to formulaic or not to formulaic that is the question

[ExcelMusicStudio]

it seems to me the song format with verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus is just so hackneyed , I sometimes want to tear it all down and reinvent what it would be. could be. Should be.

doesn't anybody rethink this and say. I'm bored to death of this repetitive format.
Nowadays you can take any nonsense and put it to rhyme and add a few beats
and jingly noises and call a song.... why do all the song writers copy each other,
it must be playing safe, not to offend the market with some brilliant new format.

Fundamentally, for me, a song is what whales sing underwater, and canary sings up in the trees, that being it's perfect expression of life. That is a song. What you hear on the radio, as the overworked and overtired thematic regurgitation of what has come before... give me something that sounds like life and not some needle skipping in the groove stuck in one place.

There must be some other way to express this, there must be some better way to convey ideas and feelings
then through the narrow constraints of the pop song. I don't reject it completely because it's the format through which we all conventionally operate, but I wish to God some days, that there was some other level of communicating the inspiration, rather than just the lowest common denominator.

I still love songs and music and song writers, it is so deeply ingrained in my psyche, that I can playback any music that I've heard in my head at will in stereo just as I experienced it. Pardon me but I've never tried LSD, but it occurs to me that the well trodden path is somewhat lacklustre and urgently needing some innovation.

No no I hear you say, it has to be verse chorus verse chorus bridge chorus ad nauseam... Because that's what the people want.

Personally I think the universe offers a great many more avenues, and rather than be left of centre avant-garde and off the edge... Perhaps there is a more rational way to approach this art. But I don't think of seen it yet.

It may well take a few hundred more years of evolution to discover what this can be.

[hummingbird]

I think this is why there is indie music. People writing non-commercial, non-formulaic stuff. It's rather like abstract painting. It requires more from the viewer/listener, to access their own imagination and decide whether what they see/hear in the work moves them. The 'market' of the songwriter tends to be commercial producers, artists, music libraries etc. They have needs to fill, if they need whole wheat scones there is no use trying to sell them black forest cake. Outside of that, the 'market' for the performing indie songwriter is those who are willing to explore other forms to see how they taste. Certainly these days, it is not just commercial radio and the remaining 'big' record labels that decide what we all should listen to.

[Len911]

Funny you should say that, it seems you have read my mind lately!

Every song has a formula, it's when it's forced into a formula and as you say, it becomes formulaic.

Formulaic comes from songwriting books that try and analyze what is popular and parlay that into a formula. They seldom focus on one innovator, so what you get for example is mention of a build, that is part of a formula, a small fraction of the song, whereas Roy Orbison, a "Master Builder" uses builds as almost a foundation in his songs.

Songwriting & Structure

Typical pop songs of the time followed the verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-verse-chorus structure, otherwise represented as A-B-A-B-C-A-B. Whereas Orbison’s “Ooby Dooby” and “Claudette” followed the traditional format, as pointed out earlier “Running Scared” is comprised of four verses and one final chorus (A-A-A-B). “In Dreams” has seven movements (Intro-A-B-C-D-E-F) with no sections repeating. “Crying” can be represented as A-B-C-D-E-F-A-B-C-D-E-F (with altering parts in the second movement).

Orbison had said that he never to have learned how to write songs:

“I’m sure we had to study composition or something like that at school, and they’d say ‘This is the way you do it,’ and that’s the way I would have done it, so being blessed again with not knowing what was wrong or what was right, I went on my own way….So the structure sometimes has the chorus at the end of the song, and sometimes there is no chorus, it just goes…But that’s always after the fact—as I’m writing, it all sounds natural and in sequence to me.”


Read more: http://www.riffraf.net/2013/01/5-things ... z42nWUsfkb

[ExcelMusicStudio]

thankyou for conferring on this fundamental topic... conventions exist for those reasons. & peeps expectations of what a songs is , are predictably safe.

