Do you time your songs?

[Marshal]

This came up on another forum. There was recently a story on NPR about a Calgary radio station that is editing all the songs they play into a shorter (1:30 to 2:OO) format. here's the story

 

http://www.npr.org/2014/08/07/338606...songs-abridged

 

Here's a comment I made on the ensuing thread:

 

As an aside. Many of my local songwriter friends could use some shortening techniques in their songs. I often hear 5+ minute diatribes that just go on way too long. There might be (usually) some interesting stuff in there. But it just gets beaten to death some times. And if I comment in a song-critique circle about the length of a song, I just get sour looks or blank stares. I asked once if anyone times their songs when they are writing them. No one did. They all thought it was an awful concept. But I always time mine. My feeling is I'd rather leave the listener wanting more, instead of thinking "When is this going to end."

 

I know from past radio history, many songs that are all-time favorites are really edited down versions of the album cut to fit the radio format of the day.

 

 

But, the 3+ minute song is about the right length. At least for my generation. For the younger gen, it's probably shorter. But as Russell points out, a lot of new pop songs have been dumbed-down already to the point where there won't be anything missed with the shorter cut.

[rsadasiv]

The first two verses of Like A Rolling Stone are quite enough for me. Who needs the rest?

[rhino55]

I write until they're done. Sometimes that means 5+ other times that means under 2. Playing in front of an audience is a great tool for judging if a song is too long.

 

[mbfrancis]

The farther past 4 minutes I go the more compelling the reason has to be, especially in pop. Usually I can cut a section or a repeated instrumental.

[bee3]

I'm always conscious of the length, but have trouble keeping them under 4 minutes. When I do, I rejoice.

[nat whilk II]

Being a musician is not exactly the same thing as being a songwriter. The musician in me always wants to play a bunch of stuff, both vertically and horizontally. My inner songwriter has to tell the musician in me who is boss or else all the songs would be either long or too long.

 

nat whilk ii

 

[Oswlek]

I never bothered with time until a few years ago, but I'm conscious of it now. If I see that I'm going much beyond 4 minutes I will comb through the song to be sure that I'm married to every second.

[LCK]

I try to avoid going over the 5 minute mark, but that's usually only with ballads. (Yes, I do occasionally write stuff other than ballads...)

[Lee Knight]

When I first started writing, beside being genuinely inspired for the right reasons I think, I was very, very analytical of music I loved. Yeah well I guess that still true. I would count bars, count seconds, measure proportions of sections within the structure, anything to better internalize what I liked about a piece of music. Not to copy, per se, but as a guidepost to see when I might be going astray and getting too self-indulgent for my own good. Or boring for my own good.

 

The last few songs I've written here and presented have been part of an experiment as well I guess. To at least entertain cutting by half every single idea I put forth. Not to arbitrarily chop an idea but to see if it could speak better in the short perhaps being balanced with longer phrases I choose not to cut. To at least try and see in every instance.

 

The days of me counting the clock per section, 'got to get that hook in 30 seconds', etc. were less fruitful I think. A good lesson to learn but not really a guideline to follow strictly.

 

Of course I am always acutely aware of my running time section to section due to the nature of the timeline in ProTools. But I find that really fine-tuning the flow of the song by being willing to pare back or extend for the sake of getting the piece to flow and build and release and do all those wonderful things, is way more effective in creating a piece that I and others seem to enjoy more.

 

Ravenhurst Road, the tune I'm working on with Phil, clocks in at 4 1/2. Funny enough I hear sections I want to pare back and sections I want to extend that ultimately probably won't affect the overall running time but will affect the enjoyment, arc, and balance of the song. 2 1/2 minutes versus 4 1/2 really won't make that 2 1/2 minutes any more enjoyable if the thing doesn't work internally. My 2 1/2 cents.

[oldgitplayer]

We tend to limit pop songs to 3 mins, but there are heaps of big 60's hits that clocked in at 2 min.

2 minutes can do the job if you want it to.

[Marshal]

One of the first things i do when I come up with and A pattern is time it. And when i come up with a B pattern (be it chorus, bridge, or stand alone) I time it. Then I figure some combinations; AABAB, ABAB, AABA (the 6th week song pattern), or other and add them up. I want to hit somewhere around 3:O0 With filler tween verses and such, or an occasional instrumental, i get over 3:O0 easily. if the total hits th 4:O0 mark, then I need to seriously consider paring something out.

 

You see i rarely start with lyrics. I will usually have an opening line or two. And a direction for the song. And I'll generally know where i want to go. But the middle is clipped or expanded to fit the decided musical format.

 

Of course there are problems with this approach. More often than I like, I paint myself into a corner and have to throw a lot of action into a middle bridge or something to properly set up the concluding emotion. But on some level that can be liberating. It makes me be economical with the story. Most often the song is really about the difference between the before-and-after of an event, anyway, rather than the actual event.

[Stephen Quinn]

I don't pay too much attention to the length of a piece, if its under 4 minutes or longer than 8 minutes, as long as it feels and flows naturally then I feel it works. The purpose of the song/composition can often determine its duration. If a song is meant to tell a story it may grow to epic proportion if necessary.

[rsadasiv]

Units of entertainment time have changed radically in the past 10 years. On the low end twitter, vine and facebook require that you make your point in ~10s. On the high end, netflix bingers will consume an entire season of a series in 4-5 hour chunks.

 

3:30 is just a number. Most jazz standards will clock in under 2 minutes if you don't add any solos.

[blue2blue]

I'm a words and story guy. Some songs need to be long and some work against all odds because of compelling elements. But a lot of songs that just wind on and on have too much lyrical repetition; everyone loves a good chorus -- but there's a limit. If a song starts feeling long -- and plenty do -- I'd start looking at cutting extra choruses. Instead of VC VC VC VC B VC VCCC or the like, I'd be thinking of something like VVC VVC B VCC.

[LeonardScaper]

Interesting sidebar......I just came back from vacationing at a huge resort in Mexico (East Coast) that was built on the very same site as a tiny little eclectic getaway that I visited 25 years ago. I also visited the precursor 15 years ago and, knowing that I would never see it again, I wrote a song when I got back called "(Can't Go) Back to Kai Luum".

 

Having spent the last week in luxury that really will never replace the original, I thought to dig that 15 year old song out and re-write it. I found it on the last page of my SC site and listened.....it is over 7 minutes long. No way I'm re-writing it. It just...works....kind of anthemic in nature.

 

These days I never time my songs but everything seems to fall naturally right around 3:30. Not sure that I like that fact......

 

*wave*