The Surprising Enemy Of Good Songwriting

Is musical cleverness a double-edged sword?

Writing good songs requires a lot of practice and experience, but if you don't have that experience it can be hard to know what to practice. Fortunately, most new songwriters tend to make the same sorts of mistakes, especially if you're willing to abstract away some of the details, so today I thought I'd offer some guidance in how to handle what is, I think, one of the most common mistakes of all: Trying to get too clever. It's a really tempting trap, and all of us fall into it at one point or another in our development, but with a little attention to detail, it's really not that hard to get past. You just have to realize you're doing it first.

Huge thanks to our Elephant of the Month Club members:

Susan Jones
Jill Jones
Duck
Ron Jones
Howard Levine
Brian Etheredge
Gabi Ghita
Khristofor Saraga
Elaine Pratt
Ken Arnold
Len Lanphar
Paul Ward
Benjamin DeLillo
Love2Learn
Mitchell Fund
William (Bill) Boston
Owen Campbell-Moore
Anton Smyk
Chris Prentice
Jack Carlson
Dov Zazkis
James Treacy Bagshaw
Christopher Lucas
Hendrik Payer
Andrew Beals
Thomas Morley
Jacob Helwig
Duncan Dempsey
Patrick James Morley
Tyler Leite
Cattus_ex_Machina
David Rapoport
Braum Meakes
Derek Parnell

And thanks as well to Corvi, Henry Reich, Gene Lushtak, Eugene Bulkin, Logan Jones, Abram Thiessen, Anna Work, Oliver, Jc Bq, Adam Neely, nico, Michael Fieseler, Rick Lees, Ben LaRose, Justin Donnell, Dave Mayer, Thomás, rhandhom1, Davis Sprague, Paul Quine, Alex, Harold Gonzales, CodenaCrow, Nikolay Semyonov, Arnas, Sarah Spath, Skylar J Eckdahl, Marc Himmelberger, Chris Borland, Caroline Simpson, Daniel Gilchrist, Michael Alan Dorman, billy roberts, Elliot Burke, Alex Atanasyan, Alex Knauth, Greg Borenstein, Tim S., David Tocknell, Elias Simon, Nathan Petchell, Blake Boyd, Trevor, Michael McCormick, Lilith Dawn, Dmitry Jemerov, Ian Seymour, Charles Gaskell, Luke Rihn, Rob Holton, Elliot Jay O'Neill, Elliot Winkler, Tom Evans, Jerry D. Brown, Fabian, Ohad Lutzky, Kurtis Commanda, James A. Thornton, Benjamin Cooper, Kevin, Max Wanderman, Ken Bauso, Brian Dinger, Hape Company, Stefan Strohmaier, Adam Wurstmann, Kelsey Freese, Shadow Kat, Adam Kent, Matt Giallourakis, JH, Lee Rennie, Richard T. Anderson, Angela Flierman, Paul Grieselhuber, David Conrad, Jake Lizzio, Mark Feaver, Kevin Johnson, Brian McCue, Stephan Broek, ml cohen, Sylvain Chevalier, Darzzr, Roger Grosse, Rodrigo Roman, Francois LaPlante, Jeremy Zolner, Rowan Fox, Paper Coelacanth, Britt Ratliff, Eddie O'Rourke, Ryan, Jon Bauman, John July, Volker Wegert, Danny, Matthew Kallend, Patrick Callier, Joshua Gleitze, Chris Chapin, Emilio Assteves, Alex Keeny, Alexey Fedotov, Charles Hill, Valentin Lupachev, Joshua La Macchia, DSM, Ben in RI, Gary Butterfield, Niko Albertus, Luke Wever, Elizabeth von Teig, Steve Brand, Rene Miklas, Connor Shannon, max thomas, Jamie Price, Kennedy Morrison, Red Uncle, Todd Davidson, David Christensen, Doug Nottingham, Paul Guziewski, Scott Howarth, Barendo, Smackdab, Nicholas Wolf, Ben Phillips, Alex Larking, Greg Hodgdon, Scott Nystrom, Douglas Anderson, ZagOnEm, Robert Beach, Peter Leventis, Lamadesbois, veleum, Kevin Boyce, Blake White, Michal Mikolaj Maslowski, Phillip D Neal, Aaron Epstein, Chris Connett, Scott Frazer, Aaron Zhu Freedman, Hexa Midine, Nicholas Steicke, John Polgreen, Tuna, Mathew Wolak, Mark Sibly, Killian Hackenschmidt, T, Lincoln Mendell, Vincent Engler, Noam Fields-Meyer, Luke, h2g2guy, Kenneth Kousen, James, Skyler, W. Dennis Sorrell, Mordredd, salman karout, Carsten Lechte, Sam Rezek, Lucas Augusto, Matt McKegg, Dominic Montanez, Marcus Doyle, Beth Martyn, Caitlin Olsen, Taylor Martin, Melvin Martis, NoticeMK, Natalie Ferraro, Hubert Ulber, Hikaru Katayamma, Adeline Mueller, Sarah Sutton, Doug Lantz, Evan Satinsky, Strattara, Stephen Shephard, Anna, Brian Cohen, James Little, RaptorCat, Professor Elliot, Lake Howieson, Jozef Paffen, Larry Siden, leftaroundabout, Jigglypuffer, Jens Schäfer, Mikely Whiplash, room34, and Austin Amberg! Your support helps make 12tone even better!

