Don’t Bore Us, Get To the Chorus!

Posted on November 18, 2009November 9, 2012 by IJ

The chorus is what many songwriters and publishers and industry types consider one of the most critical parts of the song. As described in my other article on Song Structure, each part of a song has its purpose, and the chorus seems to be one that is most crucial in driving the whole song “home”. In this article I’m going to go into more detail about the functions of a chorus, using some familiar examples to give you an idea of how you might best construct your chorus when you get to that part of the song.

Well, let’s face it…probably more often than not, a song doesn’t “write itself” in any particular order. You may often find that you come up with some parts and don’t really know what their purpose is right away. In fact, you may even change your mind as to which is which at some point in your re-writing process, and that is perfectly fine. If you are at that point right now with a particular song you’re working on, there are some things to consider. First of all, the chorus is a stand out both lyrically and musically. It’s the part, or at least CONTAINS the part (often called the “hook”) that people remember. So look at what you’ve got and see if one part has that more dominant feeling. Maybe it’s not so obvious, in which case you may have to rework a part to achieve that…or you may not have a chorus yet, or even end up with one. Anything’s possible!

I’ve used this example before as a powerful chorus…Sheryl Crow’s “If It Makes You Happy“. There is NO DOUBT about that chorus, even when you just read the title of the song. Not all song titles are contained in the chorus, but this is fairly common. The contrast between that chorus and the verses is very obvious. Musically, it lifts up as the melody hits the highest note on “MAKES”. The melody line is simpler in the chorus, and more powerful. The chord progression jumps to a minor chord, an “Am”, whereas the verses stick to more major chords. Lyrically, it’s a great line. “If it makes you happy”….I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole song was written around that line.

Okay, here’s another one: “I Will Always Love You”. The song was written by Dolly Parton, who also recorded a version of it, but it was made even more famous by Whitney Houston. Now, this is not my favourite song or chorus because personally, it got kind of annoying after awhile. But you have to admit, with all of those vocal acrobatics, that was one darn powerful chorus. And what’s really interesting is that this is the only phrase in the chorus…I will always love you. That was it! The rest of it was the performance.

Here’s another…Joan Osborne’s “One Of Us”. What if God was one of us? Not only is it lyrically provocative, but the melody, which is mirrored with a guitar lick, is a real stand out. And which is the the first word in that chorus that contains the highest note? You’ve got it…”God.” 🙂 Either that’s really clever or a wonderful accident!

A great country song that came out in 2000 was by Lonestar…”Amazed”. Very powerful, emotional chorus. “I don’t know how you do what you do, I’m so in love with you, it just keeps getting better.” Now the lyrics are not particulary clever, but the melody and emotional deliverance in the performance are a real stand out.

U2‘s “Beautiful Day” from the same year had a really positive message. If you have no idea what the rest of the song is about (and I didn’t until I looked it up!), “it’s a beautiful day…” is all you need! Again, the production is very powerful as is the vocal delivery, but the phrase itself and the melody that accompanies it, is emotionally very uplifting.

Okay…I’m not going to name the next one…here are the lyrics in the chorus:

I get knocked down
But I get up again
You’re never going to
Keep me down

Do you recognize it? Oddly enough, here’s an example of a chorus with no sign of the title. It’s called “Tubthumping” by Chumbawumba. Who thought of that title? But it sure is a stand out chorus. Can you remember the rest of the song? Unless you listened to the song a number of times, the verses probably aren’t as memorable. Now you see what I mean about the chorus being a critical aspect of the song! If it’s well-written, it goes a long way to sell the song.

And finally, a more recent entry:

Oh, it’s what you do to me, oh, it’s what you do to me
Oh, it’s what you do to me, what you do to me

Again, no title in the chorus…it’s called “Hey There Delilah”. Very strong chorus, not particularly fascinating lyrics, but melodically, it’s very powerful and emotional. It’s interesting that each of the verses begins with “Hey there, Delilah…”, so that’s another way to make the title memorable without putting it in the chorus. Probably, using “What You Do To Me”, which is repeated over and over in the chorus, was considered too over-used or boring to use as a title.

