How do musicians decide that a track should be a certain length of time? Basically, why are some songs less than 2 minutes long while others are over 5 minutes?

you gotta feel the jam, man.

it depends on whether you're a member of isis or not

I think it varies from musician to musician and from group to group. It could be influence from what you grew up listening to, or a conscious decision. Like a jam band most likely wouldn't be doing a 3 minute single, because how would you fit in all the solos? Or a punk band most likely wouldn't delve into some 17 minute free jazz odyssey.

And then you've got musicians who listen to a wide range of music, and have played in different genres...

I guess you just try and do what's right for the song, and you may change your ideas about it as time goes on, or you might be supremely secure in your decisions.

i've spent the last two days with this issue as we take my finished songs and strip them of all the excess fat or add more open spaces.

but still, i don't really have an answer beyond "what feels right"

Has a lot to do with the pieces you make the song out of, too. If it's a faster tempo, and the verse / chorus chunks aren't long or complicated, odds are you'll decide it's time to wrap things up after 3 minutes or less.

Yeah. I was just talking to my friend about this yesterday. He was telling me about his band's new album. He said "it's going to be a short one", and I immediately said "but the songs will be long, right?". I assumed that because his last album had a lot of long, epic songs on it and he also plays in another, very "post rock" band. But he said no, that while writing this time around they just happened to be more around 2-3 mins than 5-8mins. That's just how it was.

My take on it: unless you're writing for film, or in a band that insist on sticking to strict genre "requirements"---e.g. "punk rock songs have to be under 2.30mins"---then you're really just following the music. Sure there's editing to a certain extent, but if it's a good song then it will have some kind of inherent structure, some kind of "story" that's being told (even if it's not literally) that needs to play itself out.

Personally since I've been working on new stuff on my own I've found that it's all over the map: 3mins, 5mins, 7mins... the song's just over when the song's over.

I really like it when musicians don't feel the need to extend their songs to make them of "normal" length. For instance, on the new Of Montreal, the second song ("Sink the Seine") works just fine being one minute long. It's not an intermission or any of that between-track-filler stuff, it's just a nice one minute song. I like to hear short musical ideas that musicians or bands have.

Phil has answered. Close the thread.

There is no clear cut answer to the question.

- Inspiration takes the songwriter somewhere. A story is told lyrically or musically
- Collaboration with a band or other musicians moves things somwhere else and the story gets longer or shorter
- Live performance feedback influences the musician/writer to change things again
- A producer can recognize the essence of the song and urge the writer to destroy or strip the original arrangement and build it back up again into something new, again affecting the duration

Or it could be as simple as saying to yourself "that's it, I'm spent and I don't want to spend any more time on it".

Hey, Albion's back!!

You play it until it's finished.

why do you care?
dating a mormon mandolin player?