Every type of Song Structure EXPLAINED
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Published 2024-03-25
Verse, Chorus, Pre-Chrorus, Bridge, Middle 8, Coda... there are so many labels and names we can give to the parts of a song, and also to the song's overal form, but I've often seen many musicians disagree on what exactly these terms mean, so I'm going through every common type of song structure and song part in an attempt to clear things up!
My video on The Beatles' middle 8s: • How The Beatles used Middle 8s
The outro music to this video is my track "Clap" which you can hear in full on Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/0wKKJoOZd8JQJDgGU8sb8V?si=…
And, an extra special thanks goes to Douglas Lind, Vidad Flowers, Ivan Pang, Waylon Fairbanks, Jon Dye, Austin Russell, Christopher Ryan, Toot & Paul Peijzel, the channel’s Patreon saints! 😇
0:00 Song Structures
0:11 Strophic form
0:50 Binary form
1:27 Pre-chorus
3:35 Bridge
6:03 Coda
7:10 HDpiano
7:43 Post-chorus
8:20 32-bar form (AABA)
10:18 Middle 8
12:10 Chorus used to mean something different!
14:30 Refrain
15:26 Intro
17:07 ABAC form
18:15 Through-composed
19:09 Front-loaded chorus
20:18 Conclusion/Patreon
SUPPORT ME ON PATREON: www.patreon.com/davidbennettpiano
All Comments (21)
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brb writing down all of these sections so I can make the most incomprehensibly structured song and throwing as much of these in a single track as possible
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My favorite sequence is: AᗺBA
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Prog is where you see a lot of episodic structure. My band has a song that goes: Intro/A/B/C/D/C/E/Break/F/G/H/G/B
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I know we just kind of take “Somewhere over the Rainbow” for granted since it’s been a part of pop culture for nearly a century now, but God, is it beautiful! Judy Garland‘s performance of it still sends a chill down my spine. Just thought that was worth calling out
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Alright you've convinced me.. I'll no longer be referring to the end of my songs as the outro.. from now on I will be calling them by their proper name, the "Outroduction"!!! Lmfao 🤣😆🤣😆🤣
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'Take me out' By Franz Ferdinand has an interesting structure - almost a contemporary example of the show tune structure, with an initial "verse" section in a different tempo to the rest of the song, that never gets repeated. 🤔
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Hey! It's interesting because in French we only have the word Refrain, and not Chorus! It's really shows how language also shapes the way we analyse, differentiate, and identify different components of a song.
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Speaking of AᗺBA, the song Dancing Queen has an unusual structure when after the intro its jumps right into the second half of the chorus (or maybe you could call it a post-chorus). The reason for this, Björn Ulvaeus said when interviewed by Rick Beato, was because otherwise the song would've been too long. It's like: Intro-C2-A1-A2-B-C1-C2-A1-B-C1-C2-Outro
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"Say it ain't so" - Best bridge ever!
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thank you for always adding so many examples in your videos!! it really helps me to understand, especially because i dont know a whole lot of technical information about music!
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Holy smokes! One of your best videos yet...and that's really saying something 🙂🎹
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A notable song structure is the one of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird: two sections, one is a Coda and before the coda there's a section called "something you'd pretend doesn't even exist but you must listen just to get to the Coda"
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Thanks for this video. I’m a lyricist who sometimes works with a composer partner. I knew many of these terms, but some were new to me. I have sometimes heard a pre-chorus referred to as a “slide.” One thing I’ll say about the bridge, from a lyricist’s point of view, is that it gives the writer the opportunity to offer a side comment on the song’s narrative. It’s an interesting way to bring in a new perspective that you might not be able to express in the verse or chorus.
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DBP videos are wildly informative and very accessible, but the real reason I watch these videos is for David's pleasing British accent. Keep up the great work!
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A few song structures that appear a lot in modern worship music (and maybe also in other genres): tag, interlude, vamp, refrain, turnaround, breakdown. There are also modifiers that often get pre-pended to choruses such as: down, up, instrumental, a cappella, etc.
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19:09 - The example of a front-loaded chorus that immediately popped into my head was "In the Air Tonight". 🙂
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In Bohemian Rhapsody I always considered "Mama, just killed a man..." and "Too late, my time has come..." as two verses, which themselves have an AB structure each. That's because save for their respective endings (the 2nd verse's B cut short by 2 bars going intp the guitar solo which again is on that B's chord progression before it modulates for another 2 bar different ending)
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As always, pure gold. Thank you!
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I'm surprised you didn't mention 12-bar blues. It's a form that's made its mark on popular music, especially in the early days of rock 'n' roll.
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I finally understand a bit that George Burns (guess hold old I am) used to do all the time -- singing forgotten verses to songs where the practice over time had become to jump right into the chorus. Thanks.
