New writers often don’t realize that striking a good balance between predictability and surprise is one of the most important characteristics of a hit song.
Whilst your song should have a familiar structure so that it feels right to listeners and helps to retain their interest, it should not be too predictable. If what’s going to happen next in your song is too obvious, listeners may get bored and switch off. However, if the song is too different or too complex, they won’t feel comfortable and may still tune out.
Music publishers and A&R executives always say they’re looking for new material that is inventive and original—yet they’re often reluctant to sign songs that are to- tally unlike anything they’ve ever heard before. At the end of the day, what they really want is something that sounds different, but is still familiar enough to be played by mainstream radio stations.
That’s why your song needs to sound familiar … but not similar.
A sense of predictability in your chord progressions, melodies or rhyming patterns can be reassuring and a source of comfort for listeners. At the same time, though, your song still has to stand out from all the other music tracks that people are likely to hear on the radio or online.
The answer is to include a few surprises—such as a twist in your lyrics … an unexpected chord change or key change … or a chord change that listeners expect to hear, but don’t.
For example, dominant chords (those built on the fifth note in the scale) naturally want to move to the tonic chord (the ‘home’ note in the scale). By playing the dominant chord (e.g. G or G7 in the key of C), you can make listeners believe the ‘home’ chord (C in the key of C) is about to follow … but, instead, you can surprise the listener by deliberately moving to a completely different chord. This can help to build energy and tension in the song.
Roger Nichols, who wrote The Carpenters’ ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’ and Three Dog Night’s ‘Out In the Country’ with Paul Williams, likes to build a surprise into his bridge sections: “If you can surprise the listener then that bridge is going to stay with him longer,” he says, “and it won’t just be a point in the song when the listen- er’s ear is vamping waiting to get back to the song’s main melody.”
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