How I know when a song is finished.

Neon Notes — Week [4]

Knowing when a song is finished isn’t something that is absolute. Is a piece of art ever truly finished? Finished, to me, probably has a different meaning for you, so let’s look at how I know when a song is finished.

When I began this music journey in early January 2023, I had no idea where it was going to take me. I thought it was just going to be something I would do to pass the time when I was bored. That was not the case at all. Within an hour or two of messing around with Ableton, I was all in.

I spent the next several hours with my DAW open, watching YouTube videos on music production, and just learning everything about it. I “finished” my first song, which I called “Synthia,” on January 16, 2023.

At that time, I didn’t know if a song was finished. I just knew that I had no more to put into the song with my limited knowledge. So, with my limitations, I decided to give myself a two-week deadline for every song. This forced me to make deliberate decisions, and if I didn’t like something about the song when the deadline was up, I just made sure to fix that problem in the next song.

Fast forward to the present.

More knowledge, more confidence, more discipline. These things can only improve by doing, by pushing yourself, by showing up consistently. My workflow is faster, my sound design is streamlined, my decisions are deliberate. I still go into a new project with almost no idea what it’s going to be, but two things are for sure: it will have a retro sound, and it will have a lot of synths in it. Now I spend more time crafting the finished song instead of crafting the ingredients that make the song.

I hear a lot of talk about not being able to finish songs, and that’s totally understandable. Knowing when my song is done is not some clear-cut line in the sand; it’s more of a feeling. After all the hours put into my song, I could tweak it forever, trying to make every detail absolutely perfect, but I have to keep moving forward. So, when I think I’m close to finishing a song, I’ll put it on loop and listen to it over and over. If I let it loop and I don’t have the overpowering urge to change something, that’s the moment I know it’s done.

Someone once told me that their favorite part of creating music is when a song is done. For me, the song I’m working on at the time is my favorite song, so finishing a song is a bittersweet moment, because I can’t work on my favorite song anymore, but I also get to start my next favorite song.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If any part of it resonated with you, I’m always happy to hear your thoughts. Whether you’re making music or something completely different, I hope you keep following whatever feels honest to you.

This post is part of my weekly Neon Notes series. Look for new posts every Wednesday.