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All About Structure/Arrangement(Repost)
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For my benefit and yours, I've compiled all of the structure related Kim Lajoie Blog posts into this one:
Preproduction: Enhancing expression
Music is expression.
It is a way of expressing ideas, aesthetics, and emotions. There are things that can be expressed through music that cannot be translated to any other medium (including written language).
When I speak with an artist about expressive range, I’m referring to the range of variance in a particular aspect of the sound. For example, the expressive range of the human voice can be thought of in terms of volume (soft to loud), pitch (low to high) and tone (smooth to harsh). And then there are also factors relating to articulation and melodic composition.
All instruments have some degree of expressive range. Some more than others. For electronic musicians, synths can have a huge expressive range. Even stock loops have an expressive range through the use of editing and effects processing.
The expressive range of each part of the song can be used very effectively when it supports the overall structure and contour of the song. For example, the chorus (or recapitulation) of a song might need to have high energy. As well as density to the mix by adding more parts, also look at the parts that are already there:
Drum parts can get more complex and syncopated
Basslines can become more sustained or more animated
Background rhythm parts can become more regular
Melodies can get higher
Harmonies can be thicker and fuller
Often an artist will bring in a demo recording using loops that are static (unchanging) throughout the whole song. Even if the loops sound great and perfectly capture the vibe of the song, they can make the whole thing a bit uninteresting to listen to. Verbatim repetition has an effect of flattening the contour of the song.
Exploring and enhancing the range of the song requires exploring and enhancing the range of each individual part in the song. It’s not enough to simply add more layers at the high points and remove layers at the low points. It’s easy to fall into this trap because it works. Really. Simply adding and removing layers is an effective way to shape the contour of the song. But there’s so much more that can be done. And the producer’s role is to dig deeper and go further than the artist, in order to better realise the potential of the music.
-Kim.
Preproduction: Tightening structure
Another important aspect to consider in preproduction is the structure of the song. For vocal songs, this is often addressed when working on the lyrics. Sometimes this is enough, sometimes it isn’t. Approaching structure separately is often necessary when there is a strong instrumental component to the song. This includes vocal songs that have distinctive sounds or textures. This is where the vocal is not the only driving force or characteristic feature of the song.
In assessing the structure of the song and identifying ways it might need to be improved, it’s essential to understand concepts such as contour, proportion, development and coherence. I’ve already written about these here:
http://kimlajoie.wordpress.com/2010/07/19/contour/
http://kimlajoie.wordpress.com/2010...t-and-momentum/
http://kimlajoie.wordpress.com/2009...structure-work/
Usually artists present demos that have some good ideas, but are undeveloped. They might range from a collection of ideas (sometimes even in the same key!) vaguely arranged in a structure, to fully-realised compositions that are just a little loose around the edges.
Sometimes I need to do a lot of work with the arist to present their musical ideas in a way that flows and makes sense. In extreme cases, I need to rerecord parts just to make sense of the structure. This is often because the sections are in different keys or tonalities in a way that doesn’t make musical sense, or because individual tracks are too heavily processed (typically compression or distortion) in a way that can’t be undone or pulled back.
When it’s only a nip and a tuck required, it’s because there are sections that are too long – they spend too much time without contributing much to the story of the song. In other cases additional parts are recorded or rearranged to give the song a more defined shape (contour) and progression (development).
-Kim.
Don’t make better mixes. Make better music.
Stop it.
No really, stop it.
Stop focussing on the mix. There are more important things to focus on. Your mix is fine anyway.
Newsflash: The mix isn’t really that important. Sure, a good mix helps the listener understand and enjoy the song. But a good song is still a good song regardless of the mix. And a terrible song is still terrible no matter how good the mix is. And listeners can tell the difference.
Making music is not all about mixing. Don’t hide behind the technology. There’s so much more to do:
Creative direction
Don’t work on your mix. Work on your creative direction.
Come up with new ideas for projects. Don’t just work on individual songs – embark on something big. Something ambitious. Compose three songs (a demo) or six songs (an EP) to express a musical idea or feeling.