Now these songs might not be your taste, and to tell you the truth, I know some of them only by the fact that my guitar students wanted to learn them! If it weren’t for my students I wouldn’t be exposed to a lot of music. Sometimes they are not songs that I myself would choose to listen to, but it sure gives me an insight into what is popular.

The title of this article comes from a well-known phrase in the music industry. When you are sitting in front of a record label exec or a publisher, this is often what is on their mind. It says a lot about what the industry thinks about. They don’t care about long intros and meandering verses…quite often, all they care about is the chorus. So the placement of your chorus is particularly important. On the other hand, if your verses really draw them in, the chorus becomes the bonus!

In a lot of songs, the chorus is the very first thing you hear. Is that a good trick? Well, it might be effective, but not every song works with that particular form…for one thing, the verses can be really effective in lyrically setting up the chorus, so in that case, you don’t want to put the chorus first and give the whole thing away! The purpose of a chorus, as I said in the beginning, is to drive the song home. It is the focal point, the summation…it explains the song. And sometimes, in the case of a chorus being the first thing you hear, the chorus is what sets everything else in the song up.

There are songs that don’t have choruses, but that isn’t as common in popular music genres such as rock and pop and country. In some cases, you have a song with a “refrain“, which might be a line or a phrase that recurrs in the same spot in a verse. For instance, “The Times They Are A Changin'” is an old Bob Dylan song that uses that refrain at the end of each verse. Folk songs, for instance, often don’t have a chorus. But if you are writing in the more popular styles, you are more likely than not going to have to write a chorus.

Studying the chorus’ of the songs you like is an excellent lesson in how they work, and more importantly, how they work successfully. Go to a Top 10 list of songs in any given year, and then listen to and read along with the lyrics of each one. Notice how the chorus is used, and decide for yourself what it is about that chorus that works for you. Where is the placement of the chorus? How many times is it repeated? How long is it? How is the melody structured? What do the lyrics say in the chorus that isn’t said in the rest of the song?

The more you study them, the more you’ll admire the power of a great chorus!

Creating Great Songs and Apple Pies

Posted on November 18, 2009November 9, 2012 by IJ

: Image via Wikipedia

I recently polled some of the members of a songwriting newsgroup to see what a songwriter thinks makes a “great” song. When we listen to a song for the first time and it hits us smack in the face, what is it that gives us that “shiver down the spine”, as one member put it?

Some interesting responses that came out of this went something like this, in no particular order:

passionate performance

it’s got to do something to my head, heart or feet

catchy intro

feel

emotion

easy rhymes

story songs with a twist

good groove

strong hook

melody I can hum along with

I like the words to surprise me

good arrangement and lyric depth

a song has to breech my defenses with a good melody (I loved that one 🙂

I think my taste is a product of my own circumstances (that was good too 🙂

artistic integrity

overall sound, mostly melody driven

prosody (how perfectly the lyrics match the meter of the music)

Most people who are NOT songwriters would likely express the same things, with perhaps less use of the lingo that we songwriters often use. And still, there is this indefinable “wow” that we can’t really put our finger on, which might also be very different for each of us. How do you define it?

We are, each of us, capable of writing a song. In fact, I’d even go as far as saying that writing a song is really the easiest thing in the world. But writing a GREAT song is what we are always chasing and that mystery ingredient (or combination of ingredients) is often eluding us when it comes to our writing. Anyone of you out there who doesn’t want to write a great song? When we study the craft of songwriting, sometimes we fool ourselves into thinking that all we really need are the perfect ingredients, and how hard can that be? Just look at the list above, and go from there!

