An Analysis Of Avicii’s Waiting For Love

Written By Max Dai

So this is the first song of a series where I pick a song, analyze it, then produce a track that has a similar structure and instrumentation. Why did I pick this song? Honestly, I didn’t spend too much time thinking about it, although I did want to do something by Avicii. Turns out this was a great choice of first song - it sounds simple on the surface, but after doing the analysis I realized there are actually some pretty complex and interesting chord progressions here that are hard to notice because so much of the focus of this song is on the lyrics and melody. Now that the analysis is done I can finally start working on my track, which is coming soon…

0:00 - 0:10 | Intro

  • Waiting For Love starts off in f# harmonic minor by fading in the first chord

  • Over the course of 4 bars it transposes to A Major, the relative major

  • The last VI - VII - i of f# minor that ends this progression is also a IV - V - VI of A Major, which makes an open cadence that completes the transition into A Major.

  • Avicii also keeps the I in the V and VI chords (the technical term here is a pedal note) - the I is not actually part of the V and VI chords but it just exists there, which introduces some dissonance that resolves nicely into the A of A major near the end

  • At this point only a single piano is used

  • A cymbal without the crash leads the transition into the next section

0:10 - 0:25 | Verse

Where there’s a will, there’s a way, kinda beautiful…

Avicii wastes no time jumping into his first verse. There is a soft piano accompaniment for the melody but here I’ll separate the two to illustrate how much the mix between the melody and accompaniment changes the vibe of the song.

  • We are already in A Major

  • At 8 bars this is a fairly long melody - many common EDM songs have 4 or 2 bar melodies

  • By itself this melody sounds fairly light and happy, but watch what happens when the accompaniment is added

  • The accompaniment is the exact chords from the intro, placed in beat with the melody

  • Suddenly the music takes on a more nostalgic vibe - this is due to the extensive use of the vi and III chords

    • Special note on the III chords - for any major scale (in this case A Major), the triad built off its 3rd note is a minor triad - Avicii purposely changed it to a major triad by raising the middle note a semitone which gives the entire progression a more uplifting feeling

  • Note that the sadness will be more exaggerated in my rendition than the actual song at this point as I’m playing the accompaniment the same way with the same volume as the melody so we can distinguish the chords better

  • In the actual song, the accompaniment has its low and high end filtered out and is much lower volume - this allows the melody to sound much more hopeful while also keeping the nostalgic undertones

  • There is also a piano with only its high end filtered out, playing bass notes

  • The filters gradually go away over the course of the verse

  • In terms of drums we have a kick every beat with the occasional snare and swoosh

  • The verse ends in a V-vi open cadence paving the way for the next part

  • A cut off cymbal effect helps the transition

0:25 - 0:41 | Verse (Repeated)

  • Chords are basically the same and repeated with different lyrics

  • Accompaniment is filtered then suddenly unfiltered near the end of the verse

  • Drums are now kicks every beat with hi hats between every beat and snares every second beat in a classic dance pattern

  • There are now some barely noticeable high note arpeggios in the background

0:41 - 0:56 | Chorus

Monday left me broken, Tuesday…

Here I could technically also separate the melody and accompaniment but I’m too lazy. Here it is in one blob, and as before note that this sounds different from the song at this point as my accompaniment is played without filters and as loud as the melody

  • A cinematic thump effect helps the transition into the chorus

  • Here Avicii again repeats his style of a hopeful melody with mellow accompaniment that feels “blurred out” due to the filtering of high and low frequencies

  • The IVmaj7, vi7 and iii7 chords are all mellow

  • I’ve split out the bass line here similar to what occurs in the song, as opposed to just putting the note in somewhere in the accompaniment, as having the deep bass note makes this part feel much more full

    • Note the bass is much less noticeable here than in the next repetition of the chorus

  • Something about the movement of the accompanying chords, bass, and melody just makes this part sound so satisfying

  • Note that there are no drums here at all

0:56 - 1:10 | Chorus (Repeated)

  • The same chord progression and melody repeats with different lyrics

  • There is now a clear bass line played by a bassoon

1:19 - 1:34 | Instrumental Chorus

  • I skipped 1:10-1:19 because it’s just a bridge consisting of an echo

  • Transition into this part is done using a trick where a note is played with a long echo/decay, then reversed

  • Instead of Avicii’s voice the melody is now played by a marimba

  • Accompaniment is still piano that is gradually unfiltered - the filter has a resonance so that as the filter moves the notes at the edge of the filter sound a bit different

  • Bassoon appears midway and runs back the bass notes

  • Transitioning into the 2nd playthrough of the instrumental chorus, there’s a sequence of 4 electronic notes

1:34 - 1:48 | Instrumental Chorus (Repeated)

  • Now the melody is played by an oboe

  • There is now noticeably less filtering on the accompaniment

  • Snares have appeared every 2nd beat

  • Halfway through this chorus a snare roll starts to build up

  • As we near the end, there’s also a riser which, combined with the culminating snare roll transitions into the drop

1:48 - 2:02 | Instrumental Chorus (Drop)

  • All remains the same as before except now there’s a kick every beat and hi hat between every beat

  • There’s also more bass playing

  • The accompaniment chords are played softer and between the beats instead of on them so syncopated

  • Kick cuts out 2 bars before the end as a transition

Rest Of Song

The rest of this song is just repeats of the verse and chorus, with tweaks to increase the energy. I’m just gonna list them out here

  • 2:02 - 2:18 | Verse

    • Filtering on accompaniment is essentially gone but its still played at significantly lower volume than melody

  • 2:18 - 2:33 | Chorus

    • Similar to last choruses and also with less filtering on accompaniment

  • 2:33 - 2:48 | Chorus (Repeated)

    • There’s more bass

    • Accompaniment played without filter and noticeably louder

  • 2:48 -3:03 | Chorus (Instrumental)

    • Marimba melody

    • Electronic sounding arpeggios obvious now

  • 3:03 - 3:18 | Chorus (Instrumental)

    • This is exactly the same as the other instrumental oboe melody chorus

  • 3:18 - 3:33 | Chorus (Drop)

    • Same as other drop

  • 3:33 - 3:49 | Chorus (Drop Again)

    • Accompaniment barely noticeable now, focus is on the oboe, kick and snare

Max Dai
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