Invent! Try out a new idea. Take a different direction to what you normally do. Invent something new. Combine two or more unlikely musical elements.
Composition
Don’t work on your mix. Work on your composition skills.
Focus on what the listener will hear. No-ones going to care how analogue your kick drum sounds if your song is boring and uninspired. It doesn’t matter how ‘tape-like’ your mix bus chain sounds if the singer sounds like she just woke up.
Melodies. Doing interesting things with sound doesn’t count for much unless you’re also doing interesting things with the notes. Learn how to compose an interesting melody. Don’t just read a few online articles – practice! If you spent half the time writing melodies as you do reading internet guff about plugins, you’d be coming up with beguiling and captivating melodies without trying.
Harmonies. Don’t just choose four chords and repeat them forever. Develop them. Let them grow and evolve throughout the song. Extend the chords. Use substitutions. Use slash chords. Vary the pace for dramatic effect.
Rhythm. Enough four-on-the-floor. Disco is over. DJs have enough music to last until the sun spectacularly devours us all. Do something interesting. That’s not enough. Now do it in 7/8. Alternate between 6/4 and 4/4. Seamlessly move between straight and shuffle. Vary the amount of syncopation for dramatic effect. Use composite time signatures. Juxtapose them. Some of the suggestions are silly, some aren’t – and you won’t know the difference until you try them.
Preproduction
Don’t work on your mix. Work on preproduction.
How will it all fit together? Think about all the elements in your song and reflect on what value they’re adding to the song. Be clear about the creative direction of the song and cut out anything that doesn’t support it. Have the courage to throw away good ideas.
How can it be strengthened/improved? Don’t stop when you have all your material arranged into a structure that makes sense. How can you continue to improve the music? Pay attention to the contour of each section. Make sure each transition (from one section to another) is clear and deliberate – not just one section after another.
Rehearsal
Don’t work on your mix. Rehearse your parts.
Physical instruments. Yes, I know we’ve got Elastic Audio and Autotune and endless disk space for multiple takes… but they’re no substitute for a good performance. Editing can turn a sloppy or lazy performance into a competent one. It can’t, however, turn even a competent performance into an inspired one. Editing can’t add expression or feeling or excitement to a performance. No technology can – it comes from the performer. And the performer can only do it after hours of practice and honing the craft. So get on it.
Virtual instruments. Oh, you thought virtual instruments are different to physical instruments? Take a look at those black and white keys under your fingers. Take a look at those assignable knobs. Make a performance of it. Put some expression into it.
Oh yeah. That sounds like a lot of work. Making music is a lot of work. Cry me a river. You think you can become successful by being lazy? Yes, you do want to be successful. Success isn’t a record label contract or a sold-out stadium. Success is honing your craft. Success is becoming insanely good at what you do. Success is shipping.
And if you see yourself exclusively as a mix engineer? Make sure your clients do all the above.
-Kim.
Contour
Contour is the overall ‘shape’ of a song. While structure refers to the order and length of sections within the song, contour refers to how those sections relate, how they react to each other, and how they flow.
Contour includes the rises and falls in energy level, the establishment and return to main themes, and the development of musical elements. When a song has a well-defined and sensible contour, the listener will better understand the music and feel the anticipation and excitement as intended. When a song has a poor contour, the listener will feel lost and alienated.
Energy level
A song with a good contour will have variations in energy level. Periods of high energy energise and excite the listener, whereas periods of low energy provide relief and anticipation for the listener. Effective placement of high energy sections and low energy sections is an important consideration when designing the structure of a song. If the changes are too slow, you lose momentum and the listener’s attention. The changes are too fast, you don’t give the listener enough to recognise and latch on to.
Main themes
Musical themes give your listeners a way to remember parts of the song – not just after listening to the song, but during it. By establishing one or two main themes at the beginning of the song, you can then guide the listener through familiar material and unfamiliar material. A good song needs both, for similar reasons as needing different energy levels. Familiar material provides reassurance and recognition for the listener, whereas unfamiliar material provides excitement and development. Of course, too much of either will make for a weak song (too much familiarity becomes boring, too much unfamiliarity sounds like randomness). A good contour will require effective placement of familiar and unfamiliar material to guide the listener through the song.
