4 Arrangement Tips and Tricks to Bring Your Tracks to Life

So you’ve mastered chord progressions, perfected your melodies and lyrics just seem to flow off the tip of your pen, yet, your songwriting still feels like it’s missing something.

While it’s true that chords, melodies, and lyrics are hugely important when it comes to creating great songs, one equally vital aspect that tends to get overlooked is the way you arrange your tracks.

Now, arrangement in music can mean several things, however, I like to think of it in three different ways:

Structural - How your order the different sections of your song
Instrumental - How you bring instruments in and out of your song
Spacial - Where you position each instrument within the frequency spectrum

In this article, we’re going to show you 4 fantastic arrangement tips and tricks. Each will fall under at least one of the arrangement types listed above and all of them will help bring your tracks to life and achieve a higher level of professionalism.

Start With The Chorus (Structural)

Getting the beginning of your song right is crucial in terms of keeping the listener's attention. Unfortunately, attention spans are a lot shorter these days and if the listener is not immediately hooked, well, then they’ll move on to one of the other millions upon millions of songs they could be listening to on Spotify.

Though it might seem a good idea to start with an evolving and intricate intro section, sometimes the best thing to do is to start with a bang, and what better way than starting with the chorus.

New kid on the block Jack Harlow does this with his track ‘First Class’, K-Pop sensation BTS did it with their hit ‘Dynamite’ and Aerosmith did it in pretty much all their best tracks. Skip to 2:02 in this video to hear Dave Grohl speaking about this exact thing.

Although Dave’s clearly being a little tongue-in-cheek, there’s no denying that this technique has worked in many hit songs. We can trace it back to hit songs from the 60s, like ‘Help’ by The Beatles and ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’ by The Foundations. This structural arrangement technique clearly packs a punch and it’s an easy way to instantly grab your listener's attention. So remember, “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus!”

If, however, you want the effect of starting with the chorus but would prefer it to be a little more subtle, then another thing you can do is start with the instrumental of the chorus. Harry Styles did this with his recent hit ‘As It Was’ and Abba did it in ‘Dancing Queen’, and I think we can all agree that it works pretty well in ‘Dancing Queen’.

We’ve mentioned a few tracks that use this technique, but if you want to find out some others that do it, check out this list on Songfacts.

2. Save The Bass (Instrumental + Spacial)

This next tip is mostly an instrumental arrangement one, but it does fall into the spacial category as well. By ‘save the bass’ I simply mean don’t have any low end in your track until a moment where you want to have a big impact.

So, begin with just the mid-high range and then bring the low end in during the first pre-chorus, or even as late as the chorus. When you bring that low end in it’s going to have a massive effect on the energy of your track and instantly make an impression on your listener.

If you immediately start with the entire frequency spectrum covered then the width and fullness of your track have nothing to build towards. This is what can leave your tracks sounding lifeless and dull, and that’s the last thing you want.

Take a listen to the song ‘Happier Than Ever’ by Billie Eilish. This track is pretty much two songs in one, with the first half just having a solo vocal and an acoustic guitar, and it’s not until the second half of the song that we first hear some low end at 2:45. Even then, the bass is subtle and it properly kicks in at 3:03! The effect is so powerful and it works incredibly well.

For another example, check out ‘Retrograde’ by James Blake. There’s a kick drum for the majority of the first half of this track but the bass, along with a synth, comes in at 1:44. It sounds amazing and brings so much more vibrance to the track, but it only works this well because of the contrast it creates with the previous section.

We’ve focussed specifically on the bass for this tip, as we feel that it’s in the low end where this method is most effective, however, it can be applied to any instrument and anywhere on the frequency range. When you’re next working on a song, try muting a track, let the song play, and then unmute it at specific moments to see the effect it has.

You’ll likely find that bringing some elements in later on gives life and excitement to your music.

3. Add, Add…Subtract! (Instrumental)

One thing that newer songwriters tend to forget is that subtracting parts from your arrangement is just as effective as adding parts. Usually, a songwriter has learnt that they need to develop their tracks so they add and add and add, then once every instrument is playing they keep it like that for the remainder of their song.

Doing this makes your music static and it undermines all the good work you’ve done in building your track. Music needs to ebb and flow to stay interesting and our arrangements must reflect this.

In tip number 2 I spoke about the effectiveness of bringing in your low end later on in your track, yet the effect is just as strong when you remove the element too. Think how many songs remove the bass during the middle 8 or, sometimes, even the first chorus. If you haven’t noticed this trick before you definitely will now.

Another benefit of removing elements is that we get the opportunity to bring them back in again later on. Imagine you take out the low end and some other parts during the middle 8 of your song, and then bring it all back in with a bang for a huge-sounding final chorus. It’s all about contrast and making sure the energy and dynamic level of your track fluctuates.

Listen to the track ‘So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings’ by Caroline Polachek and pay special attention to the way elements come in and out of the track. Particularly, the beginning of the first and second chorus, where we go from a fuller arrangement in the verse to just vocals, bass, and a synth. The arrangement of this track is well thought out as it keeps things interesting and holds your attention, all while consisting of only three different chords.

So, next time you're working on a new song, don’t forget to subtract elements to keep the music flowing and engrossing for the listener.

4. Double The 2nd Pre-Chorus (Structural)

This final tip is quite specific and is more of a personal preference, however, I think it works really well and can’t help but grin each time I hear it done in a song. It’s very simple, all you have to do is make your 2nd pre-chorus twice as long as the first.

This achieves two things. First, it subverts the listener's expectations, and secondly, it holds the tension just a little longer before you reach the chorus. It’s more common for the first pre-chorus to be twice as long as the second, so doing it the other way around will surprise your listener. If, for example, your first pre-chorus is only 8 bars then the listener is likely to think that the next pre-chorus will be the same length, as they generally have a good feel for what is a typical song structure. So when that second one comes around, the change in length will defy their expectations in a good way.

Two tracks always come to mind when I think of this technique. The first is ‘Baby’ by Clean Bandit (feat. Marina & Luis Fonsi), where the double pre-chorus happens at 2:15, and the second is ‘Save Your Tears’ by The Weeknd and Ariana Grande, where it happens at 1:58. I love how, in both tracks, the extended pre-chorus builds up more tension and makes the chorus have a much bigger pay-off when we finally arrive there.

For your future tracks, have a go at trying less conventional song structures like this. It can be the 2nd pre-chorus or any section of your song (halving the length of your first chorus is another one that works well). Try some out and see how it affects the momentum and tension of your tracks.

So those are 4 arrangement tips you can use to bring life and interest to your tracks. I hope you found them insightful and that you find a use for them in your music!