#1 worst mistake composers make

My dearest tortured composer,

Today I write to you with a story.

A story of a time in my life that was painful, agonizing, torturous.

And yet one that contains a key lesson that every composer must understand.

One that is so simple, so obvious, and yet I never hear anyone describe it in this way.

There was a period in my life where I worked for a composition and production teacher.

During this time I would sometimes listen to 100 or more pieces of music per day.

Music from amateurs, beginners, intermediates, and the rare super advanced.

This was an ear-shredding ordeal.

On some days, I wanted to take inspiration from Van Gogh and slice off my ears in a fit of rage.

And I noticed ONE mistake was present in 99% of the pieces I listened to.

It didn't matter if they were classically trained or self-taught.

It didn't matter if they had expensive equipment or were working with basic software.

It didn't matter if they'd been composing for 2 years or 20 years.

Almost all of them made this same mistake.

And years later, it nearly derailed my own film score.

The mistake?

Information overload.

Or as I've come to call it:

The Disease of More.

Here's what happens: When you're writing a piece, you get intimately familiar with every layer. You've listened to it hundreds of times. Your brain has mapped every melody, every harmony, every rhythmic pattern.

So you can process six, seven, eight things happening simultaneously.

Your brain knows exactly where to focus.

But someone hearing it for the first time?

They're drowning.

The human brain can only really consciously track 3-4 distinct musical elements simultaneously.

Push past that threshold, and listeners don't hear complexity.

They hear chaos.

They hear mud.

They hear nothing.

Let me give you a devastating example.

A producer came to me a few years ago, tearing his hair out. "The chorus isn't working," he said. "It needs more energy."

He'd been wrestling with it for 6 months.

He told me “I want this section to be really big like this…”

I asked him to play the reference. The piece he was trying to emulate.

The section he was talking about had exactly three musical elements:

That's it. Three instruments creating massive impact.

His version?

He had 8 instruments competing for space.

It sounded like a large Italian family fighting after over an inheritance after the death of a patriarch.

Eight instruments engaged in an old-country style warfare.

Nothing made sense. It definitely didn’t feel big.

No wonder it felt dead. The listener's brain had surrendered to the chaos.

This brings me to the drug-addicted grandfather from the 2006 film, Little Miss Sunshine.

And why a Lederhosen-wearing German pastor would defend his role in the film.

Francis Schaeffer, the theologian in question, wrote something in his book, Art and the Bible, that changed how I think about composition forever.

He outlined four criteria for judging any work of art:

1. Technical excellence - the skill and craftsmanship displayed

2. Validity - whether the artist is honest to themselves and their worldview

3. Intellectual content - the worldview that comes through the work

4. Integration of content and vehicle - how well the artistic medium serves the message

That fourth point is everything.

In Little Miss Sunshine, there's a grandfather who's morally reprehensible.

Kicked out of his retirement home for the use of extreme substances.

Openly reads adult magazines in front of his family.

Teaches his seven-year-old granddaughter to dance to "Super Freak."

Now, Francis Schaeffer would be morally disgusted by everything this character represents.

But here's the twist: He would absolutely defend the character's FUNCTION in the narrative.

Because from the moment this grandfather appears, you know EXACTLY who he is.

There's zero confusion about his role.

Crude grandfather. Chaotic influence. Family's black sheep.

Clear. Defined. Unmistakable.

ONE function at a time.

And when his role evolves—when he reconciles with his son, when he becomes the catalyst for family unity—that transition is deliberate.

Purposeful. Never muddy.

Spoiler alert for 2006 movie ahead:

When he dies halfway through, the family literally stuffs his corpse in their van's trunk to honor his dying wish.

Every shocking moment serves exactly one purpose.

This is what many of the great composers understood.

Schubert is a perfect example. He wrote with devastating clarity.

Listen to his Impromptu in G-flat Major. It sounds impossibly rich, like twenty things happening at once.

Look at the score.

A melody. An accompaniment. Strategic moments where harmony emerges. That's it.

Empty space wasn't wasted space. It was where the music could breathe.

It was where the listener’s mind had a chance to interpret what was going on.

So that the listening experience became pleasant instead of confusing.

Each element knows its job. Nothing fights for attention. Nothing exists "because it sounds sophisticated."

The second movement of his fourth symphony is another perfect example.

Listen with this framing in mind and see what you discover. Looking at the score in the link above is also suepr helpful

So here's the brutal question you must ask about every element in your composition:

What is its ONE function right now?

Not three functions. Not "it adds texture and supports the melody and creates atmosphere."

ONE function. In THIS moment.

Your listeners aren't counting how many layers you can stack. They're desperately trying to follow something, to feel something, to connect with something.

Give them that chance.

Stop suffocating them with your insecurity disguised as complexity.

Let your music breathe.

So many composers think they need to learn more theory.

You probably know enough theory.

You probably need to discover more about how much musical information the brain can process at any given time.

Look at scores.

Study how musical information is presented. Study the velocity that new ideas are presented.

You’ll notice it is almost always in a slow pace that is easy to process.

That’s basically it for now.

For those that are wondering, the book I’ve been working on is almost done. Going through final revisions.

More to come soon.

Until then, remember...

The world waits for your music…

-Luke

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