Traditionally, musical themes are entirely melodic (or harmonic) – recognisable motifs, melodies, chord progressions, or other such material. Depending on your own approach to music, however, thematic material may also include characteristic sounds, or even distinctive effects processing.
Development
A song with good contour will unfold and grow over time and take the listener along with it. Not only that, but the development of the song will occur in a deliberate way throughout the song – working together with the flow of energy and the placement of musical themes. I’ve written more about development here:
http://kimlajoie.wordpress.com/2010...t-and-momentum/
With a good understanding of contour, you’ll be able to make your music more engaging and enjoyable for your listeners. More than simply being a collection of musical ideas, good contour will give your song shape and cohesion.
-Kim.
Development and momentum
Development and momentum are two concepts in composition and production. They make longer term structure effective. They are the difference between a collection of sections in a logical order and a complete unified song that tells a coherent story.
Development
A song having a sense of development means that the listener hears the song grow and unfold as it progresses. This makes for a more compelling and engaging experience for the listener because there is a level of intrigue and surprise, simultaneously with a feeling of being taken along for a ride. When there is new musical material, it is not like changing the channel – it builds on previous material, appearing as the next extension. In some cases, this can come across as the original material growing out and becoming larger or more complex than before. In other cases, it can come across as additional detail being revealed – as if the listener is ‘zooming in’ and seeing more.
To give your music a sense of development, you need to think beyond musical structure being a collection of sections in a logical order. You need to think about each musical element. Not necessarily instruments or tracks – but musical elements. This includes:
Characteristic sounds
Melodies
Rhythms
Chord progressions
Think about ways in which they can be extended or expanded, and see how those extensions work as developments of the original material.
Another approach is to take a musical element that’s already quite complex, and reduce its complexity. The reduced version becomes the ‘original’ – the form in which the listener first hears it. As the song progresses, bring the complexity back in.
Momentum
Momentum is a sense of moving forward. Think of it as using development with a deliberate rate of chance. The rate of change is key here.
Beginning composers often make music where the rate of change is too slow. This can be the case if each section is too long – even if the song has a good contour, and even if there’s a good sense of development. When the sections are too long, the listener gets bored and stops anticipating the next section. In other words, you lose momentum. This happens regardless of how ‘exciting’ rhythms or loops are. Even if it’s 150bpm high-energy techno – a minute of the same bar over and over again has no momentum.
At the other extreme, a rate of change that’s too fast will confuse and disorient the listener. Instead of excitement, you’ll end up with randomness. If the listener cannot understand the music, there’s no anticipation and no momentum.
What rate of change is right? This is a matter of judgement, and different sections of a song will require different rates of change – depending on the contour of the song. As a composer (or producer), you have to develop your own sense of pace.
With a bit more work in giving your music a greater sense of development and momentum, you’ll make your music more compelling and keep your listeners coming back.
-Kim.
If your song a jumble of noise?
No, this post is not about mixing – it’s about composition.
Do you have too many unrelated musical ideas in your song?
While sometimes the problem is a lack of variety, other times the problem is too much variety. You’ll know you have too much variety when you have sections in your song that sound unrelated to each other – as if your song were made up of bits from other songs.
The problem with this is that it becomes confusing for the listener to understand the music. People are very good at finding patterns and relationships. Music lacking in patterns and relationships can easily end up sounding like a jumble of noise.
To make sure you’re not falling into this trap, think about the links and common elements tying together all the sections of your song. To improve coherence, consider aspects such as these:
Instrumentation (sounds)
Tonality (key, chords, scale)
Groove (timing, rhythmic modes)
Melodic ideas (recurring motifs and melodies)
Contour (relationship in the overall structure in the song)
Of course, you need to strike a balance! Too much coherence will bore your listener, just as too little coherence will confuse your listener.
The next step is to be able to deliberately vary the coherence in a song. Not just randomly – but to deliberately choose different levels of coherence at different points in the song.
