Arrangement and Energy
Ask ten beginning producers why their chorus does not hit and nine start working on the chorus. They add a layer, double the guitar, push the fader. It does not help, because the problem is almost never in the section that fails to land.
- 7 controls
- one at a time
- removal beats addition
Where you run into this
- Production
- Arranging
- Songwriting
- Dance
In short
There is a persistent idea that exciting music needs exciting chords: that a chorus gets big from a surprising turn, or that a song sounds flat because the progression is too simple. In practice that is rarely where it goes wrong. Energy comes from the arrangement, and the harmony is usually innocent.
The moment you strip the bar before the chorus and the chorus doubles in size, the whole subject becomes obvious.
How it works
The arrangement has a limited number of controls: number of layers, register, rhythmic density, the bass, timbre, stereo width and space. They are not equally strong, and the strongest single gesture available is what the bass does. Turn one at a time, or you will never learn what each does.
Where you run into this
- A chorus that gets bigger because the pre-chorus got smaller
- A last verse with the drums removed
- A drop that works because everything stopped for one bar
In practice
Strip before the climax. The most reliable trick in the book is to take almost everything out for one or two bars before the biggest section, because contrast is relative and you can only make something feel large by making its neighbour small.