Too long? Please help (Structure only)

[LucienLew5190]

I'd put the time around 3 min 34 sec you'll know which parts to remove also when it's complete when it gets close to the time
Have fun
Lucien

[Casey H]

Great general advice, Casey, although it's hard to tell without hearing the actual song.

Very true... I prefaced my advice with:

Hard to tell without hearing and knowing the tempo and genre but...

Casey's 2 rules of songwriting:

... (1) Follow all the "rules" of songwriting.

... (2) A KILLER hook overrides rule #1.

Best,
Casey

[mikemichnya]

I saw that preface, Casey, I was actually agreeing with you there. As for

Casey's 2 rules of songwriting:

... (1) Follow all the "rules" of songwriting.

... (2) A KILLER hook overrides rule #1.

Absolutely!

[LoBellver]

After working on the song the last chorus seemed excessive so after the solo there are only 2 choruses.
I wanted it to fade out, regardless of Casey's advice, but then this cool thing happened:

I set all MIDI tracks to fade out, but for some unknown reason, the pad and strings track doesn't fade out, despite having the fade out set exactly as the rest of the tracks.
So I take a listen without knowing that fadeout didn't work, and I get the song with the fade out I desired AND with the sudden ending Casey's suggested and BAMMMMMM! I just got a better ending that the one I had in mind.

The solo won't work being half of what it is, 8 bar solos sound way too short for my taste. The bridge also sounds well at its current length. The song is now roughly 3:22

I said "ballad" but I'm probably wrong, I know very little about labels and classifications.

A similar song in tempo and, let's say, genre, would be this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4RjJKxsamQ

Again, thanks again to you all for your advices, they're helping a lot.

[LoBellver]

I just restored the chorus I erased, because the fadeout didn't work well that soon, so now it's three choruses after the solo yet the third one is the one fadingout and works better IMO, it changes so much that although it's a chorus works as an ending, like a different section, as a sort of epilogue. The song is now 3:37 and I think it works awesome now.

[LoBellver]

Here's the song:

https://youtu.be/nuh6nyRciss

[Casey H]

Hi Lo
Listened. Nice vocal and some cool stuff in there. The issue for me with this song is there is much too little differentiation between verse and chorus. I had to go back a few times to figure out what the chorus was. Granted, I'm on laptop speakers but it's still a problem for pitching the song commercially. My ear got quickly tired of the same musical repetition over and over. I will go back and re-listen on headphones later.

Keep in mind that to compete commercially (e.g. publishers, music libraries, placements) the people who listen have zero patience and are looking for specific attributes. They want to hear a great chorus that stands out in under a minute. If they aren't sure what the chorus is, as I was, they will just click to the next song.

Be back.

Casey

[LoBellver]

What would you add in the choruses?

[Casey H]

The recording quality isn't great, having trouble making out the lyrics at times.

Is your chorus very short (around 00:47 - 1:01 for example)? I think it's that short section that ends with the title, "What's Left". After "What's Left" I think you quickly return to verse. I wasn't sure if I was still in chorus or not. The chorus is too short for one thing. Ending on the phrase "what's left" is challenging too. It's not the best phrase singing-wise to end a line with.

First it's a songwriting issue before production is even considered.

You have some good melodic elements and the potential for a really good hook but IMHO you should re-work the songwriting so you could have a stand-out chorus. If your question, "what would you add to the choruses?" is how to fix this with pure production, I'd say you can't.

Can you post the lyrics and label the sections?

Casey

[LoBellver]

Verses are 16 bars and chorus 8 bars, how can the chorus be too short?