If you listen to a standard artist such as say Avril Lavigne or John Secada, the instrumentation is always the same on every song. Keyboards, bass, drums, guitar, vocals. That doesn't change usually except they might add another instrumental player such as a harmonica but that occurs very rarely. There's usually a standard instrumentation for stuff.
The style of music I play does incorporate the bowed rebab from the middle east and I've been trying to get my hands on one so as to have another instrumental voice to work with.
I'm very much concerned about having variety in my music. Here is what I've already done to create variety in my tunes. Every song has a different form.
Although they all have at least three different sections (some more). I made a chart of how they could all be different. The first consideration is section length.
The three basic sections can all be eight measures. But you can make them shorter or longer usually in groups of even numbers. Although odd numbers are also possible but you have to have a reason for doing that.
8 8 8
8 8 4
8 8 16
8 2 8
168 8
168 4
2 8 8
4 8 8
8 162
You get the idea.
The other thing is that I base the tunes on a variety of keys. But my music only uses 5 notes so there's only 5 to work with.
As I said each tune has a different tempo
88
106
162
120
112 etc...
The other thing I do is to make sure that if an instrument is featured in the A section for example then in the next 10 songs it won't be there again.
If one tune goes; wooden xyllophone, flute, zither
then the next tune might go pot gong, zither, flute
Another thing I do is vary the compostional technique between sections.
If the A section is using the wooden xyllophones compositional technique whether or not a wooden xyllophone is actually playing it then the A section won't feature that on the next tune. It will use something else.
I often use smalle cymbals as an accompaniment and the rhythm they play is different on every tune. I keep a chart so I don't repeat myself.
I also have different ways of announcing section changes. The main way is by striking a gong but sometimes I use a different sounding gong or a cymbal instead of the same gong all the time. Or I use a glissando on something such as board zither or xyllophone.
แสดงบทความที่มีป้ายกำกับ bass แสดงบทความทั้งหมด
แสดงบทความที่มีป้ายกำกับ bass แสดงบทความทั้งหมด
วันพฤหัสบดีที่ 9 กรกฎาคม พ.ศ. 2552
Songwriting Basics
on the repeats of the chorus' and verses' change them a bit, preferably more rhythmic events, embellishments and passing tones etc...(aka more complex so that the music is developing interest). Finally use part of your bridge to make the Intro which is ONLY 4 measures long for unknowns trying to break in to the biz.
People listening to your tune want to get to the chorus quickly. If you've written a GREAT chorus consider placing it before the verse and also consider dropping the intro. Now that the melody is handled, it's time to think about accompaniment and percussion.
The Bass guitar and bass drum should be similar but not identical most of the time, the high hat and the piano/guitar should be similar but not identical. One way to create the high hat part is from the bass part. Just use the bass part's rhythm played backwards.
Have the piano and guitar follow the high hat part fairly closely. Likewise, if you've come up with a good guitar or piano accompaniment part, make the high hat similar and then write it backwards and give the backwards form to the bass. (Picked that idea up from Modern Drummer magazine). This doesn't always work but it's a place to start. Some idea is better than no idea at all.
Major chords mostly don't work so well in root position except at the beginning and endings of tunes, so everytime you come across a major chord in your writing put it in first inversion (aka with the third in the bass)
Also, you can't repeat the drums ad nauseum. You have to put variety in. So if you've got a 2 measure drum pattern, repeat it but with changes in the repeat.
Then repeat those four and change the last measure or two of that, then repeat that and put a drum fill at the end of the section. (That's hard to do well if you're not a drummer.)
People listening to your tune want to get to the chorus quickly. If you've written a GREAT chorus consider placing it before the verse and also consider dropping the intro. Now that the melody is handled, it's time to think about accompaniment and percussion.
The Bass guitar and bass drum should be similar but not identical most of the time, the high hat and the piano/guitar should be similar but not identical. One way to create the high hat part is from the bass part. Just use the bass part's rhythm played backwards.
Have the piano and guitar follow the high hat part fairly closely. Likewise, if you've come up with a good guitar or piano accompaniment part, make the high hat similar and then write it backwards and give the backwards form to the bass. (Picked that idea up from Modern Drummer magazine). This doesn't always work but it's a place to start. Some idea is better than no idea at all.
