Understanding The Structure Of A Song
- Knowing The Sections
- What Is The Songs Energy?
- Where Does The Song Take You?
When starting a new song it is important to know the different parts so it is easier to learn.
If you’ve never taken the time to work through a something you’ve sung, you are holding yourself back. You will want to make sure you identify the verses, chorus’s, and bridges.
Look at the slope to verify its progression, look for breaks and vibrato use.
Lastly, make sure you pay close attention to the emotion and meaning.
Knowing The Sections
Within a song there can be: verses, choruses, pre-choruses, post-choruses, instrumental breaks and bridges.
Knowing what and where these are can help you break up the song to memorize verses. The brain can hold 7 pieces of information before it starts to forget.
Some different types sequences can be broken down into 7 chunks, some songs have more.
Most songs start with: verse 1, chorus, verse 2, bridge, chorus. Another sequence is: chorus, verse 1, chorus, verse 2, chorus.
Pre-chorus’s are mini versus before the chorus, and post choruses are similar but they happen after the chorus.
Instrumental breaks are moments of silence in the song.
If you can memorize the parts individually you’ll find that you’ve reduced the possibility of forgetting parts of a song.
What Is The Songs Energy?
You always want to identify how a song starts before jumping head first into it.
Is the song sung loud or quiet? Is it fast or slow? Knowing this can help you gauge your push and correct your tonality/pronunciation accordingly.
Understanding the speed will help you figure out where to include your catch breaths for breathing.
Vibrato is an advanced skill that often gets overused. Pay close attention where vibrato is used so you are not overusing your air for a verse.
There is always a cause in effect and it can trickle down the sequence.
Making a mistake in verse 1 can contribute to more trouble in the chorus if we are not paying attention.
Where Does The Song Take You?
If you’ve listened to the song a bunch before you will find that you have some emotional attachment to it.
Congratulations, this is the first step to singing with intent.
Read the lyrics to identify the meaning, and try to think of something that draws you to that meaning so you can sing from a personal pov.
For example, “Nevermind, ill find someone like you” from Adele, is about loving someone who has moved on. That generates sad feelings and the idea of losing someone you love.
If you’re looking to kill that song, use that to drive it to its final resting place.This works a lot like acting, you are simply adding feelings to the lines.
This can come naturally to some, whereas others may need practice to really take themselves to a different place.
Make sure not to forget this piece, as it can make or break your performance.
