted it to say. So some tracks are a minute, some are two, some are three.

There are still some constraints, of course. The type of music I write doesn't allow for certain types of ending, for example. But the starting point is always "something I think sounds cool".


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## muk (Mar 23, 2019)

At least for me, inventing material is the easy part. The hard part is building it into a coherent form. The longer the piece should be the harder it gets. If you want to create longer pieces, study form. How does a sonata form work? What is a rondo? Etc etc. The point of these is exactly to structure musical thoughts in a meaningful and engaging way.


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## Ledwick (Mar 23, 2019)

Studying form is great because you'll realize using previous phrases to create new phrases is actually part of certain forms of music like sonata and it will make producing longer pieces happen more naturally. 

However, if your goal is to write longer pieces, why not just add more to it the next day? Each day will replenish your creative energy and you'll be able to continue your piece. You don't have to write a song in one sitting.

Plus, consider who you're writing music for. A commercial or trailer is 1 minute. I've been listening to symphonic metal lately and each song is 10 minutes. The most popular music currently is rap and it's basically a 10 second loop. Your target audience could help you decide the length of your tracks. 

Or if you're like me and you don't care what people think because people will like anything you make if its good enough, then just write whatever makes you happy and focus on making whatever that is sound good, and people will like it.


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## mikeh-375 (Mar 23, 2019)

Definitely form, but also study phrasing and motivic development. It's a good idea to also start thinking in terms of longer (duration wise) lines - developing a feel for extended phrase/rhetoric and not getting stuck in regular, even counts of bars (unless you are in media of course).


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## DANIELE (Mar 23, 2019)

Here a snippet of a project I'm working on, this is the scheme I built to have a structure for my track as I said you before.
It is in italian, sorry, but you should understand the meaning by only watching at it.

You could see that there also a kind of graphical help under it that it is automatically generated based on some details I put in the table. The table is done in a kind of form that let me decide if I would like to fill or not some cells, if I don't know how to set some attributes for some section I live them blank.

I hope it helps.


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## bill5 (Mar 26, 2019)

sIR dORT said:


> as long as it has good content.


That sums it up. Length and quality have no direct correlation. I've heard songs good and bad from 1 to 20 or more mins. IMO going "it's too short, it 'has to' be longer" is a fool's errand. If you feel it's complete and works fine as it is, length be damned. Don't repeat (including "variations") for the sake of it.


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