Major chords mostly don't work so well in root position except at the beginning and endings of tunes, so everytime you come across a major chord in your writing put it in first inversion (aka with the third in the bass)
Also, you can't repeat the drums ad nauseum. You have to put variety in. So if you've got a 2 measure drum pattern, repeat it but with changes in the repeat.
Then repeat those four and change the last measure or two of that, then repeat that and put a drum fill at the end of the section. (That's hard to do well if you're not a drummer.)
Music Composition Flow Chart and Rhythm Schemes
I put some new items up on myspace within pics in the folder called Music Composition at http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewPicture&friendID=67945687&albumId=1823777
It’s got the basic rhythm cells from my journal along with the rhythm schemes (called the Scheme Pool on my Music Composition Flow Chart which is also there).
There is also a chart of the first and second measure’s possible rhythm schemes where you would plug in the basic cells. There is a second chart for the the placement of anacrussis rhythms in a "second measure".
The thing to look at on my current composition flow chart is how the notes branch on the staff under the "Interval Series" heading. Notice how paths are chosen based on their weight aka predominance of pitches 1,5,3etc...
One of the things I came up with was to use a fit melody as guide tones for subsequent composition. But even after all this work, expert systems are still supposed to be better. That’s where you input a melody and perform continuing transformations on it to come up with new material. That’s in the lower right hand corner of my Music Composition Flow Chart but just roughed in. There wasn’t enough space.
The chart I used a while back which shows simultaneous Top-Down and Bottom-Up decisions is there also as well as rhythms for half of all my favorite drum kit, bass, keyboard and guitar rhythms, as well as a chart of Middle Eastern, Latin, Afro-Cuban and Indonesian hand drum rhythms.
It’s got the basic rhythm cells from my journal along with the rhythm schemes (called the Scheme Pool on my Music Composition Flow Chart which is also there).
There is also a chart of the first and second measure’s possible rhythm schemes where you would plug in the basic cells. There is a second chart for the the placement of anacrussis rhythms in a "second measure".
The thing to look at on my current composition flow chart is how the notes branch on the staff under the "Interval Series" heading. Notice how paths are chosen based on their weight aka predominance of pitches 1,5,3etc...
One of the things I came up with was to use a fit melody as guide tones for subsequent composition. But even after all this work, expert systems are still supposed to be better. That’s where you input a melody and perform continuing transformations on it to come up with new material. That’s in the lower right hand corner of my Music Composition Flow Chart but just roughed in. There wasn’t enough space.
The chart I used a while back which shows simultaneous Top-Down and Bottom-Up decisions is there also as well as rhythms for half of all my favorite drum kit, bass, keyboard and guitar rhythms, as well as a chart of Middle Eastern, Latin, Afro-Cuban and Indonesian hand drum rhythms.
Free ebook for Guitarists, Bassists and Keyboard Players
I just uploaded a new free ebook for guitarists, bassists and keyboard players. It can help you master scales, modes, solfeggio, triad chords, seventh chords, inversions, extended harmony, quartal harmony, voicings, progressions, jazz motifs, embellishments and it contains sample tunes.
http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/guitar-bass-piano-book/7236956
Currently its just pages in my notebook written in pen which were photographed and pasted into Microsoft Word. It has more than enough to help beginners get started and intermediate players complete their foundational education.
Enjoy,
http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/guitar-bass-piano-book/7236956
Currently its just pages in my notebook written in pen which were photographed and pasted into Microsoft Word. It has more than enough to help beginners get started and intermediate players complete their foundational education.
Enjoy,
Precompositional Considerations
What is the secret that makes people keep reading 300 pages of a book. We've all seen letters, words and sentences before. We've all read stories. We should be bored with it by now. The fact of the matter is that we REALLY ARE BORED WITH IT BY NOW.
You have to be a borderline genius to get someone to read 300 pages of a novel. What keeps people turning pages? An interesting story isn't enough. It's your method of presenting the story in such a way that nothing jumps into the reader’s consciousness about the mechanics that makes the reader start thinking about anything else except the story which also better be good.