But there are a couple of things missing from that list. I think they are things we overlook more often than not. First of all, even if you put all of the “right” ingredients into an apple pie, there’s always a cook who can bake a better one. Is it possible for someone who hasn’t baked an apple pie before to create the perfect one first time out? Well, anything is possible. But it’s more likely that the person who has been baking apple pies for a long time has a better chance of coming close to the perfect pie. So the first missing ingredient is “experience”. With enough experience, enough trial and error, I believe that just about anyone could write a really good song. The thing is that you also have to love doing it enough to put in the time to get good at it. Many would likely never take the time or have the patience to actually learn the craft. Not all of us want to study the craft of baking apple pies either 🙂

Apple pies are also individual…nobody can make one exactly the same as mom does. And that is also true about songwriting. So along with the experience factor, there is the element of uniqueness. What is it about a newer artist that makes them stand out? These days, there are a lot of cookie cutter songs out there. I recently listened to a top 10 list of songs and five of them were hip hop or rap. I have nothing against those genres, but what I noticed about each song was that they had almost exactly the same drum sound and the same BPM (beats per minute or tempo)! Rap and hip hop have been really big in the last few years. What is going to kill the genre, if anything, is that they are all going to start sound the same after awhile, and the audience’s ear will tire of that. You can’t just throw the same song out there over and over and expect people to have the same enthusiasm for it for long.

SO…having a unique sound or perspective (or even production for that matter!) may take you a long way in this business of songwriting. And writing enough songs to develop a track record and get some experience will do the same.

Phrasing – What Is It?

Posted on November 18, 2009April 2, 2026 by IJ

: Image via Wikipedia

There are two types of phrasing in songs – lyrical and musical. Phrasing is defined in the dictionary as “a sequence of words intended to have meaning”. Its definition in relation to music is “a short passage or segment, often consisting of four measures or forming part of a larger unit.” In this article we’re going to focus MAINLY on musical phrasing.

Let’s look at an old Beatles song “Let It Be” to better define what musical phrases are. If you know the song, great…if you don’t, try to find it and have a listen.

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be

If you look at this verse the way I’ve written it out above, you’ll see four separate lines. The first line of the lyric (when I find myself in times of trouble) looks like a phrase, but it isn’t a complete thought. The second line completes the phrase and the thought. Musically, the first line isn’t complete either. If you remember how the melody goes, that will help you hear that the first two lines together become a complete musical phrase.

“Speaking words of wisdom, let it be”…this is another phrase, different from the first one. When we get to the next part of the verse:

And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be

Now, you see the musical phrases begin to repeat. The first two lines in this part of of the verse are almost the same musical phrasing as in the beginning of the verse, and the second two lines are exactly the same. The only thing that changes is the lyrical content in the first two lines, and a slight difference in melody and meter between “when I find myself” and “and in my hour”. So let’s map this out visually.

First, I’m going to show by bold and italic text, where the musical phrases are:

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be

The two bold sections are the same musical phrases, as are the two italic sections. Phrasing is a really important aspect of songwriting. Repeat your musical phrases too often, and a song becomes dull…not repeating enough can lose a listener. In classical music, there are often long sections of music where the phrases don’t repeat.

Returning to “Let It Be”, we can also map the musical phrasing this way:

Phrase 1
Phrase 2
Phrase 1
Phrase 2

This is simple musical phrasing. In popular music, you’ll find shorter musical phrases and more repeats than any other kind of music. The repeats are intentional…they are there to help you remember the song! If you’ve ever been around young children, you’ll recognize their desire for repeated behaviour or sounds. If it entertains them, they’ll always ask you to do it again…make the funny face again, or make the silly sound again. This desire for repetition carries on into their musical listening preferences. Why do you think pop music appeals predominantly to the young listener?

Our listening preferences change as we get older. We still love the “old songs” that we heard when we were kids, but the “new” songs we like to listen to don’t necessarily have the same forms and phrasing that we used to like so much. I personally believe that the music you are exposed to as a child often helps to determine what you are capable of “hearing” as you get older. This is more or less a theory of mine and not backed up by any hard evidence as far as I know 🙂 Our brains are also wired to hear things differently from others, which is why there is such a wide variety of music out there that appeals to different listeners.

