I recently revised a song I’d written years ago. I was happy with it in general, but it kind of dragged, and I didn’t know how to fix that. Finally the obvious solution occurred to me: cut the last chorus. Not only did the final chorus fail to help develop the song, but it actually took the song backward. Snip snip. Problem solved.

Matters of taste can never be 100% objective. If they were, everyone would feel the same way as everybody else about every song. You could argue that some people are just wrong about what’s good, but I don’t think judgment of good/bad can exist outside of human perception.

On the other hand, certain songs really do feel less effective than others. And if you push too far, you find yourself outside the realm of what can be defined as music altogether. John Cage’s “4′33″ is an interesting thought experiment, for instance, and it may even be art, but it’s not music.

I don’t necessarily disagree with you about mixolydian or V-I cadences being cliche, but if you avoid all of the biggest cliches, what are you left with? You can’t write in major or mixolydian even when they’re appropriate to the tone you’re trying to set. You for sure can’t do four-four time or a backbeat. Can you use guitar in your arrangements? Guitar’s been done to death, after all.

It’s great to branch out in different directions, and if you genuinely hate mixolydian (or four-four time, or backbeats, or guitar), then by all means, avoid it. That’s a great method for developing a signature style. I’m just not sure “cliche” is a good enough reason to reject a way of doing things in and of itself.

Love Pete xxx

By ‘tension’ I mean anything unexpected, rather than anything that feels ‘tense’ in an everyday sense.

erm… does that make sense?