The same thing is true of songwriting. If only one thing in your song makes people start thinking it's strange or just bland that's when they'll stop listening. If only even one section doesn't transition well into the next thing then we start thinking about that instead of the good feeling the song is (was) producing.
In India they have a word for the feeling that music produces. The word they use is rasa which means taste. You never want to break rasa. But it's very easy to break.
If you don’t want to break rasa then the question isn’t so much what are you going to put into each section of music. The question becomes how are you going to put it in?
People have too many choices when faced with a blank page. To overcome the paralyzing nature of too many choices, composers learn to define the limits that their composition will fall within, such as how fast should it be, how many beats per measure will there be? What key will the piece of music be in? How long will it last? What chord should it start with? Surprisingly, composers sometimes even limit themselves to a few notes and a basic rhythm. I’ll now be talking about an important group of limitations.
Instrumentation
If you listen to a standard artist, the instrumentation they use is usually the same on almost every song. Keyboards, bass, drums, guitar, vocals. That doesn't change usually except they might add another instrumental player such as a harmonica but that occurs very rarely. There's usually a standard instrumentation for things.
Form
If you walk into a music store in America, it's clearly monocultural. About the only instruments to be found are guitars, basses, keyboards, and drum kits, with classical and jazz instruments thrown in for good measure. Walk into a music store in South Asia and you've got sitars, dutars, setars, esrajs, rebabs, shawms, etc... etc... etc... along with guitars and keyboards.
There seems to be some disparity between what many young songwriters from the west SAY they want and what they’ll actually put their money down for. They SAY they want to be totally unique and different and yet they buy the same instruments as everyone else and listen to the same music as all their friends. The next sentence may not apply to you but it probably applies to 99% of the people who might be interested in buying your music. It's VERY difficult to get a person to accept anything which is not what they expect, hence the difficulty of selling dutars in North America.
If you yourself or most of your neighbors at least, do not like anything out of the ordinary, how can you expect your listeners to go for what some aspiring composers are calling “writing from the heart?” This usually means a lack of knowledge of or lack of willingness to be constrained by accepted forms.
Don't let it escape your attention that it's possible to write from the heart within the form until you're established. On that day there will be people to buy your tunes that break the rules because enough people who matter, already know and trust you. Even then, it will only get sold if you broke the rules for a good reason, hence their trust.
When young songwriters hear someone talking about forms, they often say that the best music breaks the rules all the time. I don't believe the best music breaks the rules all the time. I consider experimental avant garde music to be nearly complete psychosis precisely because it doesn’t follow any traditional rules.
When the Beatles broke the rules, they had a very good reason for doing that. A phrase was shortened or lengthened because the lyrics demanded it not because of any animosity towards the normal sections built of eight or sixteen measures.
I often think about those people who don't want to constrain themselves to traditional forms. It's like saying I'll play football, basketball or soccer but I'm going to reach the goal by running outside of the boundaries, and then expect to be rewarded for that at the end and not be penalized. It's probably not in the realm of possibility.
Another metaphor is if you're painting, do you paint on the wall next to the canvas? It's about context. Only if you're an avant garde artist and the house owner knows you're going to do that and likes your work or you just want to piss him off and don’t really need the money.
Newbies, many of whom seem to like rock, heavy metal or punk listen to their favorite bands and hear them as icons of rebelliousness. Then they think to themselves, “How could my favorite icon of rebelliousness be following any rules, forms or formulas?” But naturally the newbies haven't analyzed their favorite bands and even if they had, they wouldn't know what to listen for.
Yes, in fact your favorite icon of rebelliousness, whether they play thrash metal, punk or rap, is using intros, verses, choruses, and bridges pretty much the same way everyone else is. They're not just doing their own thing as many newbies seem to think.
If they were doing that in the beginning, their manager or producer inserted the cold calculated reasoning that it takes to succeed in the biz. Then the guys in the band probably said, “Oh, is that all? We can still make music we like and have it mostly fit inside the basic guidelines.” It's not so difficult once getting past the emotional resistance to it.
