A# Sharp Recording Studio

The 80-20 Rule

 

There's a thing called the 80/20 Rule ... to quote Wikipedia (and who doesn't)...

"The Pareto principle (also known as the 80/20 rule) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. It is a common rule of thumb in business; e.g., "80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients."

We all know the famous Monty Python "Dead Parrot Sketch"....(this is an ex-parrot..!!!).  John Cleese , who wrote the  sketch, use to write Python material with Graham Chapman. Cleese had allegedly completed the sketch and it was about a toaster not a parrot. The only contribution Graham Chapman contributed was, after hearing Cleese's  draft run through in front of the Python crew was... " it should be a parrot, not a toaster..!!"

There you have it... the sketch, that is now a bone-fide CLASSIC just due to that ONE  change... the 80/20 rule... Cleese had written 80%... Chapman had added the 20%.

I had a great opportunity recently to do some songwriting with an established songwriter who had some tunes that were wonderful. They had the "hook", the verses, the chorus's, they just needed tidying up.

For me, it was great, someone else had done the hard work and all I had to come in at the 11th hour with the Cavalry to the rescue the Fort ...  a great gig.

What I soon realized is that the 80/20 rule applies heavily to songwriting.

There was a series of Science Schoolbooks in the 60's called "How What When Where + Why"... the song we were working on had the first line + hook similar to that phrase, but it didn't "swing" or  sound natural when he sang it to.. I LOVED the idea, but the words were in the wrong order, great idea , but just not 100% realised... we re-organised the words for the songs so that it "sang" better and the difference was astronomical...

Try singing  the old Beatle song (are there any NEW Beatle songs..??..no), "From Me To You"... try singing it  "From You To Me"..

How about "If I said you had a beautiful body would you hold it against me".. try it as "Would you hold it against me if I said you had a beautiful body"..man that just does not work.

So you can see how the word order can make a great deal of difference.. or to put it another way, the order of words a great deal of difference it can make..!!

We re-ordered the "How What When Where Why"  and all of a sudden it sang really well..... that was the first line of the song and we decided to repeat the phrase a couple of more times in the song. Originally it was only sang twice...I thought it was a great hook and wanted to base the song around it rather than just mention it a couple of times... 

ALSO...the song was originally called The Question.... but we ended up calling it "How What When Where Why". My main reason for doing this was for purely commercial reasons.. if we were presenting it to a publisher, the publisher is probably going to go through 100 song every day of his life and the chances of catching his eye and getting him to play this song just for a few more seconds or playing it at all would be enhanced by a "catchy" title, rather than "The Question".. which really means nothing + is not tempting as a title..

So the song was finished, I'd only added the final 20%, but it went from a cute ditty with potential to a memorable Song with a catchy title...I reckon the song had now reached it's full potential.. it  was complete... it's had a catchy title, which was repeated- reinforced a few times, the catch phrase was now in a form more pleasing to the ear.. bottom line, it now has a better chance out there in the market place, which is FULL of songs trying to grab attention and get some action.

The chances of this song being picked up was increased by 80% because of my 20%... (I'm 100% sure)..!!!

I'm convinced it's the same thing with Bands... let's say a Band is pretty bloody good but missing something...let's say AC/DC before Bon joined... they were still probably very good, but add that 20% extra Bon factor, now you've got a REALLY good Band.. a World beater..

Regards..JEFF CRIPPS

Permission to reproduce this article is available to all,
as long as you include attribution to myself including contact details
and let me know where you have used the material.
Jeff Cripps
A# Sharp Recording Studio
Email: jeff@asharp.com.au
Phone: +612 9153 9988

 

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Phone: (02) 9153 9988 • Email: jeff@asharp.com.au