Spurred by a post in a different forum....

As a songwriter, it's interesting when I write a song. I have a story to tell or a message to get across so I write...and write...and write some more. I may end up with 4 verses, a prechorus and then the chorus and finally throw in a bridge as well.

I play this and love it. The problem is, the resultant composition with the intro, verses, prechorus and chorus, solo's and breaks and bridges plus the outro, often exceed the normal 3 to 4 minute (max) for songs.

face it, anything longer than 4 minutes falls into the category of too long for most purposes. (read that is not commercially viable in this world of short attention spans) No matter what your personal opinion of that issue is.

So, being a member of the Nashville song writers association, and sending some of what I think is the better songs I have written to them for the purpose of evaluation and criticisms on the music..... well let me give you one example. The Best Christmas (on my web site) started out as well over 5 minutes in length. 4 verses, PC/chorus, and a bridge plus solo) Suffice it to say that this was submitted 3 or 4 times with advice coming back that ranged from "shot down in flames" "more work to do on this" to "this is starting to shape up nicely" .

The main thing in this process was letting go of the "other" material in this song that was not needed to tell the story properly and in a timely manner. Hey, I wrote those verses for a reason.....!!! What do you mean delete them? But in the interest of the song, as they say, if you are carving a statue, you simply chisel away everything that doesn't look like the thing you are carving.... simple, right? Yeah? Try that with your baby, your song..... the song you wrote..... painstakingly crafting every line and now, you must perform major surgery on it.....

Anyway, to the point. I eliminated one verse, then the second one, and in the process, consolidated the lyrics of 2 verses into one that fit better. Then it was lose the bridge. that sounded strange at first, but now, it's not a problem.... I've gotten used to it without the so called bridge that none of the Nashville pro's liked.

So I'm left with a simple ABABB song structure with the guitar solo after the first chorus. The results from the NSAI evaluator? Good job! This is now ready to be pitched. This is an older song and I simply used it as the example for this post.

Had I stuck to my personal belief and said I will not edit this song, it would never have reached this state of readiness in the eyes of an industry pro.

The point being.... it's not what you put in the song, but more so what you leave out that makes the song what it can be.

Thoughts and comments?

You can find my music at:
www.herbhartley.com
Add nothing that adds nothing to the music.
You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.

The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.