THE PRINCIPLES OF SONGWRITING

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In the modern world of music, it’s almost seen as a badge of honour to have an eclectic taste in myriad genres; from dance to rock to dubstep to ambient, the old days of aligning oneself to a tribe in thrall to genre are, in the main, long gone. Despite the technical differences between each (often wildly different) style of music, the central question persists: how does an artist come up with creative, musical ideas, conceive a structure and build songs that work to affect the human mind?

This process has many names – and with certain genres, the lines between composition and production are blurred. So for simplicity’s sake, we’re going to refer to this entire stage as songwriting.

In this feature, we’re going to explore how understanding the musical structures of songs and tracks can arm you as a composer, help you combat creative dead ends and potentially open your mind to the idea of developing a career as a go-to songwriter of the kind who works with successful, world-straddling pop stars and bands.

THINKING STRUCTURALLY

Let’s start by thinking about just what songs are and how they’re typically assembled. Most songs in Western popular music in the traditional sense adhere to a form that is built from different sections (typically referred to as verse, chorus, bridge etc), and different assortments of the sections are referred to with letters that reflect the section types (so ‘A’ generally refers to a