Lately I’ve been producing these 12 min tracks and I’m thinking this is probably too long. What are your thoughts on keeping your songs under a certain amount of time? Should I try keeping it around 3-5 mins or cut a 12 min song in half? Maybe it doesn’t really matter because the arbitrary 3-5 min song length is for radio friendliness.
A track takes as long as it takes.
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What do you think? 
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If it’s boring it’s too long
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It all depends on what the song needs. If a piece of music remains interesting it can be as long as it wants.
I dig long tracks. DJed by Tortoise, Bel-Air by Can are two of my most listened to songs.
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Yea it’s tricky, ‘as long as a piece of string’
I do think there’s something to be said for the 3-5 minute thing - it may just be conditioning from a lifetime of listening to songs of this length but it feels as natural to me as a movie lasting 2 hours - its comfortable.
But yea I have some tracks that are short that still feel too long (boring, or just not good), and I have some tracks that are really long that could be even longer (probably the better ones…).
I’d say it maybe also depends on the intent of the track. If this is for an album you might want something to feel drawn out, to create space, or you might want it short and sweet like an interlude, think about the tracks function and how it contributes to the whole.
Song length, when is it too much?
When you’re Coldplay
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Sometimes great tracks last one minute, sometimes twenty.
Let your creativity fuck boundaries. Fuck so-called modern standards that dictate how long people should be able to focus on a track.
Genesis “supper’s ready” is 23 minutes long, been listening to this track since childhood, hundreds times, and it still takes me to new mental places each time.
Some NoFx tracks last less than 2 minutes, perfect length too.
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Ever heard Ricardo Villalobos?
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for me, too much is when it becomes boring.
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I guess it also depends on the style and audience. I can’t think of a country track/song that last 20 minutes, but I have no problem to think of a track in some electronic genres which are even longer. People are used to some kind of structure of tracks/songs in different genres…but, that doesn’t mean you can’t break the rules. At the end it’s your track, you decide how long it has to be to tell the story or to move the people. 
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I think long tracks can be great, especially live… I think under really critical listening most long tracks can be seen as boring but when unfocused they can be amazing. If you are making an EP I think put the long tracks at the middle or end unless you are really moving through a lot of different ideas with in the track. Give your audience some time to let there guard down and just enjoy your long ass track.
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Remember that time Apple put a whole U2 album on everyones iPod? Definitely too much.
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Serves them right for buying a fucking iPod.
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One rule I try to stick to is that every 8-bar section needs to introduce something new, exciting and/or unexpected. But honestly, what’s exciting is very subjective to my own feelings. In any case, using this principle, I tend to end up with 4-5 minute lengths of most of my songs.
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I never manage to make songs much over 3 min, which is fine by me. I do usually try to squeeze about 10 min of ideas into it though.
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A good song without intro outro bridge solo or break shouldn´t take longer than 2 minutes in my opinion. when there is a good text it can be a bit longer …
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I do something similar. Most of my music is multi tracked so I’m also tweaking my synth as I record. This keeps things moving as well.
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I don’t tend to get bored by own music but that’s my baby. I might be biased. 
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