Here's What 9 Hours Sound Like in 3 Minutes
A 3 minute song is rarely ever just a 3 minute song. It's 9+ hours of creation to produce 3 minutes for your listening pleasure.
When you think about it, we probably wouldn't like a song that only took 3 minutes to make. We unknowingly like the 9 hours of extra care that went into shaping and forming the idea.
It's the curation of ideas that we typically enjoy rather than the idea on a whim.
Talent, practice and ideas coming together like the forming of Voltron is the 9 hour creation process that’s packed into a 3 minute song.
Imagine the process
The First 3 Hours
An idea sparks in the mind of a Creator.
The Creator captures the idea, a melody is recorded. That melody is then filled out with production.
Space is carved out for the lyrics. Sounds that crowd the music worse than the bar during Monday Night Football are taken out. Hook to verse sections are merged in a way to create movement within the track.
For the sake of easy math, let's say this took place in 3 hours.
The Second 3 Hours
The lyrics are created. Not only created but review and revised for better impact and flow.
The lyrics are practiced over the track to established the right timing and song structure.
Finally the recording process begins, with plenty of frustrated attempts to get the right take. Recording happens until a good performance is captured and/or pieced together.
The Last 3 Hours
The song is mixed to enhance impact and emotion.
Instruments are de-cluttered by way of frequency and sound spectrum. The track is balanced so that every part has clarity and it's place sitting cozy in the track. The levels are brought up to industry standard – or better said, "dumb loud".
Finally It's Shipped To You
The song is downloaded to your phone and finally reaches your ears. You take in all of the 3 minutes created for your listening pleasure.
As Seth Godin points out, this is time dilation. The hours, the days put into a piece of work is the stone being chipped away at the artist's expense so you can simply enjoy a smooth marble sculpture of a song.
That's what 9 hours sound like in a 3 minutes song.
