as musicians we don't often speak of 'format'.

you occasionally hear it as a somewhat inside synonym for 'genre' in radio, or, you know, .wav, .mp3; file formats. there are close analogues in words such as arrangement or structure, but format is more for television, radio, other media. it certainly doesn't come up in the studio a lot.

musicians might want to adopt the term, as i think there's something very purposeful about format. maybe it's something we should talk about more.

setting an expectation

if you've ever watched more than one episode of a tv show like house or law & order, you're very familiar with format.

each episode of house is essentially the same: doctor house is confronted with a new patient whose mystery illness resists all the usual treatments, he's trying everything but he can't figure it out, it gets worse and worse and worse, and then, right at the critical life-or-death moment, suddenly an epiphany, and the patient is properly diagnosed and in mere minutes, cured.

same for law & order - there's the cold open where they find the victim, then the title theme, then we get the detectives, we're at the police station, we're interviewing people on the street, the suspect is found and arrested, you got the assistant district attorney, the district attorney, there's a problem with the judge, the proceedings, the verdict, and finally, a brief moment of levity for a nightcap, fade to 'executive producer dick wolf'.

with rare exception (more on this in a second), it's almost the exact same beats at the exact same times, every single time.

some people are not intrigued. 'ok, so it's the same episode every time? why even watch the show? you know exactly what it's going to be!'

these people do not respect format. these are not my people.

format is comfort. it allows you to focus on the little things. you don't have to think about why these characters are here. you know why they're here. you know what they're doing.

or do you? having the same things happen every time sets up an expectation. so what happens when we deviate from the format?

the power of thinking that we know what's going to happen is very strong. it's a primitive thing - as animals we compartmentalize the world into, essentially, things we must focus on and things we can ignore. there are so many people and ideas and unknowns and threats we must keep track of that, when there's something we think we've comfortably figured out, we forget about it and it only jumps back to our attention with a jolt. once the expectation is firmly established, even a minor step in a different direction can feel like a major, exhilarating swerve.

i was going to go on to examine format breaking episodes of the above two shows - s1e21 of house, 'three stories', and s6e23 of law & order, 'aftershock' - that really endeared me to both series, but it's a bit unnecessary to get into all that. check them out if you're interested.

even if the format is never broken, it can serve an important purpose. do we tune into a favorite television show week after week, year after year with the expectation that really, truly, anything can happen; that the main characters might be replaced by a family of bats, or that the whole hour long drama might suddenly take the form of a game show, or an infomercial? certain constants are necessary to establish things as what they are tautologically; take it as far as you want but without some sort of continuity, everything collapses into an amorphous jelly.

format in music

certainly many artists are no strangers to doing essentially the same thing over and over again. so what are some of the ways musicians employ format?

dubstep - i mean the really brash, bro-y, geeked out american stuff, not the sparse and vibey original UK variety - is an interesting case study. when you turned on a dubstep song at the height of the genre's craze in the early 2010's, you knew exactly what you were getting into, the wispy, melodic intros, the filters and risers, and then an abrupt change: cacophonies of swooping energy bolts, stadium drums, power noise, synthetic bass wubs. the format was a major part of the appeal of the genre - 'wait for the drop!'

this is distinct from 'structure' or 'arrangement', those have multiple common forms among styles but here, just by virtue of being in the genre there is an expectation established. if the song was dubstep, it almost always followed the pattern. of course it wasn't unheard of for songs to have quiet intros and loud parts juxtaposed long before the genre's development, but dubstep really compelled its songs toward a particular structure almost to the point that it's not in the genre without it. that's format.

another good example is dance/techno/edm - music made for mixing by dj's has had format requirements for eras. the extended intros, buildups, and breaks aren't just happenstance: as an edm producer, there are certain things you need to include in order for your track to have the correct functionality. the music literally doesn't work without them. and on top of that, when the elements of the format get too confining, artists push back against them with great intentionality, often leading to new sounds and structures and even entirely new genres.

youtubers and other internet savvy musicians have developed and scavenged all sorts of format related advances to help them get ahead in the competitive online environment. having access to metrics and even second-by-second view data can shed a light on what your viewers and listeners are really tuning in for, and can even point to the specific moments in the song or video where the important things should be happening. format has strongly driven what kind of videos people make, how they are assembled, and what happens when.

trust the format

all content has a format, and the higher up the production totem pole you look, the more it has been tested and rejiggered. there's always something new to learn and implement. look at the structure and ask, why is it like this when it could be like that? how does it serve the content? how does it serve the audience?

as a musician, keep an eye out for the formats that are working for your peers. think about how you can use structural elements to create expectations in your work that you can then use to your advantage. do you want to adhere to those expectations, comforting and flattering your listener? or do you want to subvert them, creating excitement, confusion and pressure? if you do that, where do you go from there? do you then return to form, or strike out in yet another direction? can you make it work? will your audience be receptive? any of these choices might lead you toward a completely different and more fruitful path... definitely give them some consideration!

lastly, if you ever decide to start blogging 20 years after it's fashionable to do so, use a text-only layout. that's a classy format.

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