How To Write a Song with the perfect SONG FORM
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- Опубликовано: 15 окт 2024
- In this video we look at how choosing the right SONG FORM is a crucial part of the songwriting process and can often be the difference between getting stuck and FINISHING your song.
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The songs featured in this video are:
LAST CALL by Keppie Coutts - open.spotify.c...
TIMEBOMB by Silamor (Ben Romalis) - open.spotify.c...
ABOUT KEPPIE
Hi I'm Keppie. I'm a professional songwriter, and songwriting teacher. I've been teaching song and lyric writing for over 10 years now for some of the best contemporary music colleges in the world- Berklee Online, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music's Open Academy, as well as for the Australian College of the Arts. At other times, I've taught for the Australian Institute of Music, as well as the LA School of Songwriting.
My goal is to help people write better songs! My experience in the classroom, with thousands of students at this point (many going on to find careers and success in music), is that your songwriting, like all things, can get better with meaningful, deliberate practice. My intention is to share the skills, knowledge, information, and ideas that I've gathered with anyone who wants to improve their songwriting.
Keppie's music is here:
www.keppiecout...
ABOUT BENNY
Hi I'm Benny. My passion for music and creativity stretches across multiple disciplines and art-forms. I am a founding member and songwriter / lap-slide guitarist for one of Australia's best and most bearded country-bluegrass-folk bands, THE GREEN MOHAIR SUITS. To date the Mohairs have released 4 full-length albums and tour both nationally and overseas.
I am also the Founder and Head Producer of SILAMOR STUDIOS, a boutique studio specialising in Composition for Film, TV and Interactive Media. I write extensively across various instrumental and lyric-based genres and has been commissioned for major projects by Adobe, Cathay Pacific and Audible. I currently release original songs under the name SILAMOR.
I am also passionate about education and have taught song and lyric writing as well as film composition for JMC Academy, Collarts and the Australian Institute of Music. I design and regularly facilitate workshops on creative process and innovation.
Links to Bennny's music are here:
The Green Mohair Suits
open.spotify.c...
SILAMOR
open.spotify.c...
www.silamor.com...
Work Flow Audio: / @workflowaudio-studymu...
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#songs
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#musictheory
#learnmusic
#songtips
#protips
#lyricwriting
#howmusicworks
#chords
#chordprogressions
Sum up means when you say everything again in a short way. Like at the end of Star Wars, you could sum up by saying, “it was a struggle but the Jedi won.” They can both be a part of the story. The verse tends to have more detail. The chorus sums up the feeling. Every song has a story. Some albums are just a collection of songs without the intention of telling the bigger story. Some albums are designed to tell a bigger story. Sequencing might be only about the way the music flows, but if the album tells a story than sequencing can do that too.
Some notes on AABA:
I appreciate that you're describing that there is at least a difference fundamentally between a "verse chorus" form and an AABA, but I have to say I disagree with your analysis of AABA.
I submit to you that there is a continuum between AABA(and other traditional song forms) and the "verse chorus." Many of these AABA forms have verses that were lost to time. "Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer" for instance, is an AABA form, but it also has a verse. "dasher and dancer and prancer and vixen" If that's a verse, the A can not also be a verse.
The AABA form is "AABA chorus form." in other words, the "A" IS a chorus, most often containing the hookline(or refrain as you say). The problem with telling us that the refrain must end the A section is that it's not exhaustive. There are many places you can place the hook. "Frosty the snowman" puts the hook in the beginning. "Santa Clause is coming to town" puts it at the end. You can even bookend the hookline like "it's the most wonderful time of the year." In rarer cases, you can even put it on the second of four phrases or the third of four phrases. The important thing is that the A, which is THE song, contains the hookline somewhere.
As years went on, some of these "verses" were then brought back later in a number as a "re-intro" 2nd verse. you'll hear this in a lot of broadway tunes as the 1920s and 30s rolled on. Many of these extended forms got cut down in the public consciousness to cut out the verses and just sing the AABA, "just the chorus."
