Favorite references for song structure

Hursoom

Looking for some inspiration to start a new track. Would love to hear your suggestions. To kickstart the conversation I’m gonna say that I’m leaning towards using the structure of star shpongled banner. The juxtaposition between it’s two parts is what makes me consider it. Cheers

cam

What is structure of star shpongled banner? 🤷‍♂️

cam

Start with the main part/ drop and substract Parts. E.g. the kicks in the intro, etc….

richardyot

Hursoom

@richardyot said:

Great suggestions! Love both songs, thank you.

Hursoom

@cam said:
Start with the main part/ drop and substract Parts. E.g. the kicks in the intro, etc….

Alternatively, you can follow how a song is structured by placing it in a daw, figuring out the tempo and imitating the artist’s structure. It’s always better to choose a different scale/instruments/sounds than the ones used in the reference.

u0421793

Compose it in the Debian mode

cam

@u0421793 said:
Compose it in the Debian mode

What is that

cam

???

cam

@Hursoom said:

@cam said:
Start with the main part/ drop and substract Parts. E.g. the kicks in the intro, etc….

Alternatively, you can follow how a song is structured by placing it in a daw, figuring out the tempo and imitating the artist’s structure. It’s always better to choose a different scale/instruments/sounds than the ones used in the reference.

Yes, nice one. You can do this in Ableton with markers.
Maybe you can midi map them and jump to different parts.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

michael_m

@tja said:

@cam said:

@u0421793 said:
Compose it in the Debian mode

What is that

It's the basic form of the Ubuntu mode.

Often detuned a few CentOS.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

raabje

I think there is a big difference between music with lyrics, and instrumental music.

With lyrics the structure is in most cases pretty common, intro-verse-chorus-break-etc-etc-outro.

Blues has a 12 bar structure, or variants of this, like 8 bar, 12 bar quick change, etc.

With instrumental music, like jazz, I think it is more about an A and B part of the music, that weaves into each other.

With electronic music the structure is probably mostly driven by development of energy, and/or the change of texture of sound to keep things interesting.

cam

@raabje said:
I think there is a big difference between music with lyrics, and instrumental music.

With lyrics the structure is in most cases pretty common, intro-verse-chorus-break-etc-etc-outro.

Blues has a 12 bar structure, or variants of this, like 8 bar, 12 bar quick change, etc.

With instrumental music, like jazz, I think it is more about an A and B part of the music, that weaves into each other.

With electronic music the structure is probably mostly driven by development of energy, and/or the change of texture of sound to keep things interesting.

So I think there is not a clear answer for this question.

Nice 👍 and thanks 🙏

Hursoom

@raabje said:
I think there is a big difference between music with lyrics, and instrumental music.

With lyrics the structure is in most cases pretty common, intro-verse-chorus-break-etc-etc-outro.

Blues has a 12 bar structure, or variants of this, like 8 bar, 12 bar quick change, etc.

With instrumental music, like jazz, I think it is more about an A and B part of the music, that weaves into each other.

With electronic music the structure is probably mostly driven by development of energy, and/or the change of texture of sound to keep things interesting.

Thank you for taking the time and answering.
Do you use reference tracks when composing? Do you have any favorites?

raabje

@Hursoom said:
Thank you for taking the time and answering.
Do you use reference tracks when composing? Do you have any favorites?

Thanks! I am a guitar player and not a singer, so the stuff I record, is mostly based around little melodies. I try not to think in structure too much, more in the path the melody wants to follow. Mind you I do record, but never finish a whole track, I have no interest in that. My music taste is jazz-fusion (although I cannot play that myself), and blues, blues-rock.

I use Band in a Box on my Windows PC, and that program helps a lot to set up a song structure fast and easy. Or load an example song and change that. And I have a Guitar Instructor account so I can print tablature to study other songs.

With lyrics it is pretty easy because with interesting lyrics, the music can be repetitive and a bit boring. The flow and the meaning of the lyrics create that special feeling.