I am reminded of the progressive harmony & chord structures of the guitarist Allan Holdsworth, ( who ? ) who has reinvented the whole concept of what is ( jazz ) music. or at least extended it's horizons,, at first it sounds very alien to the ears , but then begins to have it's own internal logic. certainly a maverick & forward thinking musician. I had the very good opportunity to meet him & delve a little deeper into his perspective. he once said that a Cmaj7 chord was the most offensive & ugly sound ,, ha!> preferring dissonance to colour his approach.

well there's always Bartok,, hey ! a brittle angular & hard sounding harmony,. yes it is abstract.
albeit I'm strongly tempted to avoid any cookie cutter approach. I'm a big fan of "stream of consciousness" where it departs on a ever changing course & never returns to familiarity.

a flow of ecstatic thoughts in the now.

[hummingbird]

It's an interesting topic to me. I recently participated in FAWM (February is Album Writing Month). It's a personal challenge to write 14 songs in 28 days. It pushes you to allow your creativity to trump your editor and just write. The FAWM community is awesome as well, inspiring, supportive, encouraging and hugely creative. You hear everything from lo-fi a capella or acoustic worktapes to fully produced songs and instrumentals. Tons of collabs too. This year I decided to try to let my imagination go and just play with sound, not worry about form or composition 'rules'. While I don't know if what I wrote is truly 'avant garde' for anyone else, for me it was a stretch and an exploration. And that's the value of FAWM. 50-90 is next... starts July 4 and runs to Oct 1st. Write 50 songs in 90 days. (It doesn't matter if you write 1 or 50, it's the fact you wrote something you might not have otherwise written, that counts.)

[ExcelMusicStudio]

FAWM sounds awesome.. any links.. ? I personally would love to challenge myself.
Oh ,, I saw someone on Taxi TV,, somewhere , with a tshirt ,, 14 in 28... or something..

[hummingbird]

http://fawm.org/
http://fiftyninety.fawmers.org/

[Kolstad]

Well, if you want to make art, you are surely free to do what you want.

Structure is about meeting expectations, so the form doesn't gets in the way of listening to the song.
Some decades ago formats were understood as vehicles, in the sense that an artist could use a particular format to get in touch with particular audiences who were used to that form.
It's more of a communication tool.

The verse,pre,chorus,verse,pre,chorus,bridge,pre,chorus is mostly a pop format, used in mainstream genres.
But there is a pallette of forms:
ABA
ABCA
AAA
AABA
ABABB

Play with the letters and you can come up with more. An A (verse) is also not always just an "A", sometimes there's a refrain in an "A" section. The same goes for a B (chorus), which can have the hook in the first line, the last line, both, or tucked in between. Likewise with the C (bridge), that can have variations where it sometimes is a breakdown, sometimes a new melody, sometimes a release, a build ect. Edit: I even forgot to account for the pre-choruses, we could label those "D"

So, counting all of those variations in, you'll end up with quite a number of legitimate formats to establish. Not to mention what you can do with orchestrations, arrangement, melodies and lyrics. I mean, how complex exactly do you need it to be?

[melodymessiah]

i find it hard to sympathize with you. instead of using energy on things you can't do anything about, i suggest you spend it on what you CAN do something about, like writing better songs. if you don't like the standardized song format, don't listen to it, go indie, where everything is freeflowing. but trying to go mainstream with these "unformatted" songs, is probably like trying to put an elephant penis into a mouse.

[ExcelMusicStudio]

good input peeps... thanks..

ABC ,, XYZ... )&@#)($*)@#)$# tee hee.

was it Brahms,,, or someone who introduced the repetition of certain sections.. ?
the familiarity of which , made the listener able to follow the music better..

these days it seems the merciless bludgeoning of just one idea , prevails..
they have 3 minutes to indelibly stamp their title into your subconscious..
hardly seems like a pleasurable experience.. does this benefit humanity ??.

my old science teacher use to say " if I could write on a 6 inch nail & hammer it into their skulls , I would " dear Mr Green , RIP.. I was one who listened to you sir..

thnx for links hummingbird.


Oh I am reminded of a Donovan Leitch song ,,"Atlantis" ,, AAAA ( narrated ) CCCC