Friedemann Findeisen:
But you can pretty much do anything when you understand how a good storytelling works. And if you have a somewhat satisfying plot behind that, to back that up, there's pretty much no limit to what you can do in your songs. Just understanding these concepts to really drive the listener's attention and really help them, guide them through the song, I think that's one of the most important things we can do as songwriters and producers.

Michael Walker:
It's easy to get lost in today's music industry, with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music. I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician. And it's only getting better. If you have high quality music, but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself, so that you can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music, we're going to show you the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month, without spending 10 hours a day on social media. We're creating a revolution in today's music industry, and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.
All right. So, I'm super excited to be here today with Friedemann Findeisen. I learned how to pronounce that properly from his YouTube video that he has on YouTube. It was an April Fool's joke, but he taught how to pronounce his name, which is awesome.
Friedemann, is the founder of Holistic Songwriting. And it's a YouTube channel that has over 14 million views on YouTube, teaches music artists how to improve their songwriting. He's also a best-selling author. He's written a book called The Addiction Formula: A Holistic Approach to Writing Captivating, Memorable Hit Songs. And so, of course, today, I thought it would be a great opportunity to talk about songwriting, which is something that is always at the roots of every successful artist and songwriter is like a core skill to develop. So, Friedemann, thanks so much for taking the time to be here today.

Friedemann Findeisen:
Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Michael Walker:
Sweet. So, to start out with, I'd love to know a little bit about your story and how you got started with Holistic Songwriting and some of the lessons that you learned along the way.

Friedemann Findeisen:
Sure. Well, like many of my creative endeavors, shall we say, are really born out of frustration in a way, really, where I just get amped up about some other people doing something in a way that I don't approve of. And I'm like, "Come on, you got to do this way." And then I just start my own thing. So, a lot of my creative work is based off of that idea. 
I really started writing songs when I was 15, so I'm self-taught, never really learned any music theory back then. I was a guitarist. Wrote for a band, wrote every day. I was bullied in school. So, it was like a way out for me, out of all of that. And so, I came home, did my homework, and then I went straight to writing pretty much all day.
And I pretty much taught myself how to write songs in those first five years. And it really was an obsession, really learned how to write songs. And that's why I still have a very deep connection with writing, I think. It's still my favorite thing to do, creating in general, but I think, yeah, music in particular is just still my first love, really. 
So, then afterwards, after a couple of years, I decided to study music. That seemed like the most logical path for me. I went to two different conservatories, one in Germany, which I quit after two years, and then went to the Netherlands, which was great. Worked in LA for a little while as a film composer. Got a recommendation from Conrad Pope, who's John Williams orchestrator. Got my bachelor's degree. I had a really great time. 

But in all this time, I studied for six years in total, I never really got what I wanted out of it, or at least what I expected. What I got from university, from conservatory was a lot of music theory, a lot of complex harmony and complex chords, a lot of learning how to write lyrics and stuff like that.

But when I look at myself or when I look at just the music that's on the radio, or even off radio, any music, all sorts of modern music, it's none of the above, in terms of, they're really quite simple in terms of music theory or chords, or harmony, or lyrics. And so to me, those things are really like the cherry on top of everything. And for me, the core of a great song tends to be like a completely different list. And for me, that's, it needs to have an infectious groove, a dynamic arrangement, impactful melodies. 

I think most people, there's a lot of people who talk about the repetitive melodies or melodies that stick, hooks. And I mean, sure, that's important, but I think it's way more important to write stuff that is impactful, right? Because you could write a really great hooky melody, but if it doesn't have any impact, you're never going to remember it, because it's not placed in your song in such a way that the song will force you to remember it, so to say. 
Honest sounding performances, I think is really important. Interesting sound design, production and image, which is what my YouTube channel revolves around a lot. This idea of marketing yourself in such a way as an artist, that there's a little bit more to you than just this person who puts out music, but that you really, you're not just a musician or just a songwriter, you become an artist, right? And that to me is the difference, is placing yourself out there on the market in such a way that you represent something, that you have a story that people do want to listen to. And that story is coherent and makes sense. 

And so, all of this was really frustrating to me that I always felt like I was learning the wrong things. And I got even more frustrated when I heard about people like Max Martin talking about melodic math, right? I'm sure you've heard about that maybe. And thinking like, man, there are people out there doing it. There are people out there who have the formulas for pop music. They understand how to turn the levers in the right position to the right position to create the songs that move people.

The rules are out there, but I don't have access to them. And I studied, like for me, that was the closest thing. That was the idea that that's how you learn the formulas. And I never learned the formulas. Nobody ever really sat me down and said like, "Hey, here's how you write a good song." That basically never happened. 

And so, after all this frustration, I started creating Holistic Songwriting. And really, as in the beginning for myself to teach myself all these things. I learned a lot already that I felt was never really taught anywhere else. So, that was my start. That's how I wrote my first book, The Addiction Formula, which is a formula that I think is ever present in all of pop music. But nobody really talks about that. So, that's how I got started.