For example, you might choose to have a high level of coherence at the beginning of the song, in order to establish the musical language of the song and familiarise the listener with the principal musical ideas. Similarly, you might want to have a lower level of coherence in the middle of the song (or two thirds in – such as the bridge), in order to surprise and provoke the listener, and develop the song in a new direction. You might want to return to a higher level of coherence at the end of the song in order to create a satisfying conclusion and provide a sense of arrival or return for the listener.
-Kim.
How to add more excitement and energy to your music
So, you’ve got your song planned out, the main parts are in place, it’s humming along… but you’re just not feeling the push. It’s not making you sit on the edge of your seat – it’s making you sit back (or worse, turn away…).
What you’re missing is excitement and energy.
If your first move is to reach for a compressor, or harmonic exciter (surely an ‘exciter’ adds excitement?), or another serving of high-frequency boosts… pull your hand back. You’re on the wrong track. Using these tools will make the song more exciting than it used to be, but if you apply them throughout the whole track, it won’t make any difference to a listener who isn’t familiar with the previous version.
Similarly, you might be tempted to add more 16th (semiquaver) hihats or other percussion. And similarly, it’ll make the song more exciting than it used to be, but it won’t make any difference to the listener.
Why is this?
It’s because your song still has the same energy level from start to finish. Or, it has the same range in energy levels from start to finish. What happens is that in the first 20 seconds (or thereabouts) the listener becomes accustomed to the energy level in the song. It sets their expectation for the rest of the song. If the energy level of your song does not vary much, it will be lacking excitement – even if it has a high energy level.
What actually adds excitement? Change.
A dynamic song structure will add more excitement than any compressor or hihat rhythm. Think about the highs and lows, the ebb and flow, tension and release. I won’t go into too much detail – I’ve already written plenty about structure here:
http://kimlajoie.wordpress.com/tag/structure/
Another way to add excitement is to use rhythm. A ‘four-on-the-floor’ rhythm commonly used in dance music is about as unexciting as it gets. Even if you have to use this for your kick drum (due to stylistic constraints), there’s a lot you can do with the other instruments to add excitement. Add excitement by making musical events (notes, phrases, sounds etc) come in earlier than the listener expects. This can be in the form of accents that come ‘before the beat’, or repeating patterns that shift and change leading up to significant moments in the song.
Drum fills are a good example of this – they add excitement leading in to a significant moment. They work because the listener hears the drum elements (typically snare, kick and crash cymbal) earlier and more frequently than expected. They shake up the listener’s expectation that the previous rhythm would continue. Experiment with taking a similar approach with other instruments too – shake up the established patterns at key points in the song. Making them faster and denser will help add excitement. Also, think about other techniques too – change the pitch, the timbre (brightness – open that lowpass filter!), the harmony (minor/major/etc), the interaction with other parts… there are endless possibilities.
With a bit of practice, you’ll soon be adding so much excitement to your songs that your listeners will have trouble sleeping at night…
-Kim.
Nested Structures
Nested structures are quite simple to understand, but can add new levels of order and structure to your music.
If we start with two basic structures:
Binary: A B
Ternary: A B A
Nested structures refers to the idea that each of the structure “elements” (A, B, whatever) can actually be (or have) a whole structure in itself. This can be the basis for develping more complex structures from simple ones. For example:
We could choose ternary for our overall structure (ABA). But if we split it up further – replace A with the binary structure ab, and replace B with the ternary structure cdc, then we end up with the overall structure ab.cdc.ab. Read through this a few times if you didn’t quite get it.
Now think about taking that another layer deeper. You can keep nesting structures until you get down to individual phrases, gestures, motifs, even notes!
Also, consider that there are many more possibilities for “basic” (or primative) structures. As well as binary and ternary, there’s also rondo (ABACADA – commonly chorus,verse,chorus,verse,chorus,etc), sonata (A B A B’)
Usually, there’s two ways to approach this: top-down and bottom=up. A top-down approach would be very similar to my example above – start with an overall structure, and then split it up into smaller and smaller pieces, stopping when you feel that you can easily populate a single piece. This is a “divide and conquer” approach.
A bottom-up approach would be the exact opposite – start with several very small pieces, then arrange them into larger and larger structures. This is very easy to do in a sequencer, where you can develop a few one or two bar sections, then copy and paste them in various orders and configurations.
