How To Write More Popular Instrumental Music

How To Write More Popular Instrumental Music

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Instrumental music has not been known as a very popular style in recent times. Although it is a very broad category of music, in general, you can still see that most pop music today has vocals and lyrics, and the singer is often more heralded than the instrumentalist. There are many reasons for this, and some of them do not have a lot to do with the music, but there are some characteristics of vocal pop that you can employ to make better instrumental music.

For the sake of this article, lets say that better music means more popular. It is true that the most popular music is not always the best. In fact, they may be inversely related by the looks of things sometimes, but more popular does mean more record sales and financial support for the artists, and that is always better.

In order to bring some of this popularity to your instrumental music of any kind, think about what makes pop music popular. One of the most obvious aspects is the singer and the catchy chorus lines or hooks. The simple and pleasing melodies of pop music are one of its biggest draws, and it would be easy to write this type of melody for instrumental music.

This does not mean you have to dumb down all of your instrumental lines to be more popular. Lets look at this in a jazz context. To make jazz more popular, you could focus on writing catchier, simpler melodies, but keep the improvisation over the tune complex and deep. Simple and memorable melodies with well developed improvisation are what have created some of the most popular jazz tunes of all time, such as Take Five, by Dave Brubeck’s group.

If you think about it, pop music melodies are catchy and singable by default, because they are being sung. Emulating this on instruments can be very effective, and one technique would be to sing lines as you play them on instruments. A good general rule is that if it cant be sung by a normal person, it probably will be a little too much on the complex side. Once again, this is a general rule, and does not apply to every part of a song, just enough to make a memorable chorus or something like that.

Copying more of the basic structure of pop music can also help instrumental music appeal to more people. Popular song styles are popular for a reason, they are short, simple and effective. They make great forms for pleasing music, but they also leave a lot of room for improvisation and experimentation. A simple form does not always mean a simple song, you can explore music effectively by doing it over a solid form.

Remember that there is nothing wrong with making music that is popular or well liked. While a lot of pop music these days is underdeveloped, mass produced, and oversimplified, its not any better to write dense and extremely complex or experimental music that no one is ever going to listen to. Music should convey emotional content and be pleasing on some level to hear. Look for the balance between popular and well crafted, and you will be producing instrumental music that you are proud of and that makes you some money.