Why You Should Study Your Favorite Songs

I feel there is a lot to learn by breaking down and figuring out what makes the songs you listen to again, again, and again work. I’m going to break down three QUICK reasons why.

Studying The Mixing

Referencing a track can go a long way. You can better gauge where to place the levels in your mixing/mastering by having another track you admire and figuring out what that person did in order to get your song to sound somewhat similar. You will NEVER get it to sound exactly like another person’s mix, but you can find references to point you in the right direction. Personally, if I’m doing that, I use Tonal Balance 2.

https://www.izotope.com/en/products/tonal-balance-control-2.html (This isn’t an affiliate link; I get nothing from this lol)

It’s a worthwhile investment because the automation in it helps to tweak the song to get it more in the genre’s range. I usually put it in the master, pop in my reference track, use master assistant, and try to get a more professional-sounding mixing.

If you want a bigger breakdown, watch this video and see if it’s not worth your time

Studying The Song Structure

If you study the structure of the songs you enjoy, you can begin to find the patterns that work easiest to quickly producing your songs. I feel we typically do this a lot when we first started since the most common structure is this: intro > verse > chorus > verse 2 > chorus 2 > bridge > chorus 3 > verse 3 > outro. If you have a pattern that works, that leaves less time for you to be worrying about how to re-invent the wheel. However, you aren’t limited to just that. Find your own pattern that works for your songs from the music you enjoy and see if it works for you to produce more quickly.

Studying The Instrumentation

You can also learn a lot about how to create your own songs by finding out what instruments work in other songs. These references can give you an idea of where to add your own instruments in your song because you know what typically works well in that genre from the songs that you enjoy. However, at the same time, it leaves room for experimentation as well from this studying. I say that because if you add in one or two elements, you can create something new and interesting. Such as in my case when I had traditionally lofi sounding bass, drums, piano, and synths; but added a distorted guitar to the mix to make my beat slap as I studied enough lofi songs to know what works, but I also know my style and added it into the mix.

Overall Takeaway

You don’t have to be some music guru in order to figure out the benefits of studying your favorite songs. It can help you better understand the process, execute faster and leave you more time to be creative and actually produce once you take the time to break down what makes them good and repeat it enough times with proper feedback. I hope this was helpful to you in some way.

Cheers.