Personally, I usually use a combination of the two. I build the piece bottom-up, but when I’m doing it I have a mental “plan” of how I want the entire piece to turn out.
By approaching composition in this way, you can create a piece with a very high level of coherence and order. Each section will fit exactly in its place, and repeated sections can give a certain unity – without having to resort to a simple verse-chorus-verse-chorus (or similar) structure. It’s also an easy way to add complexity by using relatively simple ideas.
Of course, the fun begins when you combine nested structures with techniques for subverting nested structures. Build your piece as usual, but add interest with variations, interruptions, twists and turns, bizzare trips to strange places. These kind of subversions are usually much more effective when you start with something with very high coherence and order.
-Kim.
Sections of variable length
Often I’ve found that using sections of “metric” lengths (four bars, eight bars, sixteen bars) can often give a piece a very rigid, predictable pace. No matter how exciting or interesting the actual musical material is, sections of metric length can really weigh a piece down.
This is because the listener knows (or can guess fairly accurately) when each change will occur. In her/his mind, the listener has heard a sigificant amount of the piece before it’s actually been played.
Let me give you an example. Let’s say that so far, every section has been sixteen bars long, and it’s very obvious whether each section is static or transitional. Within a few bars of hearing a particular section, the listener already knows what the rest of the section sounds like – sometimes to the point of not actually having to hear the remainder of the section. This is the point at which the listener becomes distracted, starting to talk, or getting bored.
A particularly effective way to reduce this effect is to use variable section lengths. Instead of making each section a “metric” length (four bars, eight bars, sixteen bars, etc), the idea is to make them “odd” lengths. This has two implications:
The listener will not be quite so sure how long each section will be. In fact, (if done well) sections will often end/change earlier than expected or later than expected. This can be taken advantage of to highten expectation and excitement.
The internal structure of each section will be more “fluid”: In sections of “metric” length, we tend to break them up into smaller bits of even length. For example, if we have a section of sixteen bars, we might very easily put in eight chord changes, one every two bars; or four chord changes, one every four bars. If we have a section with an “odd” length, it forces us to be more creative with the internal structure. For example, if we have a section that is thirteen bars long, we might split it into three groups of four bars, plus one; or four groups of three bars, plus one; or three groups of three bars, plus four bars… or anything else.
How you come up with the lengths is up to you. I composed a piece a several years ago where each section length was a Fibonacci number – the sections were all lengths like 5, 13, 21, 34, etc.
Another piece I composed had section lengths chosen by rolling dice.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be random. You might choose prime numbers, or the date of every Monday in the year, or anything else. You could even choose the lengths as you compose the piece, depending on the flux in the piece.
It’s really just about making the sections have lengths which aren’t even multiples of four or eight.
-Kim.
What makes structure work?
After experimenting with different approaches to structure, you will begin to vary standard structures and start to think about developing your own approaches to structure. You might start to wonder – what makes structure work? What separates an effective and satisfying structure from an ineffective one?
Contour and proportion
Contour and proportion are about the overall shape of the structure. A structure with good contour is one where the overall rise and fall of tension and excitement makes sense. This means it can be understood by the listener as having a shape that can be followed. The obvious and most common shape is one where the song begins with low excitement, gradually increases to maximum excitement about 2/3 through, and then ends at minimum excitement again. This isn’t the only shape that works though! Another shape that makes sense is one where the excitement is greatest at the start and the end, but the middle section is quiet and subdued. Several Juno Reactor songs from their album Labyrinth have a contour like this.
Proportion goes hand-in-hand with contour. At a slightly smaller scale, proportion is about the lengths of each section. A structure with good contour is one where each section is just the right length – not too long or too short. Poor proportion is usually caused by sections that are too long without enough change to keep them interesting. There’s no easy rule to help you determine the right length – you have to use your experience and judgement. Shorter sections can be useful for increasing excitement and expectation because they make it feel like the song is moving along at a quicker pace. Longer sections are useful for building tension because the listener is expecting a change that is postponed, or for maintaining and emphasising a hightenened level of excitement during a climax.
