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Deconstructing a Song

 

Songwriting can be one of the most rewarding parts of being a musician. The beauty of songwriting is that nothing is right or wrong, and the world of music is filled with a wide range of different genres and styles.

But, if you are new to writing, I decided to deconstruct a simple song structure to help get you started.

In my opinion, the most straightforward song structure to apply to your writing is the pop song structure. It goes a little like:

From my experience, the best thing to do before writing a song is to plan what you’re going to write about. For example, this could mean anything from deciding the name of the song and the topic, to write a few sentences about what you want to communicate within it.

Then I usually tackle the first two verses.

I think of writing verses like telling a story — you’re helping to build a world for the listener.

The pre-chorus is an excellent way to transition to the chorus, and you can also change the melody slightly here, which usually will perk up the listener as they will hear something new.

The chorus typically features the title of the song or repeats a specific phrase. This is the part of the song that I think you can get really creative with exciting melodies and rhythms.

The bridge of a song I like to think of as a little plot twist. You can often change the key of the song, or if you’ve written upbeat lyrics at this point, you can change them to something more somber.

Then you can nicely transition back to the chorus a couple of times.

I hope some of this information helped, especially if you’re new to songwriting. It can often be an intimidating and vulnerable thing to write a song if you’ve never done it before.

The best thing to do is to keep it up and keep practicing. You’ll have a couple of albums worth of songs before you know it!

 

Catharine Wood – Producer, Engineer and Owner of Planetwood Productions

CATHARINE WOOD is a Los Angeles-based composer/producer with a recording studio in Eagle Rock. With a background in audio post-production for commercials, Catharine engineered on the first iPhone commercial among hundreds of national and international campaigns. As a mix and mastering engineer, she has engineered on over 500 commercially released songs – including her own custom compositions which have aired on NBC, ABC, BBC, ESPN and more – both nationally and abroad. She is a GRAMMY® Voting Member and Producers & Engineers Wing member. Catharine currently holds a position on the LA Recording Schools Recording Arts Program Advisory Committee, is a Board Member of the California Copyright Conference and is the former Director of Southern California for the West Coast Songwriters organization. Her company, Planetwood Studios, LLC, specializes in producing singer-songwriters and providing engineering, production and composition services to the TV and Film industries. (more…)

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