The Importance of Track Names

Works either way.

Some song I compose with an idea in mind, the I can think on a apropiate title for it. But since I can't get the hang of naming a song usually after finishing a song I name it the first thing I can get in my mind. I know it sounds lazy, but no one cares, so I lose nothing.

I agree with the above. What I normally end up doing is first coming up with an idea musically. Something that is going to be sparking the song. It could be a little diddy, or it could already have the makings of a legit track, but the idea is to have something. Then I name it that will help me remember how it sounds. Like if it its kinda high energy with a distinctive drop I might call it 'Blakka Doom' or 'Thunder Block'. Or if it is softer, more ambient and/or low energy I might go for titles more like 'Sly Horizon' or 'Vibronic Trace'. I usually start with onomatopoeic words. Though if my idea turns out to have a very particular mood to it already, I might go out and give it a title that sounds good and proper. Changing the titles are always fair game for me, at least before the track is completed.   

FearOfDark has some examples of terrifically fitting names for tracks based on their content such as 'The Last Dinosaur'. Its the best example of musical story telling I can think of and keeping the title in mind whilst listening definitely takes you on a grand journey.

This is an important topic to me for sure!

I'm really, really obsessive about track names to the point of I have lots of unreleased material just waiting for an adequate name.

I grew up listening to a lot of prog rock and loved the idea of an album being a concept. With instrumental music, that concept is a little more difficult to achieve. You don't have language in the actual songs to tell a story so instead you're basically creating an atmosphere of different feelings and emotions - an an0va release (to me) is a package of these and it's probably the main reason why although I write music very often...I release, promote, and sell very little of it (only two releases, to be exact).

The track name is an unfortunate wrench in the gears to this idea - you're forced to use language as a labelling system. And though in many cases it really doesn't matter what you name a track, to me the track name is the first impression a listener has to your song before they even begin to play it. Of course, this doesn't matter if they hear your track before seeing it (like if played live or on the radio), but in the context of a release everything for me has to be pretty mathematical.

With my first album I really liked what minusbaby did with "Left," so I kind of made a slight nod to that by having each song title represent different acts of some silly short story I made up. I later discarded the story altogether because even though some people really liked it, I realized many people don't like things spelled out for them and in many instances, they attach some personal situation of their own to it. I followed up on this with my second album and titled the songs appropriately to their individual meaning but also as a vague nod to what's going on in the actual music. It's probably the closest I'll ever get in my life to telling some vague story without words and I'm more than okay with that. But the best part about that for me is: if someone listens to it and has a completely different interpretation than intended that is more than fine with me. They can have some type of life situation behind it or just call it video game mario bleeps and bloops and neither one is wrong. What matters to me is if they enjoyed it or not, and hopefully it entertained them for even a couple minutes of a song. I guess that's what I think of entertainment in general to be - anything that just successfully distracts you (if even for a brief moment) from how lame real life is.

Now that's out of the way, this is something I want to get rid of or maybe just shelve for a little bit - the music I've been working on (even within chiptune) is a little more varied and outthere and I think it would be stupid to force some type of concept on it. Sometimes, the best title is just the best descriptive of the song's feel. Or just something catchy enough to stick. idk

tl;dr - i put useless psuedoscience titles on top of pokemon sounds

Last edited by an0va (Mar 12, 2014 8:03 am)

When it comes to naming tracks, I usually just mash the keyboard, and there's my title.

importance of memes

Release aaaaall the french named songs.