But really for me, it was to learn about all of these other things that I was interested in and to share my findings with others. And my approach, I think maybe due to me being German is a very clinical one, almost scientific, where I break down each part of songwriting into several smaller parts until they're fairly easy or at least simple. And then I show you how to reconnect them in such a way that you can create something that is your own and unique. 

And the whole system really is built from the ground up. So, it's not something I've cobbled together from YouTube channels or other books. But I've really tried to approach music from the viewpoint of a songwriter. I feel like there's a lot of content out there that's from the viewpoint of musicologists or music teachers, or musicians, or producers, maybe. Not a lot of stuff out there on just how to create great sounding songs. And so, that's the angle that I'm taking. And my goal really is to make this. This is for songwriter producers, for artists, bands, musicians, who want to reach the international top level with their songs. And I'm talking the very best songwriters in the world here. So, I'm not interested in making you the best writer in your town or in your city. I'm really looking to get you to that international top level, so you could really write across the entire world, so you could work as a song writer and work in Tel Aviv, just as well as in Los Angeles or Berlin.

And so far, so I started Holistic Songwriting in 2015. The YouTube channel, as you said, has grown to 380,000 subscribers, 14 million views at this point, which is all organic traffic. We did very, very little advertising. I have a best-selling book, The Addiction Formula, was featured on American Songwriter. Now, I work very closely with Germany's biggest songwriters. And we just successfully launched our online university, Holistic Songwriting Academy, which is a one-year program, where through a series of exercises, it takes you from nothing, even if you have never written a song before to professional songwriter. Otherwise, I highly recommend you have written a couple of songs before, because it's a tough, tough course. And that's it. That's where I am at the moment.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Well, thanks for sharing, man. That's fascinating. I love... Well, it reminded me of, at least part of it when you're talking about this disconnect between this music theory, theoretical, like colleges, it was being taught from some of the roots and some of the things that are maybe more fundamental or more important to hit song writing and not necessarily maybe classical or just different styles. It reminded me of the conversation that I just had with Brett Manning from Singing Success. And one of his core pillars of their methodology is speech level singing. And the idea is basically, that if you're focused too much on the technique, then you think about [inaudible 00:09:20]. You sound like an opera singer. It's not natural, or it doesn't really have character, or have authenticity.

And so, it sounds like a lot of what you focus on is like the science of actual hits songwriting, but then also realizing that there's more depth to it. There's a holistic approach, where it's in a lot of ways, really is about the artist and who they are and their character coming out through the songwriting. 

So, one thing I definitely want to dig into is, I love the title of that book, The Addiction Formula: A Holistic Approach to Writing Captivating, Memorable Hit Songs. So, I definitely want to put a pin in that and dig into that, that formula. Just start out with, I'm sure, through a ton of experience working with songwriters at this point that you see a lot of similar patterns or mistakes, or challenges and things that crop up when songwriters first start working with you. So, one thing I'm curious about is, what are some of those challenges or those mistakes, or those common patterns that you see artist struggling with?

Friedemann Findeisen:
There's a lot of them. There's a lot of things that people get wrong. I think I've pretty much seen everything at this point. What I think consistently is misunderstood is the idea of plot and storytelling in music. In other words, let's call it structure and build up, is I think how most producers or songwriters would call it. 

So, most people I think understand this verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus principle, right? You want to structure your song in that way or in a similar way, maybe. And by the way, you're completely not tied to that in any way. It's just a very popular one that just works. So, most people I think understand that.

What most people don't understand is, that it's not enough to just put the word verse on top of the stave, under the block of text on the lyrics, right? It's just not enough. Because I got a lot of songs where... I do weekly reviews of songs and people send in. I've re reviewed over a thousand songs in the last two years. And a really big thing has been people saying, "Hey, can you check out the chorus, is that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." And I'm, "Well, I don't know what your chorus is, right? That might be a definition you've found for this part. But to me it doesn't sound like a chorus." And that is, it happens to be a thing that I hear all the time.

So for me, a great song is like when you walk into a mall and you have a big poster there and it says, it shows you the mall and it has a big arrow that says, you are here. And to me, that gives me a feeling of like, okay, I can trust the song writer. I can trust the people who built this mall to lead me through it. So, I'll get out okay. Right? I won't completely lose myself in this whole thing. And the same goes for songwriting. If your listener at any point feels like they're lost, they don't know where they are in the song, that really is a big problem. You should hold your listener by the hand a little bit and guide them through your song. And they should feel like they can rely on you in terms of knowing where they are, so that they know, "Okay, the last chorus is coming. This is the big finale. Let's give it all I've got." If I'm dancing to it or whatever. And then the song is going to be over. 

What you don't want to happen is, and this is really one of the things I hear the most, I think, is that I'm looking at the SoundCloud wave form. Right? I'm like, "Okay. So, I guess we're third of the way through now. Okay. Well, it might just end now, I've lost all interest in this song already because it's not really giving me much of a story. It's just stuff." There's new things. There's a new section that brings in new chords and new melodies, but it's not giving me anything new. This still feels like it could just be another verse. It's a new section. It's different, but it's not different enough. It's not dramatic enough for me to really care about what I'm hearing. And so, yeah, for me, that's probably the biggest thing. And that's also what The Addiction Formula is about.

