Part 5 - Beyond verse and chorus
Right, let's crack on. The first thing we're going to look at today is moving beyond the bounds and structures of verse and chorus. We'll start here for a couple of reasons, partly because these are often the bits we come up with first when writing, along with a riff or melody line, and - relatedly - because these are the foundations of modern song. When songs were mostly memorised and shared in pubs and houses, a simple verse-chorus structure told everyone when to join in, when to shut up, and gave a natural breathing cycle to the song; a bit of tension, then release. We're no longer bound by those limitations, but it's important to understand how we can use those natural story-telling tools when we move beyond that simple structure. And that throws in my first 'gotcha' - which is: do we need to move beyond a simple verse-chorus structure? Of course not. Sometimes that's all you need. But if you rely on that for every song then you...