Expectation and fulfillment
Expectation and fulfillment go hand-in-hand when approaching structure. Expectation, as you might guess, is what happens when a listener thinks s/he knows what is going to happen next in the music. This expectation is shaped by many factors you can’t control, such as personal taste in music and genre norms. A factor you CAN control though, is repeated sequences. For example, if you have three sections – A, B, C – and arrange them in your song as A-B-C-A-B-C-A, the listener will excpect section B to follow. As a more real-world example, standard song form begins with verse1-chorus-verse2-chorus, after which the listener naturally expects a third verse to follow.
Fulfillment is what happens when the listener’s expectations are met. In light of the above explanation of expectation, the listener experiences fulfillment when the section that logically follows is the section that actually follows. Note – this is not always a good thing. If the listener’s expectations are fulfilled too much the song is percieved to be predictable and boring.
Instead, building expectation but not fulfilling it helps add surprise and interest. It can also support a sense of development and movement in the music. For example, standard song form begins with verse1-chorus-verse2-chorus, at which point the listener naturally expects a verse3. Instead, there is a bridge – new material that surprises and adds interest, and also gives the song a sense of development by increasing the musical scope (adding musical material to the song).
Coherence
Coherence is about the amount of musical material in a song. An easy way of thinking about this is to consider the number of different sections (or melodies, or themes, etc) in a song, as well as the overall length of the song. A song with a high level of coherence will not have much musical material – it might have fewer different types of sections, or its sections might be very similar. Conversely, a song with a lower level of coherence will have a lot of musical material – either more different sections or more variations. Some level of coherence is necessary in music – in order to give the song a distinct musical identity and so that each part sounds like it belongs to the same whole. Too much coherence, however, will make a song boring and repetitive.
Time is also a significant factor contributing to coherence too. Given a certain amount of musical material (say, for example, three different sections), you can increase coherence by increasing the overall length of the song. Similarly, you can decrease coherence by shortening the length of the song. This is an often-overlooked approach. If you’re working on a song and you feel like it’s too boring and repetitive, try shortening it instead of simply adding new material. Likewise, if you have a lot of musical material (many different sections or musical ideas to organise) and the song is feeling like it doesn’t have a distinct musical identity, try making the song longer. This will let the music breathe a bit more – allow the musical ideas to expand and develop.
As with all composition techniques, using them in extreme is usually not the best approach – some judgement is required. And as with all composition techniques, practice is necessary for mastery! You won’t get the hang of this first time around – give yourself a few songs to experiment, to develop your own sense for how it all works.
-Kim.
Transitions between sections
All this talk of structure revolves around sections – necessarily so, because we’re talking about organising a large block of time, and the most common way of doing this is by subdividing into smaller sections.
No matter how you organise your sections, you will still have a skeleton of a song that consists of several sections of various lengths, one after the other. Without any transitions between sections, each section will simply stop as the next begins. The effect will be similar to that of changing channels on a television – abrupt and unsophisticated.
To make a transition between sections work, you must make something of it. Articulate it in the music, make a point of the change. Necessarily, there are one of two approaches you can take with each transition – a smooth transition or a contrasting transition.
Smooth transition
A smooth transition is one where the first section smoothly moves the listener into the second section. A common example of this is where the second section is fuller and more exciting than the first section, so the end of the first section has a build up into the start of the second section. Similarly, if the second section is slower or sparser than the first section, the end of the first section might pull back or slow down before entering the second section. The second section might even continue to get sparser in the first few bars.
At an extreme, the transition between two sections might be long enough to be treated as its own section. That is, a whole section in the song is dedicated to transitioning from the previous section to the next.
Contrasting transition
By contrast, a contrasting transition is one where the change from the first section to the second is marked and noticable. It doesn’t have to be sudden, but it does rely on the two sections being quite different. An example of this might be the sudden jump from a sparse and soft introduction to a song into the full and busy main part of the song. Another example could be a jump from the second chorus of a song into a contrasting bridge section.
