I’ve been trying to improve my music composition, so I think a separate post-mortem for music is in order. Plus, hopefully someone else can learn a bit on writing music, or something.

In my experience, the key factor in composing good music is managing contour. You can think of contour as the overall arch of the music – high when the music is loud, rhythmic, or dynamic; and low when the music is more static and predictable. The sections of low contour set expectations that can be pushed or broken in the sections of high contour.

Think of the structure of a typical pop, rock, or house song: Verse – Chorus – Verse – Chorus – Bridge – Chorus. The verses tend to be less memorable musically, but they also help make the chorus more interesting, and the repetition of them both make the bridge even more interesting.

I notice this as the primary shortcoming of my music in Seven Lightyears. With the constant percussion and relatively equal balance of instruments throughout, I think I flattened out the contour too much.

Compare to what probably unconsciously motivated my music (it’s even in the same key!): Phoenix Wright’s Theme from Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Notice how the music dies off a bit after the first “chorus” and later has a change in instrumentation to create more interesting contour, and the chorus itself is 6 measures instead of 8, which makes it more exciting.