Song Structure
Lyrics
If you’re using the verse/bridge/chorus format, in whatever order, there are often common features.
The
verse presents the facts and sets the scene. The bridge adds contrast
to stop the list of facts from becoming dull. And the chorus comes to a
conclusion.
So let’s put this into practice in a dull way, then examine a proper song that is much less so.
The
subject matter is the weather. The verse might be talking about how
sunny and pleasant it is. The bridge adds contrast by talking about it
getting cloudy. Chorus conclusion might be that just because it’s sunny
in the morning, doesn’t mean it’s going to stay that way all day. There
you have it, the most boring song idea ever.
So let’s look at a proper song.
Northern
Lad by Tori Amos. The verse describes hopes and aspirations at the
start of a new relationship; “I thought we’d be okay”. The bridge adds
doubt in the form of something being not quite right: “But I feel
something is wrong”. the chorus comes to the conclusion that if
something isn’t working then it’s sometimes wiser to quit: “You’ve got
to know when it’s time to turn the page”.
Music
The
song is in the key of A major. The verse sequence begins with the I
chord, and is mostly major with a minor chord thrown in. This reflects
the feel of the opening verse in that it’s essentially optimistic but
already there’s a shred of uncertainty there: [A] Had a northern lad
[Bm] Well not exactly had.
The other thing to notice is that it
does what heaps of chord sequences do in that it starts with the I and
works its way to the V which provides the strongest pull back to the I
and so is great for turnarounds.
The bridge begins with the vi.
This is common, as is beginning bridges with the IV. Tori probably
chooses the vi because the bridge is not adding contrast in terms of a
brighter change but a darker one, and so the minor chord better reflects
this mood.
The chorus in this song is quite unusual. It begins
with the vi chord which is the same as the bridge. She manages to make
it sound fresh by almost bringing the song to a halt. A lot of chorus’
switch to the V chord to add a contrast and a lift from the I chord of
the verse, but Tori most likely chooses the vi because the chorus is
talking about something that has failed and so the V chord might not
provide the right mood. Also it’s worth noting that she uses the IV to
end the chorus. The IV isn’t as powerful as the V when used as a pull
back to the I, but still works well.
If you analyse lots of
songs, you’ll find some very common practices in terms of chord usage to
signal the beginnings and endings of sections, but don’t expect to find
hard and fast rules.
Song Dynamics
A very important
aspect of song structure is the way songs progress dynamically as they
switch between sections, and move through the song as a whole.
The
most common overall dynamic feature is that the song starts softly,
gradually increases in intensity, builds to a climax, and then quickly
winds down for the ending.
This is true of Northern Lad. It
mostly involves Tori increasing her vocal volume and pitch before
winding down both elements for the ending.
Drums can often play an
important role. Drummers vary the ’busyness’ to mark distinctions
between the sections. This can be as simple as doubling the amount of
hits on the hihat, or just playing a slightly busier pattern. They
usually announce the approach of anew section with either a variation to
the pattern they had been playing, or with a roll into the next section
often concluded with a crash on the cymbal, which falls on the first
beat of the next section.
The drummer is softening the blow that might occur if the rhythmic pattern were to just change abruptly.
If
you’re not planning on having drums in your song then you’re going to
need to create rhythmic variations on your guitar or whatever. You
should do this anyway because the bridge and chorus are supposed to add
contrast, so you probably shouldn’t just plod along with the same old
rhythmic pattern throughout all three sections, but again, no hard and
fast rules apply. Sometimes just one variation is enough to refresh the
song.
Application
Getting Started
The
most important thing when beginning a new song is to be prepared to
abandon any ideas you may have about how the song should progress. It’s
useful to have a rough idea of what you want to do, but don’t stick
rigidly to it.
Approach your project as if you’re discovering an
already existing song rather than creating a new one; be a facilitator
not a dictator.
Keep your options wide open, and be prepared to
be ruthless when an idea or part you like is holding back the project.
