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Everyone's looking for innovation when it comes to writing
songs. Obviously, you don't want your songs to just sound like
every other song out there. You want yours to stand out. Making
a song stand out from the rest requires innovation - a new
approach. But here's the danger: if your songs are too
innovative, you'll find that listeners can get confused, or even
bored. Songs need to have something predictable about them. In
other words, if your song is too innovative, it can drive your
audience away.
Through my websites, The Essential Secrets
of Songwriting and Gary Ewer's Easy Music
Theory, I deal with this issue of innovation versus
predictability a lot. Many of my online and "real life" students
are songwriters. And getting the balance right is very important.
Innovation is not a bad thing, and many great bands and singers
have spent years building up an audience for their material by
being innovative. But for the most innovative performers out
there, the building of that audience will require a long time,
and lots of patience.
This article is for those of you who want to build audiences
quickly. It's one thing to be satisfied with taking years to
build a listenership. But I know that many of you are wanting to
get a loyal following sooner than that. You can do that by
concentrating more on predictability at first rather than
innovation.
So if you want to build an audience for your music quickly,
you'll need to think about presenting your material in a fresh,
innovative way that does not abandon tradition. The Beatles are
probably the greatest example of this. Their early music was
modeled after some very successful singers: Buddy Holly, Elvis
Presley, Chuck Berry and others. Presented in a fresh way, their
early music relied on standard song forms, with rather
traditional chord changes and melodic structures. "All My
Lovin'", "I Want to Hold Your Hand," "She Loves You," etc. Great
songs, strongly steeped in tradition, with a hint of innovation.
Once the Beatles got that audience, they began to experiment
more with innovative compositional and recording techniques. So
having built up a loyal audience, they were able to present
songs like "I Am the Walrus," "Strawberry Fields Forever," and
so on. And that loyal audience, generally speaking, hung in
there with them.
So here are some tips to consider for balancing innovation with
tradition:
1) Be sure that at least one element of your songs - either
chord progressions, melody, lyric or basic form, is traditional,
and somewhat predictable. This will help those looking for
something "safe", and will give you a solid basis to present
something innovative.
2) For the element of your song that you might consider
innovative, remember that the "further out there" it is, the
stronger the possibility that you will scare away listeners.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, because you may pick up
listeners that you wouldn't have otherwise had. Just remember
that the more innovation you use, the slower you'll build that
audience.
3) Don't be afraid to clothe complex lyrics or melody with a
traditional ABABCB type of form. Simple forms are great ways to
make sure that a listener doesn't feel lost.
And always remember to be yourself. Being innovative simply
because you want to try to sound different will not succeed. You
need to always be presenting your material in a way that is true
to the musician inside you. Being weird for weird's sake will
come across as pretentious.
Gary Ewer is the author of The Essential Secrets of Songwriting
and Gary Ewer's Easy Music Theory. He is currently an instructor
in the Dept. of Music, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova
Scotia.
About the author:
Gary Ewer is a veteran music teacher, clinician, composer and
arranger. He is most well known as the author of The Essential Secrets
of Songwriting and Gary Ewer's Easy Music
Theory
Gary has taught music to students of every age group, from
five-year-olds in elementary school, through to university-level
musicians. This enorm
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