Photo by Sanvean.
When you’re learning how things are made, it’s easy to get caught up in reverse engineering.
A songwriting book can tell you:
- The chorus should start on a note that is higher than the last note of the verse, preferably a major third above it.
- Your song title should be no more than seven syllables in length, and should appear in the chorus.
- The first chorus should occur within 30 seconds.
These are aspects of musical architecture. Tools for the construction process. But they don’t tell you why the house was built on the edge of a waterfall.
Sure, you can replace the heart of music, inspiration, with a mathematical formula. Get out your ruler and copy the patterns. You’ll fool a lot of people. (It worked for Rivers Cuomo.)
But without that Eureka Moment, all you’ve got is a Frankenstein Monster. It’s not actually alive.
Those who think they can outsmart the system will make post-modern, ironic arguments for the validity of disposable pop trash. What they won’t admit to themselves is that they still can’t pull it off themselves.
Unimaginative pot-boilers want the magic so badly, that they forget it’s something that just happens.
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