There are times when you have a really great guitar part, but it’s just
too busy, and when you remove it the song takes on greater clarity and
spaciousness. It’s a wrench to let that nice part go, but you have to be
tough for the sake of the bigger picture. This is true of all the
elements of song structure.
Using Motifs
Motifs
are hugely important and useful when creating a song. They keep the
song ’on track’ and stop it from wandering off and falling apart. If you
create a rhythmic motif and apply it to a musical phrase that sounds
good, then using the same motif for the next phrase will help to let you
know what will and won’t work.
What Is A Motif?
A
motif is a pattern that is repeated to create a larger work. In music
there are two types of motifs: rhythmic and melodic. Creating rhythmic
motifs is simple and can be done without an instrument. Melodic motifs
require a little more knowledge and skill, and that thing that can’t be
taught; talent.
How To Create A Rythmic Motif
The simplest way is to take an empty bar and fill it with whatever note values you wish, and see how it sounds/feels.
Let’s
say the time signature is 4/4. If we choose a whole note, then the bar
is filled from end to end with one continuous sound and are motif is
done. It’s also incredibly dull, so let’s do something a little more
interesting by filling it with a variety of values, e.g, half, quarter,
eighth, sixteenth notes, and so on.
You could fill it with 2 half
notes; 1 half and two quarters; a quarter, two eights, and two quarters;
or whatever. Remember that rests are just as valid as played sounds.
Note
that motifs aren’t always the size of a bar, or start at the beginning.
They can be as small as just two note values such as a sixteenth and an
eighth. It can be useful just to think in terms of short and long
notes, or dots and dashes.
The theme from Jaws has a central
motif that is a long note followed by a short: daa da (- .). And the
example that is always mentioned when talking about motifs is the
Beethoven’s 5th: three shorts and a long, da da da daa (. . . -).
It
can be useful to just make up a little rhythmic motif with your voice,
then work out what’s going on afterwards. Also, rhythmic motifs can be
made up of dynamic elements. You could play all sixteenth notes, but by
varying the soft and loud, you could create a rhythmic motif.
Motifs In Existing Songs
Analysing
existing songs for motifs can have varying results. Sometimes they can
be obvious, sometimes they’re well camouflaged, and sometimes they
barely seem to exist at all.
Rhythmic motifs are often present in
all areas of song structure. From the drums and bass, through the
rhythmic elements such as guitar and keyboard, or brass and string
sections, to the vocal and guitar solo top line melodies. Different
motifs can be assigned to all these elements in order to keep them from
treading on each other’s toes and cluttering up the mix. More on that
later.
Guitar solos can be particularly tricky. You’re more likely
to spot a motif in a Brian May solo than you are in one of Hendrix or
Zappa’s. Jimi and Frank do use motifs, but they’re constantly changing
them because of their tendency toward seemingly unstructured
improvisation. And shredder solos, because of their filling up of all
the space, are more likely to use rhythmic motifs that rely more on
dynamics.
Vocal melodies are a little less problematic, but still
tend to disguise the motifs, either in an effort to make the vocal sound
more natural, or because the narrative has created a sentence that
doesn’t fit the pattern.
Here’s a song that has a very simple and effective motif underlying the vocal melody.
It is Kathy’s Song by Paul Simon. The motif is simply a two note short long (. -).
When
Paul sings the song, he naturalises the phrases in order to make them
sound more human and less mechanical, so to properly recognize the
underlying motif, we have to reapply it I.e, force the melody to adhere
strictly to it.
I hear the driz zle of the rain
. - . - . - . -
Like a mem o ry it falls
- . - . - . -
Soft and warm con tin u ing
- . - . - . -
Tap ping on my roof and walls
- . - . - . -
He
uses this . - motif throughout the whole song. Except for the phrase,
’and a song I was writing is left undone’. That’s why it leaps out at
you. If you like the song, this is probably the bit you like best. By
breaking the rhythmic pattern, it refreshes your interest, but this
wouldn’t have been possible were it not for the pattern being
established in the first place.
