Plaid Creature

The Formula

My brothers. It has been many moons since last we conversed. I have moved to the land of Rice-a-Roni. I sang karaoke before this. Doctors were present. My posting has been furloughed to the capable arms of one John Claude Sparks, who I am told regaled you with tales of his European leisures. I have no doubt such stories were rife with hilarity. I myself laughed out loud with merriment at these tales. But I am back.

This week (and, who’s kidding, in general) I’ve been thinking a lot about structure. We innately wired find certain things appealing, either from our origin or from the collective experience we all draw from. I’m always interested in parsing out this wiring to figure out how it can be exploited to make better art. One gigantic thing for linear art like music is structure, including repetition. Common structure has gone through iterations over time, but it all hews close to the narrative structure in general. And the cool thing is that this structure applies to songs as a whole, stanzas, even to individual lines. Let me introduce you to my friend Freytag…

This barrel of laughs is Gustav Freytag, and in 1863 he published Die Technik des Dramas in which he stated that all narrative had functionally the same five parts:

exposition

rising action

climax (or turning point)

action

resolution

He even made a triangle – check it.

This structure is surprisingly consistent through multiple genres. Don’t believe me?

The Ronettes – Be My Baby (1965)

Intro (4 bars)
Verse (8 bars)
Pre-Chorus (8 bars)
Chorus (8 bars)
Verse (8 bars)
Pre-Chorus (8 bars)
Chorus (8 bars)
Instrumental Break (8 Bars)
Chorus (8 bars)
Break (2 Bars)
Chorus Coda to outro

Fucked Up – Magic Word (2008)

Intro (24 bars)
Verse (8 bars)
Pre-chorus (8 bars)
Chorus (8 bars)
Instrumental Interlude (12 bars)
Verse (8 bars)
Pre-Chorus (8 bars)
Chorus (16 bars)
Instrumental Break (24 bars)
Chorus (16 bars)

Look oddly familiar? They pretty much are. 90% of songs are structured this way – if they’re in 4/4, verses have four lines, the first two are the same, the third is slightly different, and the fourth resolves the third and introduces the next verse. The verse is a meta-construct of the song as a whole!

So – what does this mean. I’ve been working on a few songs, and while I’m trying to conceive this next project in a pretty holistic way, I’ve been thinking a lot about the structure of single pieces. One of the pieces I introduced a few weeks ago, and have been giving more thought to. Here’s the initial sketches of the piece. It’s got two main sections with some sonic glue (I’m thinking a large choral section) between. It’s brilliant! It’s perfect! It’s shit.

BUT.

We can make it better. Some structure, some arrangement, some sensical lyrics, and it’ll be spic and span. Looking forward to showing you the results next week from my Florida hideaway.

Over and out.