Extending tunes
 

When I compose one of my tunes whatever point I get to within a day or two is usually it. Generally I don't go back and see what I could do to make a piece longer. I do have this one tune, The Stone Path, that I keep gravitating back to though and today I added another half page to it section to it. Originally I just repeated the piece to extend it. Now I will play through once and then repeat the original section to close off.

The thought to add a third section is there though. How often do you go back and extend?

Always. Otherwise it's just a noodle.

I agree. Even though something is a good page, page and a half long, it goes by too fast and leaves the listener hanging. I'm going to try for a good 3 minutes as a minimum for a tune. I don't know how that will work out, but its worth a shot.

Hey Barry,

I understand the dilemma.
Here’s my thinking.
What do you want to say?
Did you say it?
Is there more to add?

It’s a fine line between expressing
What you intend
And playing around to appease
Someone else’s idea of what
You had to say.

Mark

As often as needed.


I couldn't help myself. Sorry.

If you are talking about an instrumental, then a 'B' section might be incorporated to prevent the repetitive pattern.

If its a song with lyrics/vocals, often a first verse is repeated at the end - but it needs to make sense to do so (seldom works with a 'story song', where the first verse is the intro to the story).

It may seem counterintuitive at first, but one of the easiest ways to begin "extending " is to work backwards and pair back on more fully developed verses and choruses which you already have. Sometimes you can create intros out of this thought process, and sometimes you can really develop starting point for first verses and first choruses which make the main section sound much fuller when you get there.

this is a pretty important studio technique. Most of us hear things in there most fully realized form when we're developing them. We usually have to pull back somewhat to make a first verse/1st chorus etc.

This is often much much easier than Making something bigger which basically feels "big " already.

In my experience I've heard far many more open mic "originals" that should have been edited to be half as long as they were (even the two minute ones!). As in literature, writing music is knowing what to cull and what to keep.

You can take a short part and repeat it over and over to have a longer lasting piece and/or try to fit two or more incompatible things together. Both of those methods usually over stay their welcome.

For me, most pieces take some time and evolve as I come up with variations. But one fairly mechanical approach to developing an initial idea into a tune is just to pick a formula or structure and try to fill it in. For example, a typical pop tune might be something like:

intro, A, A, B A, C, A, B, ending

Where "A" is the "verse", B is a chorus and C is a bridge, usually shorter, and perhaps with a modulation.

So if you have a 12-bar idea, you can call that A. I may even bring up a tab program and blast in the A sections, leaving space for the others. Now your task is simpler - come up with a "B" section, could even be short. And a C. Finally an intro and ending, which can be really simple, the intro could even just be a riff that sets up the tune, the ending might be repeating the chorus (B) twice. And bam, you have a complete tune with some logical structure that's probably 3 minutes long or so.

From there, you can try to introduce variations, which may just come naturally over time as you play it.

You can also break this down further. Many songs are "call and response" style, typical of blues. There, if you have a 2 or 4 bar idea, you can play it once, then play a variation (the "response"), then play the original phrase ("call") and finally a different response. Combine that with the above structure and you can pretty easily develop a 2 or 4 bar idea into a complete song. No guarantee it will be a stunning piece of work, but you're off and running, and you can tweak from there.

Another approach is what the Celtic world does (since I think you've been focusing on that for while). There, the structure is almost always AABB, repeated as long as you like, but usually also combined into a set (medley) with other tunes. So if you have an A (8 or 12 bars), just repeat it twice, then come up with a B, often moving to the IV chord. play B twice, then repeat the whole thing as often as you want, hopefully with some variations here and there. Chain 3 tunes together, often with a tempo change (like aire, then jig, then reel), and you have a set, which can end up being 4-5 minutes without much effort. And again, within the A/B system, there are substructures. Often the 8 bar A is really a call and response combination of 4 bars, and the B section starts differently, but ends with the same last 4 bars as A. So you need surprisingly few (and short) ideas to develop a tune like this.

Hi Barry!
I usually let a tune "marinate" for quite a while. Most of the time I've got the basics, but with exploring I usually discover additional melody notes to arrive through thought, reflecting on the tune and the fact that I'm staying with it for a while to kind of hear how it "wants" to be played (pace, dynamics, phrasing stuff).
Two other thoughts: From TE, something to the effect of "say what you want to say and then get out". (para phrasing).
From listening to Joe Charter (Mau) and his style, I found that you can express some nice things with repeating aspects of the melody on the bass (4,5,6) strings. It changes things up nicely and can be effective.
Best,
Fred

A "new to me" concept I recently starting throwing into a few songs is a "pre-chorus". As opposed to just V-C, you have V-PreChorus-C. The pre-chorus is a small (4- or 8-bar) linking passage that builds up to the Chorus. A good example is Katy Perry's Firework (the "ignite the light and let it shine" section).

Good thoughts everyone, thanks!

Instrumentals are tough customers to please. Often I'll wander dynamically over the same melody to create a diversion. It's often make-or-break to do that or not, respectively, so I've become driven to vary the scope of each piece for the sake of interest, if not exploration. In doing so my instrumentals flesh out to 3+ minutes. If the vibe is fetching enough I'll leave it there. If not, snip-snip.