We’re approaching the home stretch, folks. We’ve picked the themes; we’ve picked the songs; we’ve even done research to make sure it all comes together. But before we do that, we have to make sure we know how all the pieces fit.

So, here’s what you need to know about me: I’m a musician. I’ve got a pretty keen ear, and I’ve been playing instruments since I can remember. I don’t laugh–I sing, instead. So when I build a mix, I tune in pretty closely to the relationship between one song and the next. Here are the characteristics I look for:

The Beat.
All you club crawlers out there know that maintaining the beat is the most rudimentary rule of mixing. For techno tracks, which are designed, more or less, to this purpose, this is a relatively easy feat. When you’re crossing genres, however, or shifting the mood within a mix, it can be harder to fit songs to a metronome.

The question then becomes one of finding alternative means of creating a continuous rhythm. There are more complicated methods, like modifying the tempo of one song or the other, or sampling other songs to fill space and create lead-ins. This kind of audio editing is time-consuming and delicate and, in my experience, usually doesn’t turn out very well without halfway-decent editing software. When working lo-tech, I usually opt for a much more elegant technique: leaving space.

Determining how much space should fit between song X and song Y can be as calculated as counting out how many beats would comprise a measure or passage of song X, and then planting song Y at the downbeat, or as abstract as simply waiting until it feels song X is “really over” before introducing its successor.

The Pitch.
Finding a common pitch between song X and song Y (and song Y and song Z, and so on) is probably my strongest guiding principle in building a mix. While pairing songs that happen to be in the same key does happen from time to time, this isn’t the Omega of pitch matching. After all, nobody wants to listen to forty-five minutes of songs in C.

When I construct a mix, I map in my mind the keys of all the songs at my disposal and use that information to structure the placement of songs. Sometimes, I’ll treat the root chord of a song as a single note, and build a melody. Other times, I’ll be aware of the notes where each song begins and ends, and find combinations that feature a certain key change. Different relative keys can produce drastically different effects: following a song in C with a song in the key of G, the relative 4th, is a much more consonant and accessible change than following a song in C with one in the key of F#, a tritone (the “ugliest interval” in Western music).

Something else to keep in mind while working with this tool set: songs may be mixed in the same key generally, but because analog media degrades and changes over time, or the tuning fork in the studio had a notch in it, or maybe because the piano was slipping out of tune, one song in C might not feature the precise pitch of another song in “C”. Be aware of this, and try to feel out where including songs that are out of pitch might be an appropriate quirk of a mix and where it might make your audience grit their teeth. Here are a few resources to help you get to know your keys:

The Circle of Fifths
Online Ear Training

The Content.
Last but not least, we come to content: lyrics, themes, style, tone. All the stuff that makes a song itself. When you factor in what a song is about, when it was written, where it came from, who sang it, what sounds or instruments it features, you can start writing narratives.

In the New Year’s Eve mix Eric and I will be publishing tomorrow, we’ll be constructing a chronological, visual narrative with the songs that we select. There are three sections (stanzas, chapters, panels, moments in time) to our story. By the time the mix is finished, you’ll be able to follow the mix, as a book or a film, from moment to moment.

Got it? Good! Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow for the conclusion of the Listen In mixtape series. Happy listening!

© 2007 Ryan Stolte-Sawa for Listen In. Cross-posted to Newsvine.

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