Michael Walker:
Awesome. So, it sounds like really one of the biggest challenges and things that you hear a lot is just maybe lacking a point or lacking a drive, or a progression, where the chorus doesn't necessarily feel like a chorus or there's making noise just for the sake of making noise, as opposed to there being a progression that pulls you in and gives it a sense of movement.

Friedemann Findeisen:
Yeah. I think there's two. And so, in the book, I identify three techniques for telling a good story. Let's talk about two here, because I think the third one is a little too complex maybe, to talk about on a podcast. 
So, I think the first thing that you have to understand is, so I differentiate between plot and storytelling, as do writers, right? If you've ever read about how to write a book, that's one of the first things that's often discussed is, what is a plot? What is storytelling? 

Plot is essentially, this happens, then this happens, then this happens, then this happens. That's basically your structure, right? Verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. Just figuring out what is the basic plot of your song. And the storytelling is, how do we move from point to point. A lot of songwriters get one of the two or none of the two, but very few actually understand that both are really important.

So, the people who understand plot, typically, what the problem there is, they see the song as a thing that moves from A to B, right? And they see the grand picture, they see the forest, but they don't see the trees anymore. Right? They don't understand that a listener listens to a song through the storytelling eyes, meaning, they listen to it from moment to moment. They don't know that a great chorus is coming. So, they have nothing, they're not waiting for the next chorus. And if your verse ends and then you have a huge fucking chorus, that's going to blow everyone away. If you don't signpost that to me in the first verse that that's coming, that that's something I should prepare for, that that's something I should get excited about, you've lost me. Right? Because maybe I'm halfway through the first verse and I'm thinking, "This is boring." I'm just going to stop listening to this. 

So, that's the storytelling part of it, making sure that at every single moment in the song, the listener is still connected with me and knows what's going on, or has an idea of what's coming. And then we can surprise them, of course. But it's this idea, the storytelling ideas, you want to catch, grab their attention, and then never let it go. And plot is just a means of doing that effectively, right? 

Because for example, a great way of storytelling would be to just have a song that just builds, builds, builds, builds, builds, but that's not going to be a very satisfying experience. So, that's what plot is for, to give us some ideas of where we could place some energy peaks. So of course, usually, right? That we can build towards how many of those should be in your song.

So, those are the two sides, right? The structure and the storytelling. So, how do we set those? How can we control those? How can we do that better? Well, in terms of plot, I think it's really helpful to draw out a graph for your different energy levels for your different sections. And I think this is not going to really be news to anyone that verses tend to be lower energy than choruses. Intros tend to be even lower energy than the verse. Bridges usually are either very low energy, sometimes even lower than the verse or even higher energy than the second chorus. And then the finale usually, is the highest energy of your song, right? And if you have an outro, it's probably going to mirror your intro, so probably going to be about the same energy as the intro. 

Most people I think, understand that. And when you talk to them, they have clearly understood that concept. It's just that they usually don't do it or they don't do it very well, I think.
And to me, honestly, if I had to pick just one thing, just one thing to worry about in songwriting, if I could teach you just one thing, I think this would be it. I think being able to tell a compelling story is more important than having great groove, than having melodies that hook, than having really interesting chords or great lyrics, or even great production, if I can tell a story that's going to hook you. We've all heard stories in terrible circumstances, told by terrible storytellers around a campfire. And it's still, if the story is good and the storytelling is adequate, it's going to draw us in. It's going to really be compelling. And so, this is for me, really the core of great songwriting, one of the most important pillars of it, I think. 

So, that's the first thing, right? We want to set these different energy levels for the four different sections. And the way we do that is by various little techniques. So, there's a lot of small things that together set us at a specific energy level. 
So, for example, one of the biggest storyteller in the band is... and I say band, obviously including electronic music and all that stuff as well. But the biggest storyteller in music is the drums. So, the drums can be really easily used to set different energy levels. 

I'm going to give you an example from the rock world, because that's where I'm originally from. Something as simple as closed tired in the verses, open higher in the pre-chorus, crash and the chorus, right? You don't need to do much else. The drums can carry the entire stories almost just by doing just that. Very simple thing to do. But really it makes it very clear for your listener, "Oh, I guess we're in a new section now. And the [inaudible 00:18:32] sounds louder than it did before. It sounds noisier than it did before. So, the energy is rising. I'm supposed to feel more engaged right now." Right? And obviously they're not thinking that consciously, but it's the subconscious process. 

So, that's one of the very many techniques that you can use for this sort of stuff. And other would be, for example, arrangement, adding a new instrument, increases energy or hype as I like call this aspect of energy. You could increase your pitch, right? This is something we hear all the time. Chorus should have the highest notes in your song. But this is why, right? Because the chorus is supposed to be the high energy section of your song. And one of the ways that we can achieve that is by writing a melody that is higher in pitch, than the rest of our song. So, that's plot essentially. That's what I call hype levels, setting hype levels for your song.

