Almost every project I start begins with a bad name. It is usually the date, a tempo, a synth preset, or a word that happened to be in my head when I pressed save. That is fine. A working title has one job: helping me find the file again.
The trouble starts when the placeholder lingers. Weeks later, the track has changed shape three times, and it is still called something that describes the first ten minutes of the session rather than the music that exists now.
I have come to think that the real name usually arrives late, and that it is worth waiting for.
A title is the first thing a listener hears
Before anyone presses play, they read. On a streaming service, the title sits beside the artwork and sets an expectation in less than a second. It tells the listener whether to expect night or daylight, a room full of people or one person in headphones, something tender or something that hits.
Instrumental electronic music makes that small piece of text even more important. Without lyrics, the title may be the only words attached to the record. It becomes a frame. The same four chords can feel hopeful or haunted depending on what you were told before they began.
That is a lot of responsibility for something many producers decide in the last minute before upload.
Early names can steer the music
A name chosen too soon does more than sit in the file browser. It quietly pushes decisions. Call a sketch something aggressive and you may keep reaching for harder drums, even after the melody has started asking for space. Call it something dreamy and you might soften a section that needed teeth.
This is why I try to keep working titles deliberately boring. The less a placeholder means, the less it argues with the music. I want the track to be free to become whatever it is turning into.
Listen for the word the music keeps suggesting
At some point in a project, usually after the arrangement settles, I stop producing and just listen. Not to fix anything. Just to notice what the track feels like as a whole.
A few questions help:
- Where would someone be when this song finds them?
- What time of day does it sound like?
- Which moment would I describe first if I had to explain it to a friend?
- Is it moving toward something, or away from something?
Sometimes the answer is a place. Sometimes it is a feeling. Sometimes it is one detail, like a vocal chop or a strange rise before the drop, that seems to hold the identity of the whole piece. A good title often names that detail, or names the feeling that the detail creates.
Say it out loud
Titles live in more places than we expect. People type them into search. They say them to friends. They see them on a small screen in a car or at the gym. A name that looks clever written down can be awkward to say, hard to spell, or impossible to find among a hundred similar results.
I like a simple test: say the title out loud, then imagine someone trying to find the track after hearing it once. If they would struggle, it may be worth trying something clearer. Mystery is welcome. Friction usually is not.
The name is part of the finish
We spend hours on the last few percent of a mix, adjusting levels that only a trained ear will notice. The title is heard, or read, by every single listener. It deserves at least a fraction of that attention.
So I let the placeholder stay dull, keep working until the track shows me what it is, and then choose a name that points toward that feeling instead of away from it. When it lands right, the title and the music start to feel like they were always one thing.
If you want to go further into the small choices that make a track stay with a listener, read The Drive Home Test.