Some might say that I'd be a good example of someone who writes only for themselves. I like World Music and am into stuff like microtonal tunings, 17/8 rhythms and all night songs played for the gods not for people on instruments like gopichands, seed pod and goat hoof rattles. My Garden of Contemplation CD has no chords per se from beginning to end. There's no guitar, bass, drum kit or keyboard. So, how did someone like me get my music forwarded and into music libraries waiting to be picked up by TV or film music buyers?
The people who might say I write only to please myself would be wrong. I don't inflict my interest in microtonal tunings on my listeners many of whom surely wouldn't like that. It's too far outside their expectations. Also the rhythms are kept to what people would expect, only breaking their expectations where they expect to have it be broken. SERIOUSLY. And I reign in world music's proclivities toward inordinate length and make my compositions conform to traditional popular song forms. Most of my stuff is instrumental but SONGwriting terminology is still useful. I write only 4 measure intros and get to the chorus fast which means no double verses before the first chorus.
All of this stuff helps people forgive the fact that my music has no chords and it's played on bamboo xylophones, three and four reed shawms, bowed spike fiddles and double headed hand drums no one has ever heard of. I love this stuff but I try to be realistic about what might go over well with the average person. In order to do that, it's important to at least try to really REALLY know what that is.
So, what is the popular song form and why is the popular song form so popular? The basic song forms goes: Intro Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Bridge Chorus Out. This doesn't tax people too much. They don’t have to work too hard to "get it".
A tune seven minutes long can go on the album but it will never make it to radio unless you're Pink Floyd etc... Radio format is about 3.5 minutes. Not much longer or shorter. Initially, shoot for around 100 measures of music at a moderate tempo and you'll be in the ball park for the airwaves. Of course not all popular songs need to be aimed at radio. There are lots of great tunes longer than 6 minutes.
If your pieces have choruses in the B section here's a list of possible forms to put them in which are in the pop format ballpark so that A's =Verses, B's =Choruses, C's =Bridges, D's=make C's another section proper and the D is the bridge, T's=Transitions and R's=a rise to the chorus.
ABABCAB. This is good if you've got sections longer than 8 bars or a slow tempo. It will prevent you from going over 3.5 minutes.
ABABTCAB. transition before the bridge. There may not even be any melody in the transition.
ABTABCAB. Another good one for a slow tempo or longer sections.
ABTABTCAB The transition is repeated before the Bridge.
AABAABCAAB Double verses are too long for unknowns to sell easily most likely.
ARBTARBCARB This could work. Sounds perfectly postmodern.
ABBABBCABB Double choruses to lengthen a short melody.
AABAABTCAAB. Not much point in putting a transition before the bridge except such as where the band drops out 4 bars early while the improviser solos before the start of the solo section as in jazz.
ARBARBTCARB. Rise to the chorus with Transition before the Bridge.
ABBTABBCABB. No transition the second time. Double chorus.
ARBTARBTCARB. Contemporary practice often has the rise to the chorus and a transition somewhere.
AABTAABCAAB. If repeating the transition every time makes the song too long leave it out the second time. There's a bridge anyway. Damn double verses again though. Bane of the unsigned!
ABBTABBTCABB. Double chorus. Transition after the chorus.
AABTAABTCAAB Double verses again.
ABCDABCDABCD It doesn't end on the chorus. Good for smooth jazz or real Latin music.
AARBAARBCAARB Rise to the chorus is very common in the postmodern era of popular songwriting. Those double verses plus the rise will kill you though. The exec's aren’t gonna wait that long. Next!
AARBAARBTCAARB. Double verse and rise. Do you want to sell this song or not?
ARBBARBBCARBB Rise to a double chorus.
AARBTAARBTCAARB. Double verse AND a rise before the chorus. Forget it unless you're the Beatles or Elvis.
AARBTAARBCAARB. Ditto
AABBAABBCAABB. Double verses and choruses. NEVER try more! Otherwise we'll stamp "Rank Amateur" on your forehead permanently.
AABBTAABBTCAABB Double trouble with transitions.
AARBBTAARBBTAARBB. Are you Marilyn Monroe or Princess Di reincarnated? If not, then don't try it.