And if we look at that in a graph, we would see this very blocky looking line, right? So, we have a verse that's one level. And then it jumps up to the pre-chorus. And then it jumps up to the chorus, for example, right? It doesn't have to go down exactly this route. But let's say for the sake of argument that that's the route we're going to take here. 
So, storytelling then, let's put it this way, the problem with this curve is, that say I'm in the verse and I'm the listener. I've never heard this song before. I'm experiencing the song as it moves along. Right? I don't know what's coming. So, I'm listening to the verse, which maybe is 16 or maybe even 32 bars long, so pretty long verse. And if all I'm doing is just set hype level for this verse, I'm going to get bored, because it's not moving anywhere. Now, there are songs that get away with it, in particular, songs that have really good groove. For example, something like, what's that song? "Haters gonna hate, hate, hate," by Taylor Swift. What's that called?

Michael Walker:
I know that song you're talking about. I don't remember what the title is.

Friedemann Findeisen:
Yeah. It's Shake It Off. Shake It Off.

Michael Walker:
Shake It Off. 

Friedemann Findeisen:
Right? 

Michael Walker:
Yes.

Friedemann Findeisen:
So, that has a pretty long verse. It doesn't really do anything new. It's two verses after one another. So, verse and verse continued. They're at exactly the same hype level. So, in terms of energy, not much is changing, but because the group is really strong, that does work in this case. And otherwise, I think that's usually a bad idea, and it's not something I recommend. I call this flatlining, if you have two sections following one another where the energy does not change in any shape or form. 

And usually the only way, the only place you will see this in pop songs or in hit songs, in any really commercially successful songs is, between the first verse and the first verse continued, right? That's the only time you'll ever see that in commercial music. It's very, very unusual to see that anywhere else in the song. So that, that's the problem, right? If we are stuck in the song, we were hearing for the first time, we don't know what's coming.
So, as songwriters, what we have to do is we have to create suspense. We have to create tension, just like an author would, right? If we're just stuck in a scene and there's people talking, I don't care, right? It needs to point towards something, right? If I'm reading Harry Potter, I need to know that at the end, there's going to be a fight with Voldemort, right? Or something. That's the thing that drives me through the book. If I read Sherlock Holmes, I need to know that the fricking case is going to be solved at the end of the book. And that's what I'm looking forward to. There's always this tension that's moving us along. 

And so, we can do the same thing in music as well, by using a technique that I call tension. And by tension, I don't just mean harmonic tension. That's one of the ways of using tension. But there's a lot of things that we can do to gradually increase the hype. So, as I said, hype is a very linear thing, right? It's not linear, it's... What would you call it? A static thing that's set for different sections. So, it's low in the verse, high in the chorus. 
And tension is gradual. That's what we can use to smooth out our curve a little bit. So, it's not this blocky curve, but it actually moves from a low point gradually up to a high point. So, that's what it would look like. That's how I visualize it.
And things that we can do to create tension in a section are things like, the classical example would be, not classical, but the band example will be a fill, right? If you have a section at the end, someone's playing [inaudible 00:22:53], then we know it's coming in, an Important downbeat is right around the corner. And the second they're starting playing the [inaudible 00:23:02], we know that that's coming. So, there is already tension there from the first note, when he plays that fill. 

Looking at electronic dance music, we might use something like an uplifter or something like that, filtering white noise to get a [inaudible 00:23:17]. We hear that all the time now in electronic dance music. We could use the filter on the rest of the music, right? So, Drake does this quite a bit, that the verses are filtered. We have the highs filtered out, for example.
And there's tons of things that you could do. Some songs, for example  use pitch to  create tension. So, there's a song by Ariana Grande called Problem, I think, or maybe Problems. I'm not quite sure right now. But the pre-chorus in that, which builds... The pre-chorus is typically the section that builds the most tension because it's right before a chorus. That's our big gratifying moment. That's our big energy peak.

So, we want to build up as much energy before that, as we can, and really increase the anticipation. And that has a pre-chorus that goes [inaudible 00:24:02], right? That's the melody of the pre-chorus. So, it's an incline. The melody is gradually inclining. It's moving up, up, up, up. And so, is our stomachs, we were like, "Oh, what's going on? What's going on?" Suspended in mid-air here. And then the chorus comes in, and it's like, the resolution, it's the gratifying moment of the song.

And so, those are the two sides. It's the plot, setting those different hype levels or energy levels and storytelling, which is working with tension. And this third thing called implied tension, which maybe we shouldn't really talk about because it's quite complex. We can use those to keep the listener engaged throughout our plot.

Michael Walker:
That's so good. That's something about the idea of tension, and I think is really fascinating, and as a way to provide movement. Even something that you had mentioned earlier about what led you to create a Holistic Songwriter and to grow, it's really came from frustration, and it came from tension, you know. And I think certainly in my own life, and I think the way entrepreneurship works is like, it's through tension and resolution, and great songs. It sounds like what you're saying is with tension, it creates a sense of movement and it builds up these moments of tension, and then release. And that's really like the ebb and the flow of what makes song special and what makes life special is the different progression of attention.

