I am writing a tune at the moment. I have reached a point in the development of this tune where a decision must be made about what the tune is, what it is saying, and where it is going.
I really like the initial idea of the tune. It’s funky, bluesy, percussive and fun. It is not quite like anything I’ve written before. It is strong enough to stand on its own as a tune.
Do I keep it as a relatively simple, fun, funky tune?
Or should I take it further, develop it into a more involved, and perhaps more rewarding, musical story? I have some ideas for this that I am exploring.
Both directions will probably work. Which one do I choose?
If I leave it as a simple, fun tune, I will never know how the story turns out.
If I develop it into a longer piece of music with multiple sections, I could be giving up the simple effectiveness of the original idea.
This decision is not easy to make, but it must be made. Otherwise the tune will just hang in limbo.
Since I am not ready yet to make this decision about the tune, I am going to make an interim decision instead: I will work for the rest of this week on development ideas. If by the end of the week I am not really excited by the direction of the writing, I will choose the simple option.
Preston's Blog 
If your in flux at the decision leave the song to find it’s own way,post it and gain the feedback,if you keep it demo format then you can easily change it. Listening to old jack johnson “constellations” i feel that a great song will be great whatever it has been done to it, musicians in general i think find it hard to leave the songs as finnished articles being the most self critical to ourselves. Put it out on the airwaves and see the response. jaz
Well, Preston;
There’s nothing saying you can’t do both! You can write multiple versions of the same song. You don’t have to use both as performance pieces, but I’ve found that when I start writing something really tough, sometimes it just doesn’t turn out the way I want, and I have to strip it back to the original idea. As long as you’ve kept good documentation, you won’t lose your work.
That’s the direction I’m heading with it now. Keep it simple!
Do it both ways and give one the suffix of “extended dub mix alternate ending …etc.”. If it’s a groovy enough tune it will carry it’s own both ways. It would be awesome if the same tune could take you on two separate journeys. That means you got something extra special.. . . and it’s outside the box.. . . outside the box is really cool, as you already know.
@John: Too much work to do two tunes based on the same idea with an album to write. That decision is easy to make :^) I do see what you mean though. Could be a cool “study”: two different developments of the same idea.
I look forward to hearing and possibly playng it 🙂