Avoid These 10 Things That Can Ruin A Song

Writing and recording a song can be a challenging task, but there are some things you should consider not doing to make sure you are setting your song up for success…not failure.

Here’s a list of ways to sabotage your next song during the writing or recording process.

1) Long intros– You don’t want to bore your audience. If they don’t like what they hear they may turn it off and not give the rest of your song a chance.  If it’s longer than 15 seconds it’s going to have to really catch their attention.

2) Making the song too difficult to perform– Make sure the key of your song jives comfortable with who is going to be singing it, and the tempo isn’t too fast for the drummer to be able to keep up with it…

3) Crappy sound– Make sure you capture a good quality sound if you want people to listen to your music

4) Song forms that lose the listener– If your strong structure is unfamiliar and confuses a lot of people, you’re going to lose your listeners.

5)  Weird breakdowns– Even if you’re bored with a song it doesn’t mean your listeners are, so don’t do anything unusual to  throw the momentum off on your song

6) Following trends too closely– Be careful of following trends too closely because by the time you actually finish your song it may no longer be what the public is in to.

7) There’s no end in sight–  Yes, it would be great to write the next Bohemiam Rhapsody, but the chances of that happening are very slim.   If your song is longer than 5 minutes you should see if there are places to cut the length of your song down.

8) Sloppiness– Make sure the quality of your recording is good.  If it’s not make sure you put in your time practicing before you record. Your listeners aren’t going to care that you were working on a tight budget, they just want the music they hear to sound great.

9) Bad lyrics– Your lyrics need to make sense. Even if you’re not writing Shakespeare, put some solid effort into your lyrics.

10) Following rules–  Some rules can serve you well (like making sure the quality of your sound is good) but other rules can be broken. Do whatever feels right for your song or your song collaborations, just know that the decisions you make with your music will have an impact on whether or not people will buy your music in the future.