Friedemann Findeisen:
But what I want to say to that really quickly is, I think people have, because this is something I was taught at school as well, is you want to build tension, then you want to release it. But for me, I don't think that's necessarily a good image, because to me, if you look at like a rubber band, right? And you pull that tight, you're increasing the tension, and then you let it go, and that's the release. 
So, if we compare that to how songs work though, I think songs work quite differently, because there we build tension, and then we have the highest energy peak, right? Then that's when the thing is stretched the most essentially, right? We don't want to let it go at that moment. That's when we want to give the listener, everything that they've been waiting for. And of course, there's a release going on psychologically. But if we're talking about energy being the thing that's being increased by using tension, then I think that's the opposite of what we should be doing, is thinking about it in this tension release kind of way. I think it makes more sense in saying tension, gratification, give them something big, give them something that they can remember.

Michael Walker:
That's a really good point is, or maybe rather than thinking of that, it was like release attention, it's more about gratification. You can build up tension. It doesn't necessarily mean you have to let it all go. Yeah. That's awesome. 
I mean, what it reminded me of is tension in terms of creating... I think a lot of times when you think about creating a good hook, whether it's for songs or storytelling, or things we were talking about Harry Potter and how there's this weaving line of Voldemort. It's like you introduce this character, the ultimate villain, bad, evil person. And it creates the sense of unresolved energy. There's tension there. And it literally is enough tension to pull you through the entire series of Harry Potter. And there's different elements.

Friedemann Findeisen:
There's an old rule. If you see a gun in act one, it better go off in act three. That's a really good one. Yeah.

Michael Walker:
That is good. That's really good. 

Friedemann Findeisen:
Exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. 

Michael Walker:
And it also reminds me, one thing that I've geek out on is promotion and marketing. And I think a big pillar with that too, is creating open loops. And I think this is something with storytelling. With the TV shows and movies, you create these open loops, which is another way of saying, you introduce something, it creates tension. There's literally something inside your being that pulls you forward because there's this unresolved, there's this open loop. It hasn't been closed yet. So, I think it's really fascinating thinking about that in terms of songwriting too, and storytelling, and intentionally creating moments that pull you in and create that progression.

Friedemann Findeisen:
Yeah, certainly. Yeah. There's a lot of that, right? Yeah. The open loop, I like that a lot. It's this idea of setting something up, and then maybe not even resolving it eventually. Right? I mean, in a marketing video, so like, "Hey, watch this video until the end and I'll give you one of my best, whatever, something, something." And you keep watching, because you're waiting for that to happen. It's the same with song writing as well. 
I think storytelling is a thing that's been with us as a human race for thousands of years. Right? It's really deeply ingrained in our psyche. And I think it is something that we can use for good and for bad. But I think it's a really powerful technique to use in your songs. Yeah, absolutely. 

Michael Walker:
Awesome. Yeah. I totally care about conversation like this. Awesome. So, one thing I want to dig into is, I know we've been sharing a few different concepts and techniques from the book, but I'd love to hear just, it sounds like probably the core theme of the book is The Addiction Formula holistic approach. And so, what is the formula? Or what is it at a higher level, that's the core basis of book?

Friedemann Findeisen:
I suppose, The Addiction Formula would be these three techniques, right? Understanding that, setting these different height levels, moving to them through tension or through implied attention, and grabbing the listeners' attention, and never letting it go until these songs are over. Right? So, that they immediately want to hit replay or listen to another one of your songs. That's the basic idea. 
So for me, it's a formula, because once you understand how this stuff works, building up to big moments and using that to build these really gratifying moments, or to really surprise the listener, also sometimes can be really cool. Is something you hear in all songs, in all popular commercial songs, any songs, rock songs, metal songs. It's really everywhere. Everyone uses this stuff.
And when I listen to songs of my students, when they come to me at first, people don't have that yet. They don't understand how important that is. Everyone seems to focus on what they deem important in songwriting, which is usually like, it's either a hook that people will remember, or that's usually what people say when they talk about songwriting, right? It's got to be memorable or it's got to get to the chorus quickly. And I think none of those things are true. If you have a great verse, you can stay there forever. 
Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, doesn't get to the chorus until, well into the song. I think they have two verses, long verses and a long intro as well, before they get to a pre-chorus, and then at some point we get to the chorus. And it's not even the best part of the song. Right? 

So, it's understanding this, I think, that it's not so much about how exactly your plot looks, right? It could be verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. It could be an expanded version of that. But you can pretty much do anything when you understand how a good storytelling works. And if you have a somewhat satisfying plot behind that, to back that up, and it hopefully ends with something that's really satisfying, you put that at the very end of your song. 
There's pretty much no limit to what you can do in your songs. So for example, this idea of taking a pre-chorus to chorus, right? This transition of having a section that really builds tension, tension, tension, and then we have this big moment in the chorus, that's not limited to just the pre-chorus, chorus situation. We can use that anywhere in our song. We could even use that intro to verse, for example. We could have an intro that's super tense, and that builds to a super low energy intro that builds to a low energy verse, for example. Just understanding these concepts and how we can use transitions to really drive the listener's attention, and really help them guide them through the song, that I think, is that's what The Addiction Formula is. And I think that's one of the most important things we can do as songwriters and producers.