Often it’s necessary to refresh
the pattern much more frequently, e.g, every four bars. Sometimes just
inverting the motif works well.
As always, don’t expect any hard and fast rules.
Writing Lyrics
When
beginning the lyrics, it isn’t such a good idea to immediately try to
tell a story, make the phrases rhyme, or even form coherent sentences.
If
you start with the sentence, “I am going to the zoo”, you’ve already
caused your mind to start thinking of what might happen next, does it
rhyme with zoo, and so on. By starting with a coherent sentence, and the
intention to tell a rhyming story, you’ve severely limited your
options, and the most likely outcome is that you’ll grind to a halt.
Let’s
say you have your chord progression. You have created a rhythmic motif
that has provided you with a rough melody line. Now you come to the
lyrics part, it’s best to sing vague speech sounds that only mimic real
speech. Like scat singing but with stuff that makes the phrases sound
like real sentences, albeit indecipherable ones.
Record this
gibberish, and listen to it several times to see if there’s anything
that could be easily converted into something that actually makes some
kind of sense. Take it one sentence at a time, still not trying to tell a
story.
Narrative songs are quite rare, at least the good ones
are, so don’t worry. As long as the music is good, the lyrics don’t have
to tell a story. Just try to be interesting. For instance a carpeted
floor isn’t as interesting as a floor covered with glass and feathers.
Space
Music has several dimensions that can be utilised to keep your song from becoming cluttered and muddy.
The
first is time. If your bar lasts four seconds, and you fill up the
first, then you have three seconds of empty space to fill to complete
the bar. Using rests to keep it empty is as valid as filling it with
sound.
The second dimension is pitch. If you play a very low note
on bass guitar, and a very high note on piano simultaneously, even
though they occupy the same point in time, they won’t crowd each other
because they occupy very different points in audio space.
Stereo
recording introduced a third dimension by allowing for panning left and
right. So if two instruments occupy the same time and same pitch range,
then you can always pan them to different areas of the stereo image.
A
common problem when starting a new song is that you feel obliged to
fill all that empty space as quickly as possible. So a busy rhythmic
pattern is played on guitar. Then you slap on some bass, drums, and a
keyboard part.
Up to this point, the different voices of the
instruments might have been enough to keep them separate, but this won’t
continue indefinitely, and if all your parts are occupying a lot of the
same space in terms of time and pitch, then by the time you get to
track 6 or so, you’ll have no room left, and you won’t be able to hear
anything else you play over the top.
No amount of panning and
turning volumes down will help. What will, is going back and simplifying
the parts so that they leave lots of room for new additions.
Look
at the rhythm guitar part. If it’s occupying a lot of the same area as
the keyboard, try shifting it up in pitch, simplifying the chords down
into just the most important notes without doubling them up. So just
play two note chords that are made up of the 3rd and 7th or whatever.
You can do something similar for the keyboard. Have the keyboard use a
rhythmic motif that takes up only part of the bar, and the rhythm guitar
fill in the gaps. You’ve still kept the musical essence of what they
were both doing, but you’ve stopped them from treading on each other’s
pitch and time toes, and created a much airier mix.
Listen
to Five to One by The Doors for a great example of just how much space
you can leave in a song. The lead guitar and keyboard parts occupy
similar areas of pitch and time so they are panned hard left and right
to keep them separate. Notice how much empty space there is, and how
sparse the central motif is.
There will be times when blending
different instruments together to create one sound is just what you
want. See Leonard Cohen’s Sisters of Mercy for a great use of this
technique. By blending different sounds, they create something that is
like a weird machine travelling from left to right across the stereo
picture.
Capturing Ideas
If you’re gifted
enough to be able to transfer ideas directly from your mind to paper,
then great, if not, it can be very useful to have a basic recorder that
can just instantly record stuff without having lots of setting up to do.
You could create a really nice little phrase. But by the time you’ve
got your software set up, it’s gone forever, so have something you can
just collect little ideas on to work on later.
So that’s about it. Hope I’ve helped. Apologies if this advice leads to cheesiness.
