Structure of a composition
Very often, we will immediately recognise a song from the opening few beats. In modern pop music, it’s called the opening riff. The riff is usually carried into the hook, and the hook is usually found in the chorus which is repeated several times.
Most songs have some formal structure: intro, verse, chorus, which is repeated over and over and finished with an outro. Other structures can include a bridge between the two main components. The bridge is often an instrumental solo or a piece of vocal improvisation.
The Verse tells the story. Subsequent verses should build on the story or throw a curve ball that is unexpected which provokes some emotional reaction. The outro should give some closure to the story or leave you hanging with an open question that gets you thinking.
As a rule, the chorus does not change, but its pace and energy can increase or decrease in the second or third stage to emphasise and drive the emotional impact of the story. Remember, everyone sings along with the chorus, so make it memorable.
Techno music and many dance tracks can have a more unrestricted flowing structure that extends over twenty to thirty minutes per track. It is common to have a structure of Intro, Breakdown, buildup and then the drop. For techno and dance enthusiasts, have a look at videos of your favourite artists and see how they structure their tracks and build up tension before the big DROP that releases all the tension and builds to the grand finale.
In Techno and EDM, the goal is to keep the energy flowing with increases and decreases, driving towards the big drop and building again dynamically with the grand finale. Then cycle through the structure again with possibly a longer and varied buildup.
The basic unit of time in music is called a measure in the USA and a bar in most of the rest of the world. In music, a bar is a measure of time that is represented by the number of beats of a specific quality (time signature covered below). The boundaries of a measure are indicated by black vertical bars which gives the name “bar” to the measure in Europe.
Music compositions have a structure that is based on allocating bars to different components of a composition.
The most basic song structure in western music is intro, verse and chorus, and concludes with an outro.
The intro, most commonly, has four bars. The verse and chorus are either eight or sixteen bars long or a mix of both. In Western music it is typical for a line of a song to be two to four bars long. Many modern composers dedicated a single line of their song to exactly four bars.
Some standard structures work in music, and they have been successfully applied over centuries. Before setting up your song structure decide on a tempo, time signature and an approximate time length for the song. Try to keep your song within a range of three to four minutes. Once you have fixed the above parameters you should calculate the total number of Bars that will be available to allocated to different sections of your song.
Obviously, tempo and time signature will determine the total number of bars in your composition. Setting 4/4-time signature, at 120+ BPM,(dance, pop, reggae) a three-minute song will have 90+ Bars (120 beats in a minute* 3 minutes =360 Beats total. 360 Beats /4 beats in a Bar =90 Bars).
Setting 4/4-time signature at 80+ BPM (ballads, country, folk), a three-minute song will contain 60+ Bars (80*3=240 Beats total. 240 Beats /4 beats in a Bar = 60 Bars).
Allocate bars to the different components and start creating with that structure. You could consider setting up a simple rhythm using drums,bass or synth sounds to get your project started. Get something playing.
Keep it simple, and don’t expect perfection straight away. You can always refine and tweak your creation at a later stage in the process. A blank track is a showstopper. ChordWalk will get you playing immediately. The ability to develop endless bespoke chord progressions together with complex and advanced arpeggios enables you to create ground-breaking melodies and harmonies fit for the charts. Good luck with your efforts. This Creator guide will assist you, in a step-by-step manner, to understand, interact, set, control, and adjust the elements and parameters that make great music creations possible.
Below is a chart to show some composition layout that are common in modern western music.
Feel free to develop your own unique layout. Maybe, you should consider starting by using one of the successful composition layout templates below, which have been tried and tested with chart successes over many decades.
Song Structure 1
Intro: 4 Bars
Verse 1: 16 Bars
Chorus: 16 Bars
Verse 2: 16 Bars
Chorus: 16 Bars
Bridge: 8 Bars
Chorus: 16 Bars
Outro: 4+ Bars
Song Structure 2
Intro: 4 Bars
Verse 1: 16 Bars
Chorus: 8 Bars
Verse 2: 16 Bars
Chorus: 8 Bars
Bridge: 8 Bars
Chorus: 8 Bars
Outro: 4+ Bars
Song Structure 3
Intro: 4 Bars
Verse 1: 16 Bars
Chorus: 16 Bars
Verse 2: 16 Bars
Chorus: 16 Bars
Verse 3: 16 Bars
Chorus: 16 Bars
Bridge: 8 Bars
Chorus: 16 Bars
Outro: 4+ Bars
Song Structure 4
Intro: 4 Bars
Verse 1: 16 Bars
Chorus: 8 Bars
Verse 2: 16 Bars
Chorus: 8 Bars
Verse 3: 16 Bars
Chorus: 8 Bars
Bridge: 8 Bars
Chorus: 8 Bars
Outro: 4+ Bars
Now that we have covered some of the basics, we will get back to playing and creating some great music with ChordWalk.