Michael Walker:
What's up, guys. So, quick intermission from the podcast, so I can tell you about an awesome free gift that I have for you. I wanted to share something that's not normally available to the public. They normally reserve for our $5,000 clients that we have personally. This is a presentation called Six Steps to Explode Your Fan Base and Make a Profit With Your Music Online. And specifically, we're going to walk through how to build a paid traffic and automated funnel, that's going to allow you to grow your fan base online in a system designed to get you to your first $5,000 a month with your music. 

We've invested over $130,000 in the past year to test out different traffic sources and different offers, and really say what's working best right now for musicians. And so, I think it's going to be hugely valuable for you. And so, if that's something you're interested in, in the description, there should be a little link that you can click on to go get that. 
And the other thing I wanted to mention is, if you want to do us a huge favor, one thing that really makes a big difference early on when you're creating new podcasts, is if people click subscribe, then it basically lets the algorithm know that this is something that's new and noteworthy, and that people actually want to hear. And so, that'll help us reach a lot more people. So, if you're getting value from this and you get value from the free trainings, then if you want to do us a favor, I'd really appreciate you clicking the subscribe button. All right, let's get back to the podcast. 
Heck yeah, dude, I love that. So, one thing, I feel like you opened a loop in my own mind as you brought it up, and we didn't close the loop. And I know that there's probably a good reason for it. But there's one of those three things that you tease a little bit of the implied tension. Do you think, is there a way for us to break it down, that we might be able to go there in the form of the podcast? Or you think that's just to beyond the medium?

Friedemann Findeisen:
I'll try. Let me try. So, the idea of implied tension is, so let's look at tension. Tension is usually related to adding stuff to point us in the general direction of, for example, we're in a verse, right? Very sparse arrangement, maybe just bass drums and vocals. And we're adding, I don't know, a guitar that's playing palm muted chords or something like that. When we add that, it tells the listener, "Oh, more stuff is coming." Okay. So, I guess we're heading towards an energy peak. So, I guess, I'm going to stick around to listen to that. So, that's tension. It's usually connected to increasing energy in order to get somewhere. Because we're continually increasing something, it's telling the listener, "We're going to arrive at a peak at some point."

The idea of implied tension is a little bit like the opposite of that. I like to compare it to fighting with your significant other, right? So, let's say you are in a big fight, right? And you're shouting at each other. Or you're starting with nitpicking, and it starts to get bigger and bigger. And so, in that moment, the tension is rising and rising, and it's getting more and more and more. And it's going to end at one point, right? One of you is going to storm out of the room and bang the door, or shout something inappropriate, or whatever. Right? That's tension, right? It's building towards a very clear point at which the discussion is over and that tension is at its peak. 

Implied attention is like you sitting at the table across from another and eating your breakfast in silence, and being very aware that there is this tension in the room, an underlying tension that's never talked about. Right? That's what implied tension is. So, I think that's the metaphor metaphor I use. And because that's what happens, what we can do with our music as well, we can by hinting at things, by removing those things, we can create tension that is ever present in a section. 

So as I said, tension is something that builds. So, typically, we add something gradually over time. Whereas implied tension is something, where you take something away and it affects the entire section. So, it's a really powerful technique that is very subtle. And it's my favorite thing to do. I think it's very challenging, very difficult to do. But if you listen to anything in charts at the moment, this thing has gotten bigger and bigger over the last 20 years. I think it's the biggest thing on the radio right now, is using implied attention. 

If you can write an arrangement that uses implied tension, in other words, if you can write arrangements that are really sparse, but they're not empty, they're just tense, because they're so sparse, that is really, really powerful. And Blank Space by Taylor Swift, would be a good example, I think. That verse for example, is really clearly lacking a lot of stuff. You listen to that, and it's just a synth and very empty feeling, drums and vocals on top of that, it feels really empty. It's not just that this is a low energy section. It's not that this is something that you'd know from the nineties, this is a new way of controlling energy, of controlling your expectations as a listener. By removing things, you're creating this hole, and the listener is waiting for that hole to be filled. And when the chorus rolls around, that's when we get the bass, that's when we get a fuller arrangement. And that's when we get that satisfaction. 

And that to me is even more so, than maybe tension, is this idea of what you were talking about, this open loop, right? This idea of, this sounds like it's missing something, I'm going to stick around because I need this to be filled. I need this to be whole. I need this to be filled out again, basically.

Michael Walker:
Man, this is really interesting.

Friedemann Findeisen:
It's one of my favorite things to talk about, because you can be so incredibly subtle with it. It's really hard to do well, especially if you do it over a long period of time. It can be really, really tricky. But it's one of my favorite things to talk about, but also, because it is so complicated. And it's quite difficult to pull it off well.

Michael Walker:
That's awesome. Yeah. I mean, just the way that you just described that too, just reminded me of almost the human condition, just of like a search for fullness or search to become whole. And I think is just at the root of our humanity or our spiritual search in a lot of ways. And I think that's one of the reasons that there's so many themes that are about like coming home, coming home and the idea of, yes, there's about coming back and discovering who you are and yourself. So, I think it's really just fascinating to dig into that world.
One thing that I wanted to circle back around to was something that you mentioned, if you have a good story, if you have a good core, then a lot that can be the most important thing. And a lot of times, you don't want to intentionally be a bad storyteller. But even someone who's not very articulate or not very good at telling a story, if they have a really, really, really good story to tell, then it's pretty difficult for it not to be captivating just because the sources is so captivating.

