Constructing songs so that we hear verses, choruses, bridges, and so on, is a good and easy way to ensure that your music incorporates contrast. Even before hearing a particular song, we know that the chorus is likely to be higher in pitch, that the chorus chords will probably be stronger and shorter than the verse, […]
You can define a multi-part verse melody in many ways, but the kind of melody I’m talking about is the kind you might find in a song like Eagles’ “Take It Easy” (Jackson Browne/Glenn Frey), which is a verse-only song where the verse consists of several short phrases joined together to make one complete melody. I’ve been thinking […]
A lot of the time, the musical ideas you conjure up will be chorus ideas, because it’s often easier to think up short, “hooky” fragments that will serve as a good chorus. They’re the kind of musical ideas that are short, repeatable, singable, and generally fun to perform. But sometimes a musical idea will pop […]
For many songwriters, writing a chorus is a logical first step. It’s the part with the hook, and you can make great use of repetition to come up with something that’s catchy and memorable. If you’ve started your song with the chorus, the next section you’ll work on is verse 1. That’s because whatever emotions […]
Repetition in music of any genre is vital to its success. That wasn’t always the case. If you go back a few centuries, much music was “through-composed”, a term that refers to music that was one new idea after another, with very little repetition. Through-composed music has the benefit of establishing a mood, and then keeping that mood. […]
If writing music were easy, I doubt we’d stick with it. One of the reasons we write is because it’s not always easy. Sometimes, coming up with music that sounds great means working and reworking. It’s a process that takes time and experimentation. But that battle of getting music right is the “fun.” In some ways, the longer […]