But I’ve ventured off the path here…let’s get back to phrasing. As an exercise, I want you to take a look and listen to one of your most recent songs, and break it down into musical phrases by using the method I used above…phrase 1 and phrase 2, etc. Even though you may not have consciously thought about phrases when you were writing it, you have likely, by osmosis, learned this concept. There are two problems that typically come up for a songwriter in this area. First is the tendency to repeat musical phrases too often. When you get into a rut like this, you don’t always recognize it, but something just feels inane and dull in your song. The opposite of this is, of course, not repeating the musical phrases enough! Long, meandering and incomplete musical phrases leave a listener completely lost. Remember this: listeners will NEVER remember your whole song in one listen. Very few people in the universe can do this (although Beethoven apparently could!) So what does this mean? It means you have to repeat your musical phrases often enough for a listener to remember, and not so much so that you bore them! This can be a very fine line to draw.

Let’s talk about the idea of a “complete” musical phrase. How can you tell when one is finished and the other is beginning? This can be a little tricky. You can probably find a song where a whole verse goes by and a phrase never repeats, but it will likely happen more often than that. Sometimes, the end of a musical phrase can be recognized by the chord changes underneath. For instance, in the song Let It Be, the chords work this way:

………..C…………….G
When I find myself in times of trouble

Am…………..F
Mother Mary comes to me

C…………………..G
Speaking words of wisdom

………F……..C
Let it be

The first chord is a “C” which happens to be the key that this song is in. Very often, returning to the root chord (in this case, C) helps us to define where a musical phrase has ended. In this song, the first line has a C and a G, the next line an Am and an F. Then you’ll notice the third line beginning with a C chord again. It just so happens that the musical phrases follow the same route, the first ending at the F in the second line, and the next one beginning at the C in the third line. This does not happen in every case, but it’s a good example of where you might find the beginning and end of musical phrases.

Do your lyrical and musical phrases have to begin and end at the same time? Well, no, there are no “rules”. But, practically speaking, a listener often unconsciously identifies them as being together. Take a look at your song again…do your lyrical thoughts finish at the same time as the musical phrases? Then take a look at some other popular songs you know. How do their musical and lyrical phrases work together? When you’re writing, experiment…push your lyrical and musical phrasings to where you haven’t been before, and see what happens!

The Muse – Some Personal Experiences

Posted on November 17, 2009November 9, 2012 by IJ

: Image by beX out loud via Flickr

A “muse” as a noun in the dictionary, is defined as “A guiding spirit. A source of inspiration.” You’ve likely heard many songwriters say, when discussing their writing, that they often don’t know where their inspiration comes from. Well, sometimes we know EXACTLY where it comes from 🙂

The fact is that most of your inspiration comes from the people and events in your life. A new lover can be a “muse” (as can an old lover remembered :-). This is probably the most common…why do you think there are so many love songs out there?? But your muse can also come from emotional events, whether these are personal events that leave you deliriously happy or totally grief-stricken, or world events which can have the same impact. The events of Sept.11, 2001, for example, inspired thousands and thousands of people in creative ways. When good or bad things happen, we all get the muse at some point or another.

Stories about other people can inspire songs. I once wrote a song called “Calling” after watching a news magazine show on television telling the true story of a traveling salesman who died in his car on a mountain pass in the middle of winter simply because he got stuck in the snow. That may not seem very inspiring…but what HAUNTED me about the story was that this guy kept waiting for someone to drive by and help him out, and didn’t realize that JUST after he drove through the gates leading to the mountain pass, they were closed for the winter. So no one knew he was there. He sat in his truck and waited for someone to come along, and while he waited he started writing in this journal, a kind of long love-letter to his girlfriend. There’s much more to the story, but he was essentially stuck there for months trapped by heavy snow, and finally succumbed.