So, I guess, I'm curious what you find or what you see as being some of the best ways to just get that core roots, where does that come from? And are there any patterns or a formula that you see around the story itself that tend to resonate with people? I know there's the Hero's Journey with Joseph Campbell, and then some different archetypes and themes, and whatnot. But I'm curious on your take with how that relates to songwriting.

Friedemann Findeisen:
So, the number one formula for that, I think is what I call the Hollywood formula. That's also built on the 12 steps in songs. We also have 12 sections quite often. And the principles are very similar, right? Where we place our energy peaks, it's very similar to how movie writers or script writers write Hollywood scripts. And basically, the most basic form, that's the first one I teach at Holistic Songwriting Academy, is you have a very low energy intro, a little bit higher going into your verse, moving up to your pre-course, that there you want to add a lot of tension, so that people are really looking forward to your chorus. 

Chorus is typically high energy, second verse, lower energy, but not as low as the first verse. So, you're building a little bit there. Then the second chorus usually, I mean, ideally that would be a little higher in energy than the first one. No one really does that though. And then we have a bridge, either very low energy or just below the chorus or just above the course. And then we have the third chorus, which depends on what the bridge was doing before. It's going to be at a certain energy level that contrasts what the bridge was doing essentially. And then we move into what I call the finale, which is usually another chorus. Sometimes it's another instrumental section or something like that. 
So, that's the basic section. It's just the verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. But setting the energy levels right there is really important. And you can expand that by using pre-courses, as I've said already. You can add in post choruses. You can add in transitional bridge. You can add in another primary bridge. You could add in a fourth chorus, for example, maybe at the front of the song, or if you want to go down the route that Happy does by Pharrell, that adds another pre bridge chorus to the end of the song. 

So, there's a lot of ways that in which you can mold that. You could end after your second chorus, if you wanted to. You could do a song where you sandwich the bridge, so verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, verse, chorus as possible. You could use solos. As I said, you can use instrumentals. You could have a high energy intro. 

What you're looking for usually is contrast. You want to end strong typically, unless you want to use that against the listener. Sometimes people always expect that the song to end big. And sometimes if you end really small, that can also have, bring a message of its own, maybe something that leaves you feeling empty or something like that, right?
You can obviously use all of those things. But that's the basic formula that I use for... Honestly, 90% of my songs is just that, it's an expanded version of verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. And it's not so much like where you set those energy levels, but it's how you set those energy levels, how you make it clear that these are the energy levels that you're setting for the listener. 

So, I sometimes get people who send me songs, and they send along a graph with the energy curve. And the curves look fine. They understood what they have to do, but it doesn't sound like it. I'm not hearing that energy rise here. I'm not hearing the tension there. That's often the problem. So yeah. Does that answer your question as a basic formula for that, hopefully your listeners will be able to use right away?

Michael Walker:
Yeah. I think that's awesome. I think it's definitely helpful to think about the plot and the way that you are an energy worker, and in thinking about that in terms of the verse, choruses and bridges, and whatnot.
One thing I'd love to get your perspective on is, in terms of the songs themselves, or the stories, the themes of the songs, or the character that they're presenting, let's say, I think probably a lot of people listening to this right now are going to be artists themselves, who they want to create a artist identity and a brand, and they want to have a character. And in a lot of cases, the character is them and how they express themselves. And so, I'm curious if you have any thoughts on breaking that down and being like, okay, so what should someone intentionally make a big list of song ideas, based on the most emotionally charged moments of their life. And then, just that's what drives the songs? Or where do you recommend people draw that from?

Friedemann Findeisen:
That's really a whole new discussion, honestly. I mean, that's something we could talk about for another couple of hours, for sure. Personally, my personal experience has been, I think it doesn't make so much sense when we're talking about image, the public image of a person, of an artist. I don't think it makes too much sense to plan that and then start writing based off of that. I've had a lot of bad experiences with that. 

I think it makes more sense to start writing some songs and seeing, which of those work well, which of those work well with me as an artist, which ones feel like they come from me as an artist and which ones could be written or performed by any other person? And once you figure out what those songs are, and you can figure that out by asking friends, right? Like, "Hey, which do you think work really well with me? And why do you think that is? What are some subtle things that I think are in the music that I have as well?" For example. You could go further, of course. 

You don't have to be authentic as an artist. I really don't believe that. You could be, what I call a cool character. Right? For example, someone like Marilyn Manson is not... He's authentic in his own way, I suppose. But his thing, it's extremely stylized. Even a lot of rappers or a lot of pop stars are the same way, where they're not really being themselves. And that's not what we want from them. We want them to be this super hyper stylized version of themselves, the bitch. We want to have these stereotypes that we can attach to them or the feminine one. Or I don't know, the feminist. We have these things. Ed Sheeran being the the chubby guy, we want to have a beer with. We have these images for these artists. And they play a little bit of a stereotype in that regard. Or Billie Eilish being like the dark emo kid. 

