Contrast: Is Your Song Engaging Enough?

We’ve all been there when we’ve written a straight up boring song. You spent the last two hours of your free time trying to come up with the next big thing to represent something that really matters to you, just have it end up falling flat when you play it back. Have you ever considered why it’s boring? There’s just one word to sum it up: contrast.

---

What’s the Yin without the Yang?

What’s light without the dark?

What’s an oreo without the stuffing?

The thing that makes these objects/ideas interesting and engaging is their counterparts. If I show you a black circle, nothing’s really interesting about it.

When I just fill half of the circle with white, watch what happens:

Suddenly it’s much more interesting right? (I'm being serious haha)

Why is the left side white? Why is half of it filled in? What does it mean?

So many questions pop up from simply making one change. Suddenly you pay much more attention to the second circle, and less focus on the fully black circle.

The same can apply to your songwriting.

You can pick any part of what goes into a song and apply this contrast philosophy to it; I’ll pick out 5 of the big ones I focus on.

• Rhythmic vs melodic

• Low Notes vs High Notes

• High Energy vs Low Energy

• Warm vs Bright Tone

• Center vs Wide

---

Contrast In Rhythmic VS Melodic Parts

Every single song has rhythmic parts, like hi-hat hits, and longer drawn out parts, like organ whole note chords or drum crash hits. This allows for multiple instruments to be playing at the same time without interfering with each other (assuming they aren’t in the same frequency range or note range, which I’ll get into next!).

Too many rhythmic elements can be all over the place and confuse the listener/have no sense of unity, and too many drawn out notes/instruments can run the risk of all blending together and make picking out different instruments harder to do. If you have a synth part playing out over multiple measures/beats as well as strings doing the same, it simply muddies up the mix!

There are a few exceptions to this; in recording, it’s pretty common to record the same exact part twice to thicken the sound of said track; in this case, it strengthens the part and can make it stand above the rest in the mix. This is most commonly done with rock guitars.

One other exception is when writing string parts, the strings can sort of act as one instrument in context of the whole song; so the cellos blend with the violins, basses, etc. Having them play together can make for a sound much more different than if they played by themselves, and when played together they can act like this wall of sound as if it were just one instrument.

So, if you’ve got jungle drums going with shakers, hi-hats, timbales, acoustic guitars, and rhythmic piano hits, try adding something drawn out like an organ playing whole notes or change that piano part to something a little less percussive! The song will start to come together a little better that way :)

Contrast In Range (Low Notes VS High Notes)

Not all instruments are the same; and good thing! What makes a bass different from a guitar is the range of notes it can play, and where most of the notes they play live.

Mixing up the notes to fill the spectrum of audible frequencies will make for a fuller, more defined/clear sound, without having to fight itself for space. Songs really are like a puzzle, look for the places a range of notes are missing and try to fill them in; it’ll help out the mix a ton when you hand it off to get mixed! Since everything already plays nicely with each other, much less is needed to clean things up.

Notes in the similar range can clash with each other, so try to pay attention to this; you may have to see what your bandmates are doing, and work around them. The most notable time this happens is when the piano player is playing a lot on their left hand (bass notes) when there's already a bass player filling in that part of the sound.

Contrast In Energy (High Energy VS Low Energy)

Ever come across a song that just wears you out after one or two listens? It might be because throughout the entire song, the energy is always at a high point. On the contrary, how about a song that makes you tired or bored? This could be that the energy is low throughout the entire song with no real payoff from a high energy section!

Mixing up the energy between sections can really make a song more interesting and engaging. To raise the energy, you can add instruments to a section and take them away in the next, play louder/harder, or double up on some parts. A little trick to make a section sound bigger is to make the preceding section much lower energy by stripping it down!

Contrast In Tone (Warm VS Bright)

Similar to note ranges, tone can have contrast as well. If you have all “warm” sounding instruments, there’s a whole untapped frequency range you’re missing in the high end that you could use to fill out the sound. A little trick when tracking guitars twice to thicken the sound as mentioned above, is to use a different pickup on the same guitar because it has a different tone. The difference in tone really separates the two, so when panned on either side, they sound huge!

Contrast In Panning (Center VS Wide)

I know artists may not be thinking about the engineering side of their song, but thinking about where each instrument will sit can be beneficial. A way to increase the energy of a song is to open up the song on the sides!

If your verse is mostly down the center, having guitars or other instruments introduce themselves on the sides can make the section sound MUCH bigger than if they were just down the middle. So when writing parts that make sense to move to the sides, try it out!

---

Hopefully this gets you thinking about ways you can add contrast to your songs; this philosophy can be applied to pretty much every element of a song! Let me know what you personally do to give your songs contrast!

-Michael