what do i do if my song feels empty? like i have instruments in there and they're all playing stuff but it just feels unfinished. I feel like if i added any more melodies / chords / rythyms, it would be too busy, but right now the song sounds unfinished and unpolished.
yeah...... this usually has nothing to do with polish. it has to do with whether or not there is actually anything there. whether anything really happened. and, admittedly, it's usually not possible to conjure 'something' and put it there on an as-needed basis. from what you described, my guess is that the song feels too 'normal'. in that case, here's a good tweak you can do: try to change it so it somehow no longer fits in the category of 'song'. In other words, if you had to change it so it would officially no longer be considered a 'song', what change would that be? give it a try. and then call it a song anyway. that's pretty much the go-to strategy i would use here. songs love not being songs