At an extreme, a deceptive transition can be used to further emphasise the contrast. An example of this could be where the first section ends by building up as if the second section is louder and fuller, but instead the second section is suddenly quiet and soft. Another example could be where the first section ends by slowing down and pulling back (perhaps even pausing) before the second section suddenly bursts in.
-Kim.
Transition form
Another interesting approach to structure is to think about transition. This is where the prominant feature of the track is the transition between two quite different sections. A good example of this is “The Sunshine Underground” by the Chemical Brothers, which starts out quite slow, relaxed and sparse. By the end, though, it is fast and energetic – with the rhythmic elements sounding at double-time (twice as fast). Another example like this is “Hyperballad” by Bjork.
While both these examples start slow and finish fast, you can explore any kind of transition. For example “Dreaming Your Dreams” by Hybrid starts sounding dark and menacing, but finishes with an uplifting feel – almost joyous and loving!
Feel free to be adventurous in your transitions. Maybe you could start out quick and light but finish heavy and full. Or start out harsh and noisy but finish smooth and clean. Maybe start out electronic but finish acoustic. The possibilities are endless – you are only limited by your imagination!
-Kim.
Song form
One of the most popular structures is song form. Most popular songs follow a basic pattern:
verse1-chorus-verse2-chorus-bridge-chorus-chorus
This structure works well because there’s a fairly even balance between the familiar and the unfamiliar. Done well, there also a clear contour and direction to the song.
The first verse and chorus are unfamiliar the first time we hear them, though it’s suggested that the chorus is more important than the verse because it’s usually louder, fuller, and more stable than the verse.
Afterwards the second verse increases the comfort level and familiarity because it’s based on material (harmony and rhythm) that we’ve heard before in the first verse.
The second chorus is usually exactly the same as the first chorus, reinforcing its relative importance and further increasing comfort (with familiarity).
At this point we’ve heard two rounds of a verse followed by a chorus. Intuitively we’re expecting another verse, but instead we’re surprised by the bridge. The bridge usually introduces some fundamental differences (such as new harmony, new rhythm, or new instrumentation) which is surprising and refreshing. It’s important, however, that the bridge is “cut from the same cloth” as the rest of the song – that is, it’s not so different that it sounds like a new song. Otherwise it’d be so surprising that it’d be jarring to listen to!
After the bridge, we return to a double chorus, which is a return to comfort and familiarity, reinforced by the additional repetition.
Of course, there are many variations!
Many songs have an introduction (an “intro”).
Some songs have a short section that leads into the chorus (sometimes called a “pre-chorus”).
Some songs have three verses.
Some songs have a two-part bridge (perhaps an instrumental solo followed by a sparse vocal refrain before leading into the final chorus).
Some songs have a chorus at the beginning.
Some songs only play half the chorus the first time.
This song form doesn’t have to be limited to pop music, or even vocal music though! It works just as well for instrumental electronic music, rock music, hip hop, and just about any other kind of music. Try it!
-Kim.
Overcoming “loopitis”
It seems that many computer music composers have a problem with developing songs[1]. There is a tendency to create elaborate multilayered loops of two or four or eight bars, but a resistence to being able to put together a whole song.
At risk of oversimplification, this is caused by vertical thinking, where a section of music is developed by adding additional layers (and also getting lost in mixing – balancing and processing). What is needed is horizontal thinking – where a section of music is developed by adding and developing sections.[2]
There are a number of ways of going about this, but all of them revolve around thinking horizontally - working with sections that contrast and develop, rather than simply stacking sounds onto a single section. The way the sections of a song are organised is called structure or form. Looking at it this way, there are really two ways to approach this:
Know your structure before you fill it. A good example of this is if you know you want to do something roughly mainstream: verse1-chorus-verse2-chorus-bridge-chorus-chorus. You know when you start that you’ll need three sections (verse, chorus, bridge) and that one section (verse) will need two variations (verse1 and verse2). You can develop these sections independently in your sequencer. Once you’ve got them developed to a certain level (maybe drums, bass and main supporting parts) you can arrange them into place by moving and copying the sections. Once the sections are in place you can then make the transitions work and apply the finishing touches. There are other structures and forms you can try using – you can use this approach even if you don’t want to compose mainstream music! I’ll discuss some structures in future blog posts.