For a long time, I had that story at the back of my head. I began to write one song about it, but it just wasn’t working, so I left it again for awhile. One day, I was watching a special on television about another Canadian songwriter, and something about the way he played inspired me to sit down with my guitar and try some folkier chord progressions. I didn’t think of it right away, but once the music and melody were finished, I realized it would work perfectly for the story I’d been carrying around so long. The lyrics took me about six months to get right, but it finally came together.

One thing I’ve learned is to be patient. If you try to force your muse, it just doesn’t work. Your muse also pops up at the most unusual times, so be prepared! My muse often comes in the form of people; people who’ve inspired me or said things that resonated for me, and people I’ve fallen in love with, of course 🙂 But I can also find inspiration in IDEAS. I fall in love with ideas! The things I’m most interested in (besides music) often put me in a very heightened state of awareness. Books I’m reading will begin a flow of thought, and sometimes a line will come out of that, or an entire idea for a song. Science interests me, as well as philosophy, psychology and spiritual thinking. In one song I wrote years ago, “Fusion & Fire”, I used astronomical properties, like fire, the planets, and the universe, as metaphors for long lasting love. Sometimes I still stick astronomical references in my lyrics.

I am fascinated by eagles, and once wrote a song based on the fact that eagles always die with their faces turned toward the last light they see. I heard a preacher once talk about that fact in spiritual terms, so I used the the light as a metaphor for life after death. The result was a song called “Eagles Eyes”.

But really personal experiences often creep into my writing too. Like many hormone-crazed teens, I had a mad crush on a math teacher in high school. Many years later when I saw him again that same ol’ feeling hit me, and the result was a song called “Good For Me”. I used a few math references in it, enjoying the idea of playing with these terms in a different way. Not that long ago, a good friend moved away, and I wrote a song called “Miles Away”…but the song ended up being about the distance we feel in relationships sometimes. So your personal experiences don’t have to come out exactly as you experienced them, they can be used in many other ways.

The latest song I’m working on came from one line…this often happens to me. One line will come and I have to fill in the rest of the story. Where did that line come from? It just sort of popped out when I was fooling around with some chord progressions and a melody. Sometimes I wonder… 🙂

Lovers, stories, world events, personal events, your own interests, the past, old friends…they can all be sources for your muse. I’ll bet you can even think of a few on your own 🙂

Genres – Some Definitions

Posted on November 17, 2009February 26, 2010 by IJ

: Image via Wikipedia

(Note: This is NOT meant to be a complete list of all genres, just an example of some, so don’t be offended if I leave your favourite one out!)

Ever been asked “what kind of songs do you write?” Don’t you just hate that? Okay, maybe hate is the wrong word, but it sure is difficult sometimes to sit down and define your style. Many people use known artists to help others get an idea of what their songwriting style is, but quite often these known artists simply define the sound of how someone sings or plays their instrument rather than defining a style of music.

We all pretty much know what rock is, or folk or pop. These are relatively straightforward genres. But most songwriters are influenced, whether they know it or not, by many others before them, and that leads to sub-genres and mixtures of genres that are harder to describe.

Maybe you are really special and have created a whole new style of music! Chances are, though, that your music is also defined by the artists and bands that came before you. This is not a defeat…musical styles exist and thrive because people like to hear them! This article may not answer all of your questions, but a little research on your own will teach you a few things about where your music is coming from.

First of all, here is a list of main genres:

Although they are considered to be at the root of all of the other styles, each of these genres came from somewhere else! Even Electronica and Hip Hop, the sounds of which are more defined by technology, have their roots. Reggae, which originally came from artists like Bob Marley out of Jamaica, is rumoured to have come from Jazz. I think a little too much ganja may have had something to do with that 🙂

Okay, let’s start with the more obvious genres:

