Take a listen to the following songs, and pay particular attention to the verse melodies: My Little Town (Paul Simon) Don’t Stop Believin’ (Jonathan Cain, Steve Perry, Neal Schon) Roxanne (Sting) Jam (Michael Jackson, René Moore, Bruce Swedien, Teddy Riley) Rumour Has It (Adele, Ryan Tedder) These songs were all hit songs in their own time, and […]
For songs in a verse-only format, the verse has to act as a complete musical journey. It doesn’t have a chorus to rely on to provide extra musical excitement. In addition to the challenge of making a verse feel complete, verse-only songs run the risk of being overly repetitive. To avoid excessive repetition, many verse-only […]
Many songwriters will find the chorus to be easier to write than the verse. That’s because a chorus design is typically simpler than that of a verse. In particular: A chorus melody features repetitive hook-like cells that are easy to sing and easy to remember. A chorus chord progression targets the tonic chord (i.e., they’re […]
It’s probably a product of the age in which we live, but once we’ve invented or created an item, our mind moves quickly to how we can mass produce that item for maximum profit. Songwriting isn’t much different, and that’s probably why songwriters talk a lot about formulas. In songwriting, a formula is a system or procedure […]
It’s amazing how much music you can write with so few ideas. Here’s what I mean: A typical song will have a verse and a chorus, with the possibility of some other optional section, like a bridge. Each of those sections are usually constructed on one main idea, with other related ones. So that means […]
The great thing about various possible song designs is that they usually work for any genre. It shouldn’t matter if you’re writing pop, rock, country, folk… the principles that make a formal design (verse-chorus-bridge, for example) work apply to any and all genres. And not just genres… you find them used in practically any era as well. That means that […]
