When is a song too long?

[heymelbs]

We did a show on Friday night, and the lead guitarist was in one of those moods where every song had to have a 5 minute guitar solo. As a bass player I get pretty bored playing the same thing for 5 minutes straight so he can have his day in the sun on every song. Any rule of thumb on this, or thoughts to share? There were a few drunk guys in the front row that were encouraging him, so I just sat and watched TV. For me personally unless it's really hot, anything over 5 minutes is too much.

[tdogg]

go listen to dream theater's "change of seasons". nuff said.

[Dave Muscato]

When the cheers slow down and the audience starts looking bored, you just passed the "too long" mark. It's different with every audience and you have to play it by ear (pun intended), which - fortunately - you can do with your eyes closed. Just tell your guitard to pay closer attention to his customers' signals.

[unclekebm]

i play in a jam band so sometimes we'll play a ten minute song, but the solos get split up between instruments. i don't agree with guitard players going off every song, sounds too much like masturbation (maybe those drunk guys in the front row like to watch other men masturbate?...

i've played with a cat who would blow his wad every song, every night, he was always in "one of those moods". we finally replaced him, it was fun the first time...but every song? every night? every week? huh uh! there was no intelligence or direction, just me, me, me, me, me look at me same thing over and over and over and...

i guess the rule of thumb would be, as long as it's interesting for the crowd (not just the drunken), the band and the song it's ok, but if you're soo bored you have to watch TV, it doesn't make you look good.

cheers

[unclekebm]

Originally Posted by tdogg

go listen to dream theater's "change of seasons". nuff said.

++
i heard they just released a box set or best of??
sorry about the side-track

[heymelbs]

I guess I always wondered why guitard was used on TalkBass, the term makes more sense now.

[Bass Mule]

I like to err on the side of safety. If you're trying to get the "perfect" length, then go a little shorter than you normally would. IMHO it's better to leave the audience wanting more than to bore them even for a minute. A bored audience is harder to recapture, and once you've lost them with one song (with extended solo), you've pretty much lost them for the rest of the night.
Save the long jam/extended solo for the encore or last song of a set.

[neurotictim]

The rest of my band is convinced that the "magic number" is 3:30... Feels like it takes that long for me to just get into the song...

I recommend Porcupine Tree's "Arriving Somewhere But Not Here" for a song that's the perfect length.

[BlackLake]

MacArthur Park - 17:33...ok
Piano Concerto #3, Rachmaninnof - 38:07...tolerable
As Slow As Possible - John Cage - 639 years...

I think we have your answer.

[Dave Muscato]

We generally keep our songs between 3:30 and 5:30, although sometimes (depending on how much time we have to fill), we will push that to 6 or 6:30. Once or twice a night, we will go to 7, 8, or 9 minutes, for a song like Voodoo Chile (one of only a few covers we play), but if we're playing a 1-hour set, all of our songs are gonna be under 5 minutes except for perhaps our closer.

[barebones]

Scientific studies have shown there is clearly a direct correlation between proper song length and the amount herb you've smoked... and...

er...

the amount the audience have smoked... and...

um...

er...

oh, I forget...

Having some short term memory issues lately for some damn reason. I dunno...

Rawk on!

Matt

[Mr_Sore_Fingerz]

set up a "too long" signal, a specific cymbal combination or something during the song to let him know it's time to stop.

Or you could just go and try to outshine him with a slap solo. My guitarist and I do that on stage intentionally and pretend to be angry at each other...it's really funny sometimes =)

[bassjus]

I'd say if you are getting bored there is a good chance that the audience is aswell.

[Nick Kay]

It's not a question of the length of the song, it's a question of the length of the boring bit (which should be precisely 2 seconds, in the pre/post song silence). Solos can get really old, really fast once you surpass the 30 second mark, especially without a key change or meter change. If the solo isn't just wanking in E Minor Pentatonic and the soloist can actually do something interesting over the course of a long solo section, then more power to 'em. If he can't, then he gets a few choice licks after the bridge and that's it.

Your songs should strive to be as lean as possible. Is the double chorus at the end actually necessary? Could that big, winding bridge be cut in half without losing the buildup? What about that salsa break, do we really need that? We have too many ideas for that section, so maybe we should cut it and recycle it into another song, or make it a recurring theme on the album. These are all very real questions that you have to ask during the course of the song.

All that being said, my favourite song right now is "Anesthetize" by Porcupine Tree, an 18-minute epic that has three different chorus sections and doesn't even feel like it's long until it starts fading out at the end and you've realized that you just missed your stop on the bus by about four blocks.

[Jobiebass]

depends on the song,
"The End" and "when the musics over" - The doors are way over 15 mins when they played live, read somewhere they used to play "when the musics over" for way over half a hour at the end of thier first gigs.

But if your on about Solos, just look at school of rock. Nuff said lol!
note: "what that thing you play, a chello? well this is a bass guitar, you turn it on its side and "Che-hello" AUGHHHHHHH!!!!!!

[Time Consumer]

I love coheed & cambria, mot of their songs are 5 to 7 minutes long, I think it all depends on how enthralling the music is. I can only listen to once dragon forces 8 min, long wack off fests for 2 minutes efore i get tired of all the really fast guitar playing(c'mon, all their doing is going up and down scales really really fast). That kinda stuff loses its flavor very fast, but done tastefully, i think long songs can be good co & ca even have a handfull of tracks around 10 min long. Tool, metallica, and rush do it well too, so i think it depends on the music.

[IanStephenson]

If you have to ask it's too long...

[Questor]

"I am the entertainer,
I come to do my show.
You've heard my latest record,
It's been on the radio.
Ah, it took me years to write it,
They were the best years of my life.
It was a beautiful song.
But it ran too long.
If you're gonna have a hit,
You gotta make it fit--
So they cut it down to 3:05."

- Billy Joel

Nuff said.

[Jimmyplaysabass]

when it loses my attention

[JordanDelap]

Until you get bored obviously