There are options to the verse-chorus-bridge form that can create a natural energy build in your songs.
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If you usually stick to a verse-chorus-bridge format for your songs, you know the benefits: that song form has a natural way of contouring the basic energy level of the music. Verses tend to be relatively quiet, choruses bump up the energy, and bridges will either build or diminish energy according to your own choice.
Another way to construct songs is to think of them as three sections without worrying so much which one is the verse, which is the chorus, and which is the bridge. To write this kind of song, you simply compose three song melodies, where the end of one joins easily to the start of the next.
A great example of this kind of structure is “Home“, written by Drew Pearson and Greg Holden, and recorded by 2012 American Idol winner Phillip Phillips. Some song analyses list the three melodies in this song as a verse, chorus and refrain. But that is probably forcing the song into a familiar formal design for ease of understanding. It’s more beneficial for songwriters to see them as three melodies that simply contrast each other to varying degrees.
The song is in the key of C major, and starts with what clearly sounds like a verse.
The second melody doesn’t really have the characteristics of a chorus, since it uses the same chord progression (C F C F…), one that treats the tonic (key) chord as being a home base, moving away from and back to it. The lyric is also more akin to the type we’d see in a verse. The third melody feels a bit more like a chorus, and the chord progressions sound like they are searching to get to the tonic, rather than using the tonic as a base.
But in a very real sense, there’s no particular feeling of verse or chorus as such. It’s more a situation where one melody follows another, and creating an energy build in the process.
But you have to be careful writing songs like this. There needs to be a sense that the three melodies complement each other, but that at least one of them offers contrast.
If you’re interested in composing this kind of song, you need to make sure of the following:
1. Choose a key for your song, and create a chord progression and a first melody that makes the key clear. In “Home”, the progression for the Melody #1 is:
C F (play 4 times)
Am F C F
C G/B Am G Am
F C/E G/D C
2. Use the same chord progression as for the first melody, and create a new melody that sits higher in pitch. (In “Home”, Melody #1 uses C as its highest pitch, and the melody moves down from there. Melody #2 moves up, using E and F as important notes, but using a similar melodic shape as Melody #1. The chord progression changes slightly in the 2nd half of the melody to accommodate different melody notes.
3. Create a 3rd melody that uses a new and contrasting chord progression. Be careful not to go too far afield with this; it’s not a song bridge you’re writing. It’s a melody that should sound like the natural follower to Melodies 1 and 2. (In “Home”, Melody #3 is constructed on the following chords: F C Am G. As the last chord is the dominant (G), it strongly seeks out the tonic chord, and gives the song considerable forward motion. It’s very easy to move back to either Melody #1 or #2 at the end of it. (The composers chose to return to Melody #2)
Composing songs this way can provide a really nice natural build. It gives you options as well, which is to create a first melody, provide the contrast in the middle section, and then return to a 3rd melody that is almost the same, or even identical. (The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” is a good example.)
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Written by Gary Ewer. Follow on Twitter.
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