103 Successful Ways on how to write a song
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I give you 103 proven songwriting tips.
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The intro is the first part of the song and should be short, concise and catchy.
It’s very important to get the listener’s attention when they press play to your song, so if your intro is good, you’ll get more chances that they’ll keep listening to the full piece.
A good intro is usually no more than 10 seconds long, since it doesn’t need to be too complicated and overwhelming for the listener. At this point of your song, you’re establishing the rhythm, key, melody and tempo.
Here is an excellent example from Katy Perrys ROAR:
Verse
It is the first part of the song where the singing part appears, together with the first line of lyrics.
Here is when your story begins and you need to hook the listener from the start of your song. The verse is your chance to show your message to the audience, so it’s a really good moment to let your creativity and inspiration flow.
To point your audience to the chorus in the first two lines of the verse is something that will get the listener wanting to listen longer, since it’s in this moment in which you should try to bring out the different emotions present in your lyrics and melody
Pre-chorus
The pre-chorus appears between the verse and the chorus and is played usually two times during a song. Even if it’s an optional part in your song, it is a good chance to build a good ‘bridge’ between the Verse and the Chorus.
This is an effective way to use a pre-chorus: you can take chord progressions that you already applied either during the verse or the chorus itself, so the listener gets familiar with it. But you can also use this section to experiment and use it as a ‘break’ in your song. This depends on your personal taste and your style
This is an effective way to use a pre-chorus:
Chorus
A chorus is the part of your songs that is the most crucial step you need to put most of your energy in.
Without a chorus that stands out, the listener will get bored and go on to the next song in their playlist.
A traditional song structure that chorus appears at least three times in your song.
If you start writing your chorus, you can adjust the other element in your song much more comfortable.
The chorus is the point where you should put the highest notes.
Bridge
The bridge is played after the second chorus and should be something new from the receptive patterns in the verse and chorus.
Here you introduce new elements of instruments, or you reduce the instruments.
Middle-eight
A middle-eight section is the same as a bridge and has the same function.
You can use a bridge or middle-eight to change the to relative keys from the verses and choruses.
A common way to do this is to arrange your middle-eight with only vocals and/or one solo instrument, so as mentioned before, here you have a chance to change the texture in your song to keep the listener’s attention by making it more dynamic
Outro
An outro is something that could be done in many different ways.
The most common outro is to repeat phrases from the chorus melody and give an ending to your song.
A common way to do an outro in the 80s was to fade the volume of the last chorus of the song.
This outro is the best song outro of all times:
Coda
Coda is the part of a song structure that makes it to the end of the song.
A passage that leads the listener to the end part of the song.
Coda is the same name as the outro and has the same function. Coda is a common name in classical music.
A-B-A-B
The A-B-A-B song structure is one of the most common song structures in Western traditional music. It’s very used in pop, rock and blues tunes.
The verse is labelled as ‘A’, and the Chorus is labelled as ‘B’.
So here you’ll have basically an alternation between these two sections.
The verse section is usually eight bars long, and the chorus section is between eight and sixteen bars.
The “Before He cheats” By Carrie Underwood has a powerful chorus
A-B-A-B-C-B
This one is extremely popular. It’s a variation of the verse-chorus model in which you include a ‘C’ part that corresponds to the Bridge .
So you’ll have:
A= Verse.
B= Chorus.
C= Bridge.
As mentioned above on the ‘Bridge Section’ description, the goal of the C part is to break the repetitive patterns that you already used during the verse and the chorus, in order to make it interesting and keep the listener’s attention.
Here is a short bridge example of the song “It’s my life” by Bon Jovi
A-B-A-B-C-B with pre-chorus.
Here you use a pre-chorus between the verse section of the song to build more tension.
Tention that you release in the chorus of the song.
A perfect way to use a verse, pre-chorus, and a chorus:
A-B-A-B-C-B-B
This song structure starts with the verse, and the verse is the A-section.
Then it continues with the chorus that is the B-section.
Then it is a verse, chorus, bridge, and the song ends with a double chorus.
The double end chorus is the difference between the other song structures.
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