Also, thanks to Jareth Arnold for proofreading the script to make sure this all makes sense hopefully!

[CAFFIENEHOUND]

"You were so preoccupied with whether or not you could, that you never considered whether or not you should."

[manta]

There is a saying that goes in the field of industrial design: "A good design is not when there is nothing to add. A good design is when there is nothing to remove." In a nutshell, focus on the desired function.

[Sweetmanthanks]

Silence is an instrument too. Never underestimate the power of simplicity.

[Bati_]

“Music, I feel, must be emotional first and intellectual second.”
- Maurice Ravel

[BBassistChrist]

I was in a composition class a couple of years back, and we were given an assignment to write a song based off of a poem about grief. About half the class ended up doing theirs in a major key and all happy sounding to subvert the expectation of it being grim because it's about grief. Needless to say, only a few of the songs actually worked. This one woman wrote a song that actually built very dramatically in tension before coming to a sudden stop where she turned her focus around to overcome the grief. Sometimes making your work memorable isn't about making it the most unique; it's about making it fit the narrative.

[akwilson]

Me not knowing any music theory: Oh this sounds kinda cool, let's put it in.

[corwin]

I’m a painter, and you remind me of a tip from a professor. He told me to stop trying to blend in a highlight—“lean into it. Tell everyone you know it’s there, and it’s SUPPOSED to be there!”

[hyalinamusic]

The best tip for songwriting I've ever heard is "do it for the song"
Don't try to show off or do something complex just for the sake of complexity.
Complex harmony and technical playing have their place, but a shredy guitar solo isn't necessarily the best in a slow acoustic ballad. And a melodic guitar solo might not be best for the brutal tech death song you're doing.
Everything has its place, so learn where that is and don't force it into somewhere it doesn't fit.

[gwgh]

12Tone: I wrote these series of arpeggios that ran all up and down the coloratura register, never repeating, getting gradually higher and more rhythmically intense throughout the section
Me, a soprano singer: ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL HER???

[anthonyholroyd]

So my grandfather is a classical violinist who played in the BBC SSO.

I remember, as a kid, playing him a melody I'd written on the piano.

I remember starting to feel a little embarrassed halfway through and apologising to him as I realised that what I'd written wasnt . . . Very . . . 'Clever' (I was put through, and passed my ABRSM grade 5 music theory at about 11 years old? My mum is also a classically trained musician so music as an academic pursuit was a big thing in my family).

He gave me some of the best advice I've ever heard.

He said, "dont apologise - write the music that sounds good - that's you're starting point. Some of the greatest pieces of music ever written started with very simple, but very beautiful ideas. Simple can be good - do more with less".

That's when I realised that writing music is a case of . . . Be clever if you want, but only if it serves, and doesnt detract from, the music.

You can be clever and end up with good music - but you have to be very careful about how you do it.

[BrunodeSouzaLino]

"If I tell you the next piece of music you're gonna create will never play on the radio, no one will listen to it, nobody will notice it would you still do it? And if the answer is anything but a clear 'yes', then you shouldn't." - Steve Vai

[neutralclef]

"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should"
- What every musician needs to hear at some point

[ofwgkta]

me, writing on my piano: every diatonic chord besides the tonic NEEDS to be at LEAST a 7/maj7/min7

me, when presenting my ideas to the group: yeah... maybe not

[kemojoaquin]

“Experienced songwriters aren’t just being clever for the fun of it...”

MF DOOM laughs maniacally

[natedogsturdikat]

Radiohead is a great example of complex theory implemented into songs without being forced. They’ll do the craziest rhythms and chords and it’s all because the song needed it

[KelnelK]

"Advanced harmonic concepts should be used sparingly"
Draws salt, the one ingredient that should be used in literally every prepared food.

[kbbl.]

"I hear you talking, but you're not saying anything" -David Byrne, Talking Heads

[rontomkins]

Deciding to use one of your own works to exemplify the mistakes one can make when arranging pieces of music instead of choosing someone else's, is an incredibly generous act of your part that speaks very highly of you. This is one of the reasons I love your channel.

Also, I love the concept of hand-drawn images matched to your voice and it always makes me wonder how you came about with that concept for your videos and how you actually execute it. I imagine you first record your voice and then play it back and pause it every now and then to make a drawing that matches each sentence while filming your hand, and then edit it. Nevertheless, it's a very cute, simple yet incredibly awesome concept.

[Khristafer]

When you talked about your hard drive last year, I didn't even think about your music. I send my condolences.

[MisterAppleEsq]

I've been thinking about this a lot lately! One example from my own endeavours: I had this really nice melody, and it was pretty simple: almost all stepwise motion and basically just straight crotchets with the odd triplet. But it was only the first 8 bars of what needed to be a 16 bar melody, so I added this whole new bit with a ton of fancy syncopations and octave leaps, and I thought it was great until I listened all the way through and realised that the second half sounded completely incoherent. So I replaced it with a barely altered repetition of the first half, and guess what? It worked better like that.