Sections
Normally, sections are either eight or sixteen measures in length. For variety’s sake here is a theoretical chart of how the sections could all be different lengths on your album.
8 8 8
8 8 10
8 8 16
8 10 8
16 8 8
16 8 10
10 8 8
4 8 8
8 16 10
8 8 6
8 6 8
16 8 6
6 8 8
8 16 6
16 16 16
16 16 10
8 8 14
8 14 8
14 8 8
14 8 10
14 8 8
8 16 16
8 16 14
16 16 14
16 14 16
14 8 6
14 16 16
8 16 6
etc…
The three basic sections of a tune, the verse, chorus and bridge, can all be eight or all be sixteen measures but you can make them shorter or longer usually in groups of even numbers so sections ten measures long and six measures long also occur. Odd numbers are also possible but you have to have a good reason for doing that.
Most of the time, there are two phrases in each verse section and two phrases in each chorus section. And possibly in the bridge section as well. However, you CAN use more, less and even no phrases depending. The intro could just have accompaniment and no melody at all. The same is true of the bridge. The intro doesn’t need to be terribly melodic. In my case, I often create my intros from material in the bridge. For the bridge to be self sufficient, it doesn’t need to have a melody but then the accompaniment would have to be very interesting and you might have to shorten it so that it doesn’t get boring for the listener.
As far as lyrics are concerned, the verse basically keeps the same melody each time it comes around but with different words. The chorus basically keeps both the same words and the same melody each time it plays.
Phrase Lengths
If you give weight to favor the most common phrase lengths such as “four bars with four bars” and “eight bars with eight bars” occurring the most frequently. That way you wouldn’t constantly be getting music coming out of the system which is barely in the ball park of expectation.
You also need to know that the consequent phrase within a section often reaches a greater height, has a wider leap, and/or has a greater dynamic.
You can also contrast melodic rhythms between sections or phrases: long held notes on the chorus and shorter note values for the verse.
You have to be a borderline genius to get someone to read 300 pages of a novel. What keeps people turning pages? An interesting story isn't enough. It's your method of presenting the story in such a way that nothing jumps into the reader’s consciousness about the mechanics that makes the reader start thinking about anything else except the story which also better be good.
The same thing is true of songwriting. If only one thing in your song makes people start thinking it's strange or just bland that's when they'll stop listening. If only even one section doesn't transition well into the next thing then we start thinking about that instead of the good feeling the song is (was) producing.
In India they have a word for the feeling that music produces. The word they use is rasa which means taste. You never want to break rasa. But it's very easy to break.
If you don’t want to break rasa then the question isn’t so much what are you going to put into each section of music. The question becomes how are you going to put it in?
People have too many choices when faced with a blank page. To overcome the paralyzing nature of too many choices, composers learn to define the limits that their composition will fall within, such as how fast should it be, how many beats per measure will there be? What key will the piece of music be in? How long will it last? What chord should it start with? Surprisingly, composers sometimes even limit themselves to a few notes and a basic rhythm. I’ll now be talking about an important group of limitations.
Instrumentation
If you listen to a standard artist, the instrumentation they use is usually the same on almost every song. Keyboards, bass, drums, guitar, vocals. That doesn't change usually except they might add another instrumental player such as a harmonica but that occurs very rarely. There's usually a standard instrumentation for things.
Form
If you walk into a music store in America, it's clearly monocultural. About the only instruments to be found are guitars, basses, keyboards, and drum kits, with classical and jazz instruments thrown in for good measure. Walk into a music store in South Asia and you've got sitars, dutars, setars, esrajs, rebabs, shawms, etc... etc... etc... along with guitars and keyboards.
There seems to be some disparity between what many young songwriters from the west SAY they want and what they’ll actually put their money down for. They SAY they want to be totally unique and different and yet they buy the same instruments as everyone else and listen to the same music as all their friends. The next sentence may not apply to you but it probably applies to 99% of the people who might be interested in buying your music. It's VERY difficult to get a person to accept anything which is not what they expect, hence the difficulty of selling dutars in North America.