I also liked dub-techno a lot, like Basic Channel, Deep Chord, and I imagine if I want to create such a track, I would copy a track of theirs in my DAW as a reference for the development.

When you search on the internet about song structure, what would help is instead search for the development of melody, and tips and tricks to make a track interesting. I think structure comes after this.

And what also would help, write a song or a melody each day. You get better with a lot of practice.

Gavinski

I think the time honoured singer songwriter way works pretty well for many people. Just learn to play loads of covers of songs you like. At a certain point you might start to come up with little ideas for melody lines, lyrics, chords or whatever. Eventually some of these might start to form into songs. Having learned a lot of cover songs you'll have absorbed some principles of what feels right in the kind of music you like and that will inform your output, rather than dictating it.

There are definitely a million ways to skin this cat though! If the music you listen to is technically difficult, complex etc, the above probably won't be enough. This advice would mainly work for singer songwriter stuff with a guitar or piano in genres like indie, folk, pop etc

cam

„ And what also would help, write a song or a melody each day. You get better with a lot of practice.“

The best secret weapon.

Hursoom

@raabje said:

@Hursoom said:
Thank you for taking the time and answering.
Do you use reference tracks when composing? Do you have any favorites?

Thanks! I am a guitar player and not a singer, so the stuff I record, is mostly based around little melodies. I try not to think in structure too much, more in the path the melody wants to follow. Mind you I do record, but never finish a whole track, I have no interest in that. My music taste is jazz-fusion (although I cannot play that myself), and blues, blues-rock.

I use Band in a Box on my Windows PC, and that program helps a lot to set up a song structure fast and easy. Or load an example song and change that. And I have a Guitar Instructor account so I can print tablature to study other songs.

With lyrics it is pretty easy because with interesting lyrics, the music can be repetitive and a bit boring. The flow and the meaning of the lyrics create that special feeling.

I also liked dub-techno a lot, like Basic Channel, Deep Chord, and I imagine if I want to create such a track, I would copy a track of theirs in my DAW as a reference for the development.

When you search on the internet about song structure, what would help is instead search for the development of melody, and tips and tricks to make a track interesting. I think structure comes after this.

And what also would help, write a song or a melody each day. You get better with a lot of practice.

Awesome! I’m a guitar player myself.. or used to be. Nowadays I tend to practice scales and learn songs I love playing, mainly Tool or Radiohead. I come from a classic rock background, floyd, Rainbow, Beatles , Sabbath.. Growing up I developed a love for classical music, blues, 70’s prog rock and 80’s doom. A few years ago I started enjoying the more progressive side of the 90’s bands and also the new artists like Tame impala and King gizzard. I always try to incorporate the different elements from the artist I love into my electronic music, which mainly is inspired by Tipper, Ott, Simon posford and everything that has a psychedelic touch to it.

Hursoom

@Gavinski said:
I think the time honoured singer songwriter way works pretty well for many people. Just learn to play loads of covers of songs you like. At a certain point you might start to come up with little ideas for melody lines, lyrics, chords or whatever. Eventually some of these might start to form into songs. Having learned a lot of cover songs you'll have absorbed some principles of what feels right in the kind of music you like and that will inform your output, rather than dictating it.

There are definitely a million ways to skin this cat though! If the music you listen to is technically difficult, complex etc, the above probably won't be enough. This advice would mainly work for singer songwriter stuff with a guitar or piano in genres like indie, folk, pop etc

Thank you! Unfortunately my lyrics are lame and my voice needs a lot of work. And most importantly, I don’t have a message that I can tell through singing.

raabje

@Hursoom said:
A few years ago I started enjoying the more progressive side of the 90’s bands and also the new artists like Tame impala and King gizzard. I always try to incorporate the different elements from the artist I love into my electronic music, which mainly is inspired by Tipper, Ott, Simon posford and everything that has a psychedelic touch to it.

If you like progressive rock, than song structure is not that important anyway :-)