Little Things Mean A Lot
When you listen to a song, you
probably notice that the music contains certain phrases or ideas which repeat themselves
throughout the song. We call these musical phrases motifs or themes. They
may be as short as a few notes (like the first four notes of "America the
Beautiful") or several measures in length. A motif may be melodic, rhythmic,
harmonic, or a combination of these. But every time you hear the motif in the song, it
registers in your brain as something you've heard before and that makes the song
easier to remember.
One problem you face as a
songwriter is constantly striving to achieve the perfect balance between repetition and
change. Too much repetition and the music becomes boring. Too little repetition and the
music isn’t easily remembered. A songwriting trick often employed by composers to
help achieve this balance is called "variation." A variation is simply a
subtle change in the motif when repeating it. The variation may be a change of only one or
two notes but it is a very important change. Let’s look at how variation works in a
hit song.
Songwriter Hall of Fame
nominees, Billy Edd Wheeler and Roger Bowling wrote the Kenny Rogers classic, "
Coward Of The County." I recently spoke with Billy Edd about his use of variation and
he said he likes to make subtle changes to the melody because it helps to keep it
interesting and less predictable. Here’s the four-measure chorus motif:
Example
1a:
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By itself, the above four
measures do not make up a motif. It becomes a motif or musical theme when repeated either
in whole or part of its original form. Watch what happens a little later in the chorus:
Example 1b:
From "Coward
Of The County" © 1978 Sleepy Hollow Music/Roger Bowling Music. Used by permission. |
These four measures are
essentially a repeat of the first four measures, establishing it as a musical motif. Here
the melody and rhythms are essentially the same as the first four measures. However, there
are several songwriting variations that take place. Notice the additional notes at the
start of the motif in example 1b. Two syllables ( "It won’t") replace the
one syllable ( "Prom"). In the second measure there is a slight rhythmic
variation between "…if you turn…" and "…not to
do…". There’s also a melodic variation in the third measure of the motif.
In example 1b, the melody dips down to the note F before approaching the note G, whereas
in example 1a, the note G is approached from above by the note A.
This is a great example of repetition
with variation, making the chorus to "Coward Of The County" both memorable and
interesting.
Remember, little changes can add
a lot musically to your song.
 Hope to see you
on the charts.
Danny
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