If you yourself or most of your neighbors at least, do not like anything out of the ordinary, how can you expect your listeners to go for what some aspiring composers are calling “writing from the heart?” This usually means a lack of knowledge of or lack of willingness to be constrained by accepted forms.
Don't let it escape your attention that it's possible to write from the heart within the form until you're established. On that day there will be people to buy your tunes that break the rules because enough people who matter, already know and trust you. Even then, it will only get sold if you broke the rules for a good reason, hence their trust.
When young songwriters hear someone talking about forms, they often say that the best music breaks the rules all the time. I don't believe the best music breaks the rules all the time. I consider experimental avant garde music to be nearly complete psychosis precisely because it doesn’t follow any traditional rules.
When the Beatles broke the rules, they had a very good reason for doing that. A phrase was shortened or lengthened because the lyrics demanded it not because of any animosity towards the normal sections built of eight or sixteen measures.
I often think about those people who don't want to constrain themselves to traditional forms. It's like saying I'll play football, basketball or soccer but I'm going to reach the goal by running outside of the boundaries, and then expect to be rewarded for that at the end and not be penalized. It's probably not in the realm of possibility.
Another metaphor is if you're painting, do you paint on the wall next to the canvas? It's about context. Only if you're an avant garde artist and the house owner knows you're going to do that and likes your work or you just want to piss him off and don’t really need the money.
Newbies, many of whom seem to like rock, heavy metal or punk listen to their favorite bands and hear them as icons of rebelliousness. Then they think to themselves, “How could my favorite icon of rebelliousness be following any rules, forms or formulas?” But naturally the newbies haven't analyzed their favorite bands and even if they had, they wouldn't know what to listen for.
Yes, in fact your favorite icon of rebelliousness, whether they play thrash metal, punk or rap, is using intros, verses, choruses, and bridges pretty much the same way everyone else is. They're not just doing their own thing as many newbies seem to think.
If they were doing that in the beginning, their manager or producer inserted the cold calculated reasoning that it takes to succeed in the biz. Then the guys in the band probably said, “Oh, is that all? We can still make music we like and have it mostly fit inside the basic guidelines.” It's not so difficult once getting past the emotional resistance to it.
Some might say that I'd be a good example of someone who writes only for themselves. I like World Music and am into stuff like microtonal tunings, 17/8 rhythms and all night songs played for the gods not for people on instruments like gopichands, seed pod and goat hoof rattles. My Garden of Contemplation CD has no chords per se from beginning to end. There's no guitar, bass, drum kit or keyboard. So, how did someone like me get my music forwarded and into music libraries waiting to be picked up by TV or film music buyers?
The people who might say I write only to please myself would be wrong. I don't inflict my interest in microtonal tunings on my listeners many of whom surely wouldn't like that. It's too far outside their expectations. Also the rhythms are kept to what people would expect, only breaking their expectations where they expect to have it be broken. SERIOUSLY. And I reign in world music's proclivities toward inordinate length and make my compositions conform to traditional popular song forms. Most of my stuff is instrumental but SONGwriting terminology is still useful. I write only 4 measure intros and get to the chorus fast which means no double verses before the first chorus.
All of this stuff helps people forgive the fact that my music has no chords and it's played on bamboo xylophones, three and four reed shawms, bowed spike fiddles and double headed hand drums no one has ever heard of. I love this stuff but I try to be realistic about what might go over well with the average person. In order to do that, it's important to at least try to really REALLY know what that is.
So, what is the popular song form and why is the popular song form so popular? The basic song forms goes: Intro Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Bridge Chorus Out. This doesn't tax people too much. They don’t have to work too hard to "get it".
A tune seven minutes long can go on the album but it will never make it to radio unless you're Pink Floyd etc... Radio format is about 3.5 minutes. Not much longer or shorter. Initially, shoot for around 100 measures of music at a moderate tempo and you'll be in the ball park for the airwaves. Of course not all popular songs need to be aimed at radio. There are lots of great tunes longer than 6 minutes.
If your pieces have choruses in the B section here's a list of possible forms to put them in which are in the pop format ballpark so that A's =Verses, B's =Choruses, C's =Bridges, D's=make C's another section proper and the D is the bridge, T's=Transitions and R's=a rise to the chorus.
