Key Takeaways:
- Most musicians would love their music to resonate with others.
- The critical factor is to think outside the box.
- There are many simple ways to make your music more exciting, such as adding new instruments or surprising sounds.
Listening to music is more than a simple action or task. It is an experience, and it can change your life.
Most musicians want their music to be something more than a catchy tune. They want it to touch people’s souls and change their lives. Not everyone can accomplish this elusive task, however. There’s a trick – or, more accurately, many tricks – to it.
There are a few strategies and techniques experienced musicians employ to take their music to the next level, increase interest, and stand out from the crowd. This guide looks at what those are and which will best fit your repertoire.
How to Make Your Music More Interesting
The key to entrancing people with your music is to touch a nerve. Elicit emotion. Make a connection to a memory, personal value, or common goal in your audience. Here are eleven ways to make music more interesting:
1. Keep Things Simple and Clear
Clearly communicate what you mean to express with your music. Your song can have complex solos and intricate fills and still be clear. Concentrate on taking specific parts to perfection instead of layering many mediocre parts to make a whole song.
2. Build Enough Tension to the Highlights
You decide where the climax points in your music are and how to control the emotions you express through them. Make them stand out by building appropriate tension and expectations and gradually, with finesse, approach them. Sometimes there are several similar pivotal points in a single composition, or there may be one clear high point at some precise location within the song.
3. Reiterate the Catchy Segments
Repeating it a few times helps make it memorable when you have a great chorus. You don’t have to repeat the good parts precisely the same way every time. Gradually varying the catchy parts throughout the song can make it more interesting.
4. Add Sound Effects
Sound effects like influential speech, nature sounds, and alerting noises can elevate a piece of music surprisingly high. Use it to introduce a big chorus or set off an important verse. Use sample collections to avoid legal copyright issues.
5. Do the Unexpected
Nothing grabs people’s attention in a song like an unexpected sound or technique. Play a strand backward. Mix in a moment of silence, get a little funky, or change the whole music genre of the song midway through. Surprise your audience, and they will remember it.
6. Add Orchestration
Adding a bit of actual orchestration tends to have an enlarging effect on the song it’s joining. The grand and sweeping melodies of so many instruments can elicit strong emotions in listeners and stay in their minds for days to come.
7. Use Unanticipated Instruments
A surefire way to make your music stand out is to use an unexpected instrument or two. A hard rock band could, for example, try sampling an accordion piece or throw in a bit of cello to your sound, or, if you’re a country singer, try adding a theremin, harp, or drum machine. The possibilities are truly endless. Your creativity is the only limit.
8. Write Songs in Uncommon Time Signatures
An unconventional way to make your music more exciting is by writing it in unusual signatures. Time signatures are the numbers that show how many beats per measure and which notes get one beat.
Four-four (4/4) time is the most used music signature, meaning you’ll find four beats per measure, and the quarter notes get one beat, but you can write in 5/4, 7/8, or 13/8 time, too. Try experimenting to find what sounds best.
9. Use Different Chord Progressions
Atypical chord progressions are an effective way to make music more alluring. Popular songs typically use the I-IV-V chord progression. They start on the tonic, or I, move to the subdominant, IV, and progress to the dominant V to end.
Mix things up by using uncommon progressions, like II-V-I or I-VII-III-VI. The key is to ensure it sounds good with the melody.
10. Use Metaphors, Similes, and Personifications
Using metaphors and similes is one of the easiest ways to make your lyrics more interesting. These speech techniques use one thing to represent another and are fun to listen to.
Personification is attributing human traits and characteristics to non-human objects, such as saying your truck is sexy or the sun is smiling. Personification can be an effective solution to boring lyrics.
11. Employ Atonal Harmonies
Atonal harmonies are another effective way to perk up your music. It happens when there is no root note, or tonic, and the chords don’t resolve. It typically gives your music an unsettling or unresolved sound, which can be tantalizing for audiences. Creating atonal harmonies allows you to use any notes you like without worrying that they sound right.
The real key to memorable music is your creativity. There are no limits – if you try something you don’t like, don’t use it. There’s no risk in experimenting with your music to create your own sound.
All musicians want their sound to stand out. We all want to give someone the same incredible feelings that we experience while creating the art of music. Nothing can stop you. The only thing it takes is your imagination and determination.
Learn to Develop Your Signature Sound This Year
Creating a sound synonymous with your name and image means opening your soul and letting its content lose on the world. Contact Sloan School of Music today to talk to an expert about expanding your musical horizons.
Visit our state-of-the-art facilities in Hagerstown or Urbana to find ways to make music more interesting, pick out an instrument, take lessons, and enjoy performances from a wide range of skilled musicians and teachers.