Verse refrain is not necessarily AABA. Verse refrain is a different form altogether. you can structure a verse refrain with an AABA outer structure, but it's still not exactly the same animal. Kurt cobain used verse refrain a lot. "All Apologies," "Drain you," "come as you are," are all kind of wacky verse refrain variants. They don't have the same payoffs and arcs as a typical AABA chorus.
Also, there is ABBA, ABAC, AAA'B, those are some of other "chorus forms" that have been lost to time, but are still used to structure "choruses" in a verse chorus structure. this is what I mean when I say the "verse chorus" form and the "AABA chorus" form share more DNA than is indicated here.
There is also true refrain form like "day-o," and there is strophic form like "the entertainer(billy joel).
At the end of the day, I think it's really good to make writing students aware of the concept "what kind of song do I want to wrtie," but I'm just writing these notes because it feels a little like this "does it have a chorus or doesn't it" is misleading and not exhaustive.
So in a sense, ALL songs must have a chorus, because the chorus IS the song. Sometimes that is a very short thing, a true refrain, like day-o. But it may be misleading to say "this song has no chorus." A strophic form=one big long chorus. Verse refrain=the refrain is the "chorus" or central hook. In a stark verse chorus form, "Killing me softly," it's a very clear verse block and chorus block. Strangely, "don't go chasin' water falls" is very similar to Killing me softly structurally because it's another pure verse chorus(no prechorus, no 'bridge).
Anyway, I digress. Just some feedback from a fellow songwriting educator!
Forget these forms and apply two loops rule instead. Which is, the song have to change after two loops, the second loop didn't have to be perfectly same with the first but at least have the same vibe, more often than not, the difference beetween the first and second loop is on the tail. After two loops, the change can be drastic or just subtle, usually drastic change will be in the middle near end of the song. You don't even have to repeat some section like in the verse chorus form or aaba form, remember Bohemian Rhapsody also have no reapeated section, what you have to appy though is the sense of build up to climax and anticlimax, as long as you apply two loops rule the song is listenable.
Think of sequencing as writing a story, it would be odd if in the 1st chapter the characters are introduced, and in the next chapter, they are dead. For your listeners, it would be awkward to hear a soft song that transitions into a heavy fast-paced song. Singles are what attract your listeners, but an album is how you make them into fans. You have worked hard to create and produced every part of your story, so take the time to focus on the sequencing. Listeners will easily skip from one song to the next, you need to give your listeners a reason to stay for the whole story, and not to skip chapters. While verses are incredibly versatile and diverse, here are some tips that might help you get started:
Tell a story: As mentioned earlier, the verse is often where the narrative unfolds. For this reason, it’s a section where the lyrics often change entirely in the event that it’s repeated (as heard above). Use verses as a way to tell a story, especially for tracks where lyrics are involved. This is traditionally the repeated section of the song that follows the verse. The lyrics of the chorus usually contain the moral of the story or the reason behind the song. “This happened” is in the verse, “this is how I feel about it all” is in the chorus. The hook is traditionally part of the chorus, or at the very end. The role of the verse is used to tell a story, or ask questions, or paint images. Whatever is established in the verse will be addressed in the chorus.
Think of it like a preacher on the pulpit in the verse, giving us the argument or the set-up for the moral that will be stated in the chorus. Or it could be word-painting where the verse establishes the images and the or chorus reflects on those images. If the song is a narrative, the verse establishes the characters involved, the scene, and what everyone wants.
You guys are phenomenal and I’m honored to share time and space with you. Awesome, awesomeness, Yes !
Great video. It was helpful that you showed two different song forms in the same video so we can compare. I especially liked the catchy rhythm of Benny’s song, and noticed it was a great demonstration of matching lyrics to rhythm. I was a bit confused by the bridge though: Half of the lyrics in the bridge are the same as the last line of the chorus (“Every beat I have left is going to be for you”). I thought the function of a bridge is to introduce NEW content and perspective? But this bridge repeated what we’d just heard and seemed rather like it was establishing a refrain line. My takeaway is there is no black-and-white way to do this. Now I will go learn more about bridges…
Thanks as always for inspiring!
