Ableton Forum

Ok, so I humbly believe that I'm talented in the creation of parts of songs. I can easily come up with powerful and creative "splinters" or loops that arise at the birth of any new song, and subsequent parts that are connected the original foundation of the song. However, I am a self taught musician and never had any formal training in understanding the emotional connection that happens when connecting different parts of songs correctly using different key changes that make sense, etc.

I'm aware of the rule of 5ths, and I understand that a lot song arrangement is very subjective and is determined by the emotion of the artist, but can anyone lead me to any good articles or books on this sort of theory? I can get complete songs that make sense sometimes, but I usually struggle for days with coming up with the next part of the song that makes sense and also builds momentum related to the previous parts of the song. I've been a long time music fanatic and spend most of my time in my headphones listening to and subconsciously studying music I guess you can say. I understand that arrangement is unique to each genre as well, but again.. anyone know of any reading material that describes the extent of some of the greats like the Beatles or Radiohead?

I have a lot of material that is just sort of slumped together, I just need that extra glue of considerate arrangement to put it together. I'll upload my most recent song I'm working on in a few

the song is still unfinished - the lyric arrangement is doubled because I didn't figure out the second lyrics yet. Still more to do with the instrumental at the end of the song.

Oh YEAH - also recorded the lyrics more as a place marker over my laptop mic - NOT good! this is a crumb draft!


https://soundcloud.com/stash4d/further- ... 2love2fast

I'm not in a place where I can listen to this right now but I will later on. Coursera do a free course in songwriting. All you have to do is sign up and you can watch the training videos for free and, if the course is live, take part in the forums. You don't have to submit coursework if you don't want to. It's as much about the lyrics as the song structure but I found it instructive and entertaining at the same time.

Edit: I see there's a new course starting on Feb 2 so videos from past courses might not be available at the moment.

https://www.coursera.org/course/songwriting

Intro
Verse
Build-to-chorus
Chorus
Some kind of riff
Lead back to verse
Build to chorus again
Chorus
Riff after chorus
Alternate section
Somehow get back to chorus (possibly without the beat first)
Chorus (with emphasis because this is your last opportunity)

This is like, the paint-by-numbers standard musical structure. You can look at a hundred popular songs from the last 50 years and probably at least a third will use that.

It is used in all genres by almost all artists and is pretty much followed to a T.

Anything different from that structure was either written in a unique way (rare), or is an intentional deviation from that structure, which kind of puts it in the same boat as that structure.

There are thousands of examples. One of my favorites is All Of My Love by Led Zeppelin

Go ahead and follow along. Love that guitar note bending haha