ABABCAB. This is good if you've got sections longer than 8 bars or a slow tempo. It will prevent you from going over 3.5 minutes.
ABABTCAB. transition before the bridge. There may not even be any melody in the transition.
ABTABCAB. Another good one for a slow tempo or longer sections.
ABTABTCAB The transition is repeated before the Bridge.
AABAABCAAB Double verses are too long for unknowns to sell easily most likely.
ARBTARBCARB This could work. Sounds perfectly postmodern.
ABBABBCABB Double choruses to lengthen a short melody.
AABAABTCAAB. Not much point in putting a transition before the bridge except such as where the band drops out 4 bars early while the improviser solos before the start of the solo section as in jazz.
ARBARBTCARB. Rise to the chorus with Transition before the Bridge.
ABBTABBCABB. No transition the second time. Double chorus.
ARBTARBTCARB. Contemporary practice often has the rise to the chorus and a transition somewhere.
AABTAABCAAB. If repeating the transition every time makes the song too long leave it out the second time. There's a bridge anyway. Damn double verses again though. Bane of the unsigned!
ABBTABBTCABB. Double chorus. Transition after the chorus.
AABTAABTCAAB Double verses again.
ABCDABCDABCD It doesn't end on the chorus. Good for smooth jazz or real Latin music.
AARBAARBCAARB Rise to the chorus is very common in the postmodern era of popular songwriting. Those double verses plus the rise will kill you though. The exec's aren’t gonna wait that long. Next!
AARBAARBTCAARB. Double verse and rise. Do you want to sell this song or not?
ARBBARBBCARBB Rise to a double chorus.
AARBTAARBTCAARB. Double verse AND a rise before the chorus. Forget it unless you're the Beatles or Elvis.
AARBTAARBCAARB. Ditto
AABBAABBCAABB. Double verses and choruses. NEVER try more! Otherwise we'll stamp "Rank Amateur" on your forehead permanently.
AABBTAABBTCAABB Double trouble with transitions.
AARBBTAARBBTAARBB. Are you Marilyn Monroe or Princess Di reincarnated? If not, then don't try it.
Sections
Normally, sections are either eight or sixteen measures in length. For variety’s sake here is a theoretical chart of how the sections could all be different lengths on your album.
8 8 8
8 8 10
8 8 16
8 10 8
16 8 8
16 8 10
10 8 8
4 8 8
8 16 10
8 8 6
8 6 8
16 8 6
6 8 8
8 16 6
16 16 16
16 16 10
8 8 14
8 14 8
14 8 8
14 8 10
14 8 8
8 16 16
8 16 14
16 16 14
16 14 16
14 8 6
14 16 16
8 16 6
etc…
The three basic sections of a tune, the verse, chorus and bridge, can all be eight or all be sixteen measures but you can make them shorter or longer usually in groups of even numbers so sections ten measures long and six measures long also occur. Odd numbers are also possible but you have to have a good reason for doing that.
Most of the time, there are two phrases in each verse section and two phrases in each chorus section. And possibly in the bridge section as well. However, you CAN use more, less and even no phrases depending. The intro could just have accompaniment and no melody at all. The same is true of the bridge. The intro doesn’t need to be terribly melodic. In my case, I often create my intros from material in the bridge. For the bridge to be self sufficient, it doesn’t need to have a melody but then the accompaniment would have to be very interesting and you might have to shorten it so that it doesn’t get boring for the listener.
As far as lyrics are concerned, the verse basically keeps the same melody each time it comes around but with different words. The chorus basically keeps both the same words and the same melody each time it plays.
Phrase Lengths
If you give weight to favor the most common phrase lengths such as “four bars with four bars” and “eight bars with eight bars” occurring the most frequently. That way you wouldn’t constantly be getting music coming out of the system which is barely in the ball park of expectation.
You also need to know that the consequent phrase within a section often reaches a greater height, has a wider leap, and/or has a greater dynamic.
You can also contrast melodic rhythms between sections or phrases: long held notes on the chorus and shorter note values for the verse.
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