See where the music takes you. Using this approach you would develop several sections independently and think about how they fit together later in the composition process. You might use them in a standard mainstream structure (with verses and choruses, as above), or you might do something more complex, or more abstract. This is a more dangerous approach because it’s easier to come up with an incoherent song – one that sounds like a “bunch of stuff”. You’ll recognise this because the sound will sound sprawling, and not feel like it’s going anywhere or making sense. It’s also easy to fall into this approach as a result of being too lazy (or too self-righteous) to commit to a structure early on.
Whichever approach you take, you have to force yourself to break out of the two or four or eight bar loop. You have to start thinking in sections, start thinking about organising these sections to form a song.
And once you’ve got the hang of that, you can then start thinking about suspense, excitement, contrast, expectation, etc…
-Kim.
[1] For the purpose of this discussion, I’ll use the term ‘song’ as an umbrella term for songs, tracks, works, pieces, etc. This is regardless of whether it has a melody, lyrics, or lead vocal.
[2] I’ve got some more detailed ideas about the causes of this, but they’re beyond the scope of this blog post.
Link to Original Posts
http://kimlajoie.wordpress.com/?s=s...x=0&y=0&paged=1 |
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| Kenny Rogers |
| oh god what a post. TA version? the only thing i got immediately was "stop thinking about the mixdown" which is exactly the opposite of what most people, myself included, needs to do. |
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| Voci |
Very nice post.
Well, I assume the other 80% that I didn't read was nice too.
The first part was good, but too long to read all at once lol. |
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| Andy28 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Kenny Rogers
oh god what a post. TA version? the only thing i got immediately was "stop thinking about the mixdown" which is exactly the opposite of what most people, myself included, needs to do. |
:haha: thats exactly the only thing I read as I skipped down the page..
Will give it a read later.
Cheers |
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| JEO |
| Had quite a scroll through it on my phone :wtf: saving it for work tomorrow :) thanks |
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| Beatflux |
| quote: | Originally posted by Kenny Rogers
oh god what a post. TA version? the only thing i got immediately was "stop thinking about the mixdown" which is exactly the opposite of what most people, myself included, needs to do. |
I feel like this is a really important thing for me to work on. I think our generation of producers is the most susceptible to trying to mix and master their way out of a less than stellar song.
One thing that is common amongst professional producers is that they tend get a lot more "mileage" out of their loops, compared to amateur producers.
There is a lot of information here, and it's worth it to read through it all when you have the time. I usually read all of it, then nibble at the details here and there. You really can't learn this stuff by just reading, you have to try it out and experiment at some point. |
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| Kysora |
I've read most of these from one time to another, I'll read the ones I haven't when I have time. Thanks for compiling these.
I kind of wish more people agreed with the whole "stop worrying about the mix" aspect of producing trance considering almost all the criticism I've ever gotten involved the mix. I can't remember the last time someone actually critiqued my songwriting in any way where I could take and use that advice.
Though maybe that's just a sign that I'm doing something right, I don't know. |
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| Kenny Rogers |
| what people SHOULD stop worrying about is mastering and analog synthesizers. /rant |
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| Beatflux |
| quote: | Originally posted by Kysora
I've read most of these from one time to another, I'll read the ones I haven't when I have time. Thanks for compiling these.
I kind of wish more people agreed with the whole "stop worrying about the mix" aspect of producing trance considering almost all the criticism I've ever gotten involved the mix. I can't remember the last time someone actually critiqued my songwriting in any way where I could take and use that advice.
Though maybe that's just a sign that I'm doing something right, I don't know. |
In my experience, people generally don't constructively criticize the song writing aspects of production for whatever reason. |
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| Kysora |
| Trance is just so damned mechanical, nobody gives a about the songwriting aspect of it. That or it's just not an area that can be criticized since nobody seems to ever want to do anything wildly different with the genre musically. |
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| Mise |
read half of it, vere very interesting..
thnks! will finish reading it afterwards |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| When I used to critique stuff here, I generally focused on songwriting and sound design rather than mixing. |
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