Less is Sometimes More

How many layers do you really need in your music?

In the digital age, we have endless tracks and instruments at our fingertips. It’s tempting to stack sound on sound in search of richness and depth. But is that the only path to a full-sounding production?

No one would accuse Holst’s The Planets of sounding thin. Yet he worked with a finite number of musicians…sometimes a full orchestra, sometimes just a soloist. The richness came not from quantity, but from clever, intentional use of the resources at hand.

I often use The Beatles as an example of this. In the early days, it was just the four of them, yet the songs sounded complete. Why?

Because every member played their role effectively. They didn’t have the luxury of layering. And what you heard on the record was a faithful version of what they could play live.

Bob Marley’s band is another perfect example. Reggae is famously sparse and open, yet full. That’s because each player took up exactly the right amount of space. The bass sat where the guitar chucks didn’t. The keys and drums filled in the gaps. Nothing wasted. Nothing overlapping unnecessarily. Efficient. Lean. Perfect.

Compare that to much of today’s pop, where live performance often depends on triggered loops, backing stems, and ever-growing band lineups just to recreate the sound we recognise. We’ve traded economy for density.

When I started using sequencers, I was working with just three MIDI voices. Think 1980s arcade games. One voice made chords using fast tremolo of different notes to simulate triads. The second voice sequenced each part of a drum kit, one sixteenth note at a time, sometimes also embedding a bass line into the kick. The third handled melody. That was it. They had to make it work. And they did.

I’m often called in to arrange songs for limited lineups….say, drums, bass, piano, guitar, and sax. My job is to make sure the key elements of the song (themes, hooks, countermelodies) are all covered by the available players. I love this challenge. It demands creativity and intentionality.

So here’s a challenge for you:

Write something for fewer instruments than you’d normally use. Imagine it will be performed live, with no stems, no loops, no safety net. Just the players.

See how much you can do with less. It will push you to arrange smarter, write clearer, and make every instrument count.

Because sometimes, the power of your music isn’t in how much you add, but how you use what’s there.