And I think that the more you can figure out what your thing is, it doesn't even have to be new. I really don't think you have to find something that is completely different. I see too many bands who are including bagpipes into their metal songs because they think that's going to make them more unique. I really don't think that that's necessary. I think it's more about writing great songs, first and foremost, and then getting them across in such a way that they seem more special than they are. So, there's a lot of things that can go into that. I'm just going to brush on a couple of them. This is a huge topic. 

But if you could take any basic song and contrast it with a really interesting artistic music video, for example, and it becomes something completely different, because context matters, absolutely. Right? The way we experience your music is incredibly important. And so, the kind of images you use, the kind of colors, the kind of imagery you use, right? Is incredibly important as a storytelling tool for you as an artist. And since we are a multimedia culture now, nobody listens to just music anymore. We all know what the artists look like now. We all know their backstories. We all know their creative vision for their project. That's become more and more important. And it's something that songwriters need to start thinking about as well.

And there's ways how this affects songwriting that are really interesting and really fascinating, where we go deeper into storytelling through your songs. But let me, when we bring it back to the beginning, I think to answer your question, I think the most important thing is to just start writing, and then to just naturally feel out, "Hey, this feels right." 
I had this project, for example, and I showed it to someone and they said to me, "This sounds like psychological metal." Right? My latest project is a metal project. And I thought, "Man, that's so great. I like that word psychological." I'd never really thought about it like that. And so, writing future songs, I just tried to bring out that word psychological even more and try to make that stronger, because I like that. I like if my songs are psychological, right? 
And so, that's what I would say. You start somewhere, you write as much as you can. You try to get good. Try to write great songs. And then see what labels other people are attaching to you. And if you are a moderately interesting person, that is going to happen by itself. And you use those, you make those stronger and you make those very, very clear in your marketing. 

If you look at, for example, Ariana Grande, and you listen to just her singles, you could just read the titles of those songs, right? God is a Woman. God, I don't know all of them. But if you just look at those titles, it's just, the image is 100% clear. It's almost as if someone said, "Okay, what are 10 words that we think of, when we think of Arianna? Let's write some songs to those."

Michael Walker:
That's so good. Yeah. And I appreciate you being able to condense what could be a very long, probably like a five hour long conversation in a few minutes of wisdom. It sounds like what you're saying is that, ultimately what we'd recommend is that you just start writing as many songs as possible and try to write as good of a song as possible. And you're going to find that some of the songs resonate more with you and they resonate with other people in that. As long as you're consistent about developing your craft, then you're going to start to figure out what's resonating, what's working best. And you can lean more into that intentionally, as you discover what those things are. Beautiful. 

Friedemann Findeisen:
Absolutely. Cool. 

Michael Walker:
All right, man. Well, hey, it's been one of my favorite conversations to have. So, I really appreciate you taking the time to be here and to share all the lessons that you've learned when it comes to songwriting. And I know that you've literally got a full book, where you dive really deep into this. And you also have your academy and whatnot. So, anyone who's listening right now, what would be the best place for them to go to learn more from you?

Friedemann Findeisen:
I think the book is a good place to start. And if that resonates with you, I think you could go straight to Holistic Songwriting Academy, because that's the book times a hundred. That's my proudest achievement, is that course, Holistic Songwriting Academy. 
You can also check out, if you don't want to pay anything, you can check out my YouTube channel, Holistic Songwriting, specifically, the artists serious, which is I think the best series that I have on there. That's the one I'm most proud of, where I take apart these huge artists and show you how they work holistically, how they make us feel a certain way. And I really go to try to cover as much as possible, not just the song writing, but also production, but also stuff like lighting or clothing, or the kind of cars that they drive. All of that really impacts. As I said, context matters. Right? All of that impacts how you experience the artist. And that's what I'm really interested in, is how we can create an image for ourselves through everything that we do. And that's really what I talk about in that series.

Michael Walker:
Beautiful. Awesome. So, one thing that I'll do for everyone, is we'll put the links in the show notes to make it as simple as possible to go check it out. And I would definitely recommend, I mean, songwriting is one of those things that it's just at the core of your career as an artist. I think it's one of the best investments you can make. So, I would highly recommend learning as much as you can from Friedemann, and from... There's several different. Just studying your favorite artists, I think it's one of the most valuable investments of your time and energy. So, I'd highly recommend going and checking it out. Cool. 

Friedemann Findeisen:
Cool. Thanks for having me. 

Michael Walker:
Yeah, man. You're awesome. Appreciate the conversation.

Friedemann Findeisen:
Thanks, brother. Cheers.

Michael Walker:
Hey, it's Michael, here. I hope that you got a ton of value out of this episode. Make sure to check out the show notes, to learn more about our guest today. And if you want to support the podcast, then there's few ways to help us grow. First, if you hit subscribe, then I'll make sure you don't miss a new episode. Secondly, if you share it with your friends on your social media, tag us, that really helps us out. And third, best of all, you leave us an honest review, it's going to help us reach more musicians like you, who want to take their music career to the next level. It's time to be a modern musician now. And I look forward to seeing you on our next episode.