Excited to check out the course on Udemy! The content you both put out is stellar.
You guys are amazing. Really good example of A A B A form. You're both great teachers :)
Thanks Sandra, that's very kind! You might be interested it the mini course we just released here: www.udemy.com/course/how-to-write-songs-the-songwriting-process-start-to-finish/?referralCode=8B3DC2EAEAC9833FECBF There's a lot more detail in there, with other tools and exercises ;)
i really love this channel!
Great explanation beautiful way to illustrate it
I love both of these songs, just sensational - and the way you take us through your process is incredible. Thank you both!!!! Just signed up for the udemy course, thank you.
Thanks Justin, really appreciate your feedback and support! Hope you enjoy the course.
Quite unusual for a verse to last 16bars? Talking about The Last Call. Every song part (A1/A2) really feels like as if it should be broken done in two parts.
Really lovely song with a catchy melody. Love your line cliche in your chords sequence as well.
Woow! Great songs! Congratulations...
Another amazing video. Thank you so much! Will also be buying the course on Udemy :)
Also, the chord choices mentioned in the video are so cool! It'd be great if you guys could make a video on these chord shapes on guitar for chords such as Em6, Emb13, C#m7b5, D13sus4 etc and how to use them.
Thanks so much, Ruud! And yes - good idea for another video!
Holly this is the best song writing lesson ! Gold .. do u have a full course on song writing and structure? 🙏
amazing content as always, thank you so much!
So what is this formula? Well, he believes that it's all about telling a story without the lyrics, telling the story. He calls it lyric-less storytelling, basically. And it's conveying story and feeling through the production, the arrangement, the elements of the song, the voices, the frequencies used, the mix. It's all conveying a story to you that is moving in such a way that grabs you and pulls you in. And it's addictive to listen to it's addictive to keep listening to, and that you don't turn it off.
I wished you would have touched on the differences between a bridge and a chorus. And is the B section always a bridge?...could it sometimes be a chorus?
Like your song! Wisps of Joni Mitchell but original. Beautiful
Beautiful, guys! I just wanna mention - there's a kind of hybrid form (and obviously, and infinite amount of other forms) that is just a very short chorus. That has it's own chords and that feels different than the verse, but doesn't quite feel like a full blown chorus. I like this form quite a bit. Sort of an understated form of verse/chorus :)
Yes, totally. So many forms! Here, we are mostly trying to give two big brushstrokes - with chorus, and without chorus :) We could probably do a whole course just on song form...!
@@htws You guys def could! Ps - I wasn't trying to inform you guys about anything with my comment (I know that you guys know about this "hybrid form" lol) - I was just sharing a thought and one of many forms I dig :)
I'd love to hear your take on Mary Robbin's _El_ _Paso_ .
Thanks Keppie and Benny. Ha! I never realised I wrote an AABA until I watched this.
Yes! It was actually THE 'pop song' format of the 1920s, 392, and 40s. It's much loved, and super resilient! One of my favourites.
Ooh Timebomb was great too!
Wow. Nice.
What is it called if you repeat the intro after the chorus?
Last Call is still a beautiful song.
You don't control love; it controls you. Don't let a broken heart break you.
yaG
After seeing a few of you guys videos, unfortunately not once have I seen you shown 'how to write a song'. This was particularly obvious when John Lennon's songs were looked at. What happened instead was a good analysis of his song structure and rhythm etc.
Now as analysts of song structure, I'll give you full marks. Your efforts are admirable, so is your attention to detail.
But nowhere do I find insights in songwriting. You describe the process. That's not helpful getting a song out.
Perhaps if you cover some of your own songs we could start to see inside what song writing is like for you! Then we might translate past the 'process stage' and get nearer to this most mysterious activity. Thank you.
Song form is the same thing as song structure.