Does Music Length Really Matter?

[cacdemarco]

It's very important. With the internet giving us everything at a click of a finger, we've given ourselves the worst attention spans in history no doubt. Book chapters are becoming shorter, action scenes quicker, and music needs to hook people within 7 seconds. Beyond that, 2-3minutes is what the average non-fan who's casually listening to your music probably has to spare. A die-hard fan who buys merch will stick around for a song any length.

[Katelyn]

yes, does length really matter?

i make music but most time my track just end up from 2-3 mins,lazy? no! i invest very carefully on compostion with rich melodies.....but still end up so short, i use twist solution and loop...... but i don't like to loop too much, i don't like repetitive too

but wow,i see other guys who usually make his tracks up 4-5 mins, and even 7-8 mins...that's crazy! but still attractive!

i make music but most time my track just end up from 2-3 mins,lazy? no! i invest very carefully on compostion with rich melodies.....but still end up so short, i use twist solution and loop...... but i don't like to loop too much, i don't like repetitive too

guess it depends on the genre - the majority of The Beatles songs are under 3 min

http://biostat.mc.vanderbilt.edu/wiki/p ... Poster.pdf

I think the importance of the technology (from vinyl to cassetes) is really understated to how it influenced how songs were written and mixed, including the length.

I don't normally have any issues getting a song to about 5 minutes, and can easily get some songs to be 7+ minutes. It's all about the pacing. But my melodies tend to be four bars, sometimes 2. Both of these lengths don't seem to vary across tempo. But anyways normally I have the same melody play 2 OR 4 times before any major change. I find that spicing up the percussion and giving proper cues for those percussion changes is what really keeps the track going if you decide to loop the melody.

I kind of think you should "loop" the melody to some degree if your not doing a medley, at least if it's a pleasing one and what people will remember most about most tracks.

But by "loop" I don't mean copying the entire section with no changes. No, you can make variations in what the instruments are doing or adding different kinds of flourishes or other things to make each rendition of it a bit' different.

This is actually a pretty useful way to add cues for what's going to happen in the next section. A lot of music relies on foreshadowing what's going to happen and it's been scientifically proven that when a listener successfully predicts what's going to happen it releases a lot of 'feel good chemicals'. It also helps it transition more smoothly so that upcoming parts are not too much of a surprise.

So again I think you should use repetition to give some 'space' (rather time) to build up to the introduction of new elements in the song.

In older eras music was a bit' longer, generally speaking (it was also less sound-bitey) before the rise of recording technology if I understand correctly. It was only when technology developed that limited the time that really short music around 3 minutes became more "standard". Before the technology moved on enough often extended mixes could as simple as just relaying the entire song on vinyl. But to where we are now, there isn't any reason to have shorter tracks other than taste.

And because apparently we lost our attention span at some point in the last century.

[emcee]

A death metal band whose name escapes me famously released a track that was less than 5 seconds long.

That may be Napalm Death and a track called "You Suffer" which goes for 2 seconds..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybGOT4d2Hs8