Chorus Differentiation - tips & tricks

[Casey H]

May 19, 2008, 1:42am, milfus wrote:bah, the differentiation is in having a not in depth enough verseits the story telling, chorus should be the punch line, if you tell a joke and the punch line gets figured out in the first two sentences of then next 14 are just painful. What i see most as far as mistakes go is the lack of progression between verses, the story just doesn't move.aye its in the variations, you can do an AAA song with variations and have it float, theres many many examples (see the gambler for a noteworthy one) the structure should support the content, or the content should support the structure, if you don't have the prosody, you should just cut it, re-write or re-structure, or both. If you step outside a songs story and chart it, it will actually show you its own structure and variations, all you have to do is link the two together, yeah its an hours more work thinking, but it could be MONTHS less work fixing.Hi MilfusI don't disagree with your points but I don't think we are talking about the same thing. I'm talking (in this thread) about making choruses/sections stand out from each other musically. Lyric writing, though related, is a separate subject.I'm also addressing chorus driven songs because for overwhelming majority of us here, that's what we are working on-- commercially viable product in today's market.Absolutely, some of the best songs in history were AAA, or AABA format. But, if your goal is commercial songs, like it or not, you've got to write what the industry wants even if you don't like what the industry has become. No one forces anyone to write for commercial success as opposed to pure personal satisfaction... often one can do both but sometimes not.Please understand that I am talking to all the people who pitch songs to the industry, want to write hits (or at lease really good songs), are getting rejected because their chorus doesn't stand out musically, and want to improve. Cheers, Casey

[Casey H]

And if you want some fun...Take Oh-Bla-Di-Oh-Bla-Da (Not kidding)

[Casey H]

More thoughts...In "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" (Thanks Ed!) the large interval jump on the first 2 notes are very powerful in creating the hook. I added "interval" to my initial list of techniques at the top of this post. Also, in that song there is a clear transition to short "stab" notes in the bridge, much different than in the verses. That's a common and effective technique. Purely by accident (not having a clue what I was doing), I have that in my song, "What a World". I had a pro-review by John Braheny in which he said, "Now THAT's how a bridge should be done". I mentioned "Oh-Bla-Di Oh-Bla-Dah" because (I think - as I hear it with untrained ears) there is a good change of meter/cadence (whatever you call it, I'm not that technical) from the verse to the chorus. And the interval jump after "life goes on" really helps the hook. Most likely the great songwriters like McCartney didn't consciously think about these things. What I gathered from songwriting lectures I attended is that when you are stuck getting a strong hook, you can fall back on these things to make it work better.One challenge I have that others may share is I usually write within my own singing range, not a very wide one- maybe a little over an octave. And my ability to sing intervals on key is poor. I'm forcing myself out of the box lately with the help of friends ( ) here who CAN sing. As pure songwriters (not artists) if we only write what WE can sing, we can easily limit ourselves. Casey

[Casey H]

Jun 21, 2008, 5:33am, edteja wrote:Write the song, record it and become a star--that will draw the women.Are there groupies for NON-PERFORMING songwriters? I mean, the money isn't great, there must be something!! Casey

[Casey H]

Jun 21, 2008, 10:24am, lyle wrote:I think that just draws non-performing women.ROFLMAO!! I guess that's kinda like marriage...

[hummingbird]

Jun 21, 2008, 11:06am, hurowitz wrote:Jun 21, 2008, 10:24am, lyle wrote:I think that just draws non-performing women.ROFLMAO!! I guess that's kinda like marriage... well they say you have to "lift" to the payoff of the chorus

[linziellen]

This is interesting. When I write a song the chorus tends to be even damper than the verse. So I often sit at the piano wondering how on earth I'm going to wrap it up and keep it catchy. I admit 99% of the time I go with what feels right and while I try to be merry with my melodies they do tend to veer toward the dark side. Little by little I'm developing a signature without actually trying. I'm happy with that but I also long to write something a little sweeter on the ears. Though I keep reading that a song/lyric should not be forced, so I guess I gotta go with the flow and hope that it works for others as well as myself. It's not an easy balance. Have I side tracked?!? Linzi

[zoom]

I'll finally chime in here with a thought... and don't think that it's been said in this thread yet... though maybe someone touched on it.Lyrical content is also a way to differentiate verse from chorus... The verses are the details, the personal story, the nuance, etc. while the chorus is the overall statement -- usually with some sort of twist on the words or strong image to lock it in place.And as far as what to write first... well, I agree with a couple of others that do the Zen songwriting thing... It depends! Though whenever I'm outside of the studio, I usually stumble into a good hook that I can't get out of my head until I get back... and when I'm in studio, I usually start with verses... must have something to do with my concentration level at the time.

[Mark Kaufman]

Sometimes just the title is the chorus...happens a lot with riff-fueled songs. I'm working on one now where the main riff works as both verse and chorus, but there is a lift before slamming into the chorus with the title. Coming out of the chorus and into the verse is sort of cool, because it's the same chords and melody, yet different backing and production. I'll post it here when it's done just for kicks...I kept worrying about this very thread while writing it, too.

[Mark Kaufman]

Here's that song I'm working on in which the chorus has the same chords and melody as the verse...what differentiates them?http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_so ... 680723This thing is a work-in-progress...but it seems like a good weird example to toss into this discussion.