Rock has many, many sub-genres…everything from adult rock to classic rock to folk rock. Originally, rock was actually rooted in the blues, following similar chord progressions and patterns. Classic rock artists from the Beatles to Pink Floyd, Doobie Brothers to Aerosmith, show just how diverse rock became within a very short period of time. The 70’s was considered the “Golden Age” of rock and today’s alternative and indie music are each an offshoot of rock with their own sub-genres. According to the MSN Music Webpage these are some sub-genres of rock:

Beyond this, we have a number of other main genres. Pop is certainly a significant style, although it has changed over the years. It was originally born from the word popular, and really wasn’t defined by anything other than what most young people listened to at the time! Frank Sinatra would have been considered pop in his hey day, but today, Nellie Furtado is what you would think of as a mainstream pop artist. As you can see their styles are quite different, and Frank Sinatra’s music is now considered either easy listening, nostalgia or traditional pop. These days, pop is defined by a very contemporary sound and often simplistic lyrics and usually has a younger audience. Pop/Rock is where the majority of artists classify their songs, and is almost always the largest category in any online music website.

Alternative is also a difficult style to pinpoint. Originally, alternative music seemed to be a return to hard rock with it’s hard driving, often frantic pace. Grunge, or the Seattle sound begun by bands such as Nirvana was associated with alternative as well. But now we find that Indie comes closer to that definition. Arrgghh!!! To me, each of these genres doesn’t define a “sound” as much as an attitude…yeah, that sounds more like it 🙂

You’ll find the following styles associated with alternative:

How confusing can it be?? 🙂 So let’s move on to something just as arguably indefinable, country. You’ll hear all kinds of discussions about country and what it is or should be! Twenty years ago when I went into a recording studio with my acoustic guitar, the studio engineers called me country. They hadn’t even heard my songs, yet because I had an acoustic guitar, that automatically made me a country artist! Country & Western was what I assumed country music to be, including artists like Hank Snow, George Jones and Patsy Cline. But in the last 10 or 15 years, it has also branched off into many directions. When country became more “mainstream” or more populist, the pop sound started to invade the more traditional sound of country music. Now you’ll find many different branches of this genre as well:

Country/Pop, contrary to what you might think, began back in the 50’s and was originally dubbed the “Nashville Sound” and included artists such as Willie Nelson, Kitty Wells, Crystal Gayle and Kenny Rogers. Today, groups and artists like the Dixie Chicks, Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney are country stars, incorporating a “pop” sound in their music.

So is there any genre left in its pure state? I suppose the argument could be made that the only western “traditional” music left is classical and Native Indian! A recent PBS series by Ken Burns on blues music, showed how even it originally came from the slaves in Africa who chanted hymns and made up working songs as they worked long, hard hours for American slave owners. But the blues is considered by many to be American in its roots.

Occasionally, you’ll hear the term crossover which means that a song could be considered in more than one genre. This is particularly applicable to ballads…a country version and a rock version of the same ballad could be hits for different artists. The only elements that would separate them would be the arrangement and instrumentation!

The fact is that your music is often defined by the artists you were influenced by. Although it can feel like defeat to have to describe your music by naming more famous artists and bands, it really has a purpose! Most people want to know what they can expect from you as a songwriter or an artist, so don’t resent this requirement too much. Many of us write in more than one style too! As a songwriter, this can certainly work in your favour when you are trying to pitch to different publishers and artists. As an artist, it means you are diverse!

Don’t be adverse to the idea of studying genres in order to better define what yours is (or are!). I’ve heard many artists or bands who try to create a NEW genre just to make themselves stand out, only to find that they sound exactly like someone else! As an artist you can get away with this in your promotional material as a way to create a buzz for yourself, but as a songwriter, you will have to fit in more with traditional genres. As Bruce Hornsby says “That’s just the way it is…” 🙂

IJ's Songwriting Tips Blog

Songwriting Tips, Thoughts and Reviews!

Lyrics

Don’t Bore Us, Get To the Chorus!

Creating Great Songs and Apple Pies

Phrasing – What Is It?

The Muse – Some Personal Experiences

Genres – Some Definitions