LESS IS MORE
Intro
As an engineer, I mix many types of songs composed with different tastes. I have to admit that I love the ones that can get you vibing while keeping their simplicity! The more simple a song is, the more likely it is to stick to the listener’s head, thus it probably makes them listen more often and they could create memories with it.
Let’s say you’re listening to a song by Drake in your headphones while you’re having a trip overseas. Since then, every time you listen to that song, it will remind you of the things you experienced on that trip! So that will make you wanna listen to that more often and it may stay in your mind as long as you live. I hope you get wha’im sayin tho!!
Consider the limits!
We as human beings do certainly have limits in our abilities. When you make music, you create a product for a community. That product must fit with the standards they have. I’m not saying to limit your creativity! But I’m sayin’ don’t forget the huge factors while trying to show everybody how creative and skilled you are!
Let’s say you know many things about chord progression, multi-instrument playing, Harmonies, etc.. you somehow wanna show it on a song you’re producing. Sometimes these types of producers make very complicated tracks which include so many instruments, drums, percussions, harmonies, etc…
You probably know that the ear is very sensitive and it can easily get tired of so many sounds and noises getting played together. As you add more instruments and chords, you add more and more frequencies stacking upon each other and then when the vocal gets recorded and it’s time to mixing, the focus might get lost! I wanna listen to that beautiful guitar that’s playing but at the same time, there are piano chords hitting one after each other, a lot of strings getting played and huge pads and so on… None will be a hit to the listener’s ears as they couldn’t focus!
Put in more time on fewer things
I believe it’s better for you as a producer to spend more time on creating a super catchy melody that can entertain the listener by itself, rather than using many different ones to show that your music has a lot to say!
This also will help you to stay original as you can focus and spend more time on less unique sounds within a production. You may end up layering snare hits to create one unique snare that would sound incredible. Or instead, you can use 6 different sounding snare hits with different patterns in it…! Get wha’I’m sayin?
It’s also much easier to have fewer instruments matching up together in context. It goes the same with the vocals as well. Using too many harmonies, background vocals, ad-libs, etc.. is likely to have people to skip your heat.
The perfect is just perfect!
The sayin’ “Less is More” also can relate to quality over quantity. Working long hours and spending $1000 on a single track which has the potential to blow, is certainly better than spending $500 on a 10-track project that gets done quick.
We all want to be perfect, even though perfect may not exist but at least we can try. To me, perfect is when I enjoy and I’m satisfied. It’s like falling in love, your partner may not look as hot as Kendall Jenner but since you’re in love, she’s perfect to you!
So your goal must be making them fall in love with your music. It wouldn’t matter using 8 or one single chord in your song. Just make them enjoy and love it but to